The other day, I received an email from my Republican US Representative. In it, he excitedly informs his constituents of the opportunity for parents to claim “Childhood Investment Accounts,” aka “Trump Accounts” (the official title), that the federal government has already enrolled their children in. I was taken aback as this supposedly conservative Republican went on to describe, with almost giddy delight, one of the most socialistic things I think I’ve ever heard.

The Trump Accounts my Congressman is touting are one of the hundreds of provisions contained in the 25 separate bills bundled together into last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. These so-called “tax-advantaged” accounts are effectively IRAs for children, allowing funds to grow tax-free until they are withdrawn and the gains are taxed at age 59½, or the funds are used for college or a first-time home purchase. Any other use of the funds will not only be taxed but also subjected to a 10 percent penalty.

Taking pride in his support for the bill, my Rep goes on to explain that accounts for children born between 2025 and 2028 will receive a one-time $1,000 “seed contribution.” That’s $1,000 of “Free Money,” withdrawn, of course, from the US Treasury, which, of course, gets its money from taxpayers, who, of course, are now $1,000 poorer. This, of course, is the redistribution of wealth, otherwise known as socialism, and all but five Republicans in the two houses of Congress voted for it.

But there’s more. As Veronika Kyrylenko writes in The New American:

“Under Treasury’s investment rules, the government determines where the money can be invested. Treasury selected State Street’s S&P 500 fund as the default, and approved four alternatives managed by BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street. Parents have no initial choice and will eventually be limited to these government-approved funds. Thus, children’s savings flow only into major corporations through some of the world’s largest asset managers.”

You see, socialism does not necessarily oppose the existence of capital; it just wants to control where that capital goes and what it does. For this reason, corporations seek to influence socialist government policies to favor themselves. The byproduct of this is corporatism, socialism’s ugly stepchild.

Another attribute of socialism is control over people and their behavior. To this end, we must consider the fact that these Trump Accounts have already placed personally identifiable information on every child in America (with an SSI number – more than 70 million, according to my Congressman), plus the parents who claim the child’s account, into a national database with no provision for removal.

But don’t worry; it’s not like the government would ever use this system to coerce behavior. I’m sure they would never make vaccination a requirement for accessing your funds, check to see if you’ve participated in anti-government protests, or monitor whether you’ve expressed disapproved views while engaging in free speech.

Never give government the power to do anything you don’t want it to do. I cannot predict what this or future administrations might do, but those given the power to control others generally succumb to the temptation to use it.

One purported selling point of Trump Accounts is that they allow donations from parents, family, employers, and a long list of government-approved entities. However, every individual, employer, and philanthropic foundation is already free to give as much as they want to any child, family, church, school, scholarship fund, or other charitable activity that benefits kids. In other words, Trump Accounts do not enable philanthropy; they merely channel it into the stock market through government controlled accounts.

As for the rule of law, no article, section, or clause of the US Constitution authorizes anything remotely resembling Trump Accounts, much less seed contributions. In other words, my representative is boasting that he, along with all but five Republican members of Congress, violated his oath to “support and defend the Constitution.”

I suppose it would be wrong to criticize without offering an alternative, so here’s a proposal.

How about if, instead of taking from everyone to redistribute to some, we just let everyone keep their own $1,000 to begin with? Yes, some would squander it on things like food and rent when much more deserving corporations desperately need their stock values propped up, but in a free country, it would be their money to do with as they please.

As for the investment in Trump Accounts growing tax-free (but only until withdrawal), what if we instead let everyone invest in anything they want and then tax as income only the gains realized above the rate of inflation? If you make a five percent gain when there’s five percent inflation, you don’t pay any income tax because you’re only breaking even. It’s the government’s deficit spending and fiat money creation that devalue the dollar and create price inflation in the first place, so why should we be taxed for merely keeping pace? I haven’t done the math, but I’m pretty sure this plan would put more wealth in the pockets of more Americans than an IRA-type account, where all the gains end up getting taxed in the end anyway.

If prospering Americans and providing for the next generation are what we’re really trying to accomplish, then I’ve just solved the problem without either socialism or corporatism.

While the One Big Beautiful Bill did lower some taxes for some, at least a little, or so I’m told, it turns out there was also some socialism and corporatism buried in its 870 pages, as should be expected. What I did not expect was my Republican Congressman gleefully announcing his support for that socialism as though it were the new Republican norm.

I remember a time when conservatives supported Republicans because Democrats were socialists, but I guess we’re all socialists now.