Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said Trump Accounts for children born from 2025-28 could open the door to Americans paying their payroll taxes into personal accounts invested in the stock market instead of to the federal government, which has borrowed from the Social Security trust fund for years. Cruz suggested at a panel discussion at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference in Los Angeles earlier this week that Trump Accounts could pave the way to transforming Social Security, which faces a $230 billion cash shortfall in 2026. “Here’s the dirty little secret: Trump Accounts are Social Security personal accounts,” Cruz said, arguing that the establishment of Trump Accounts represents an important conservative victory in taking a step toward privatization of Social Security, something that former President George W. Bush attempted but failed to do during his second term. “How did we get it done? You remember George W. Bush tried this in his second term and, sadly, Congress ran for the hills in a display of extraordinary cowardice. How did we get it done this time? It’s because we gave the money to babies so the old people didn’t get p‑‑‑ed,” Cruz said. “But babies grow up,” he pointed out. “That little girl who is born this year, she’s going to be 70, and the math is if you contribute regularly to it, by the time she’s 18, she’ll have $170,000 in that account. By the time she’s 35, she’ll have $700,000 in that account,” Cruz added. “This will become Social Security personal accounts,” he predicted.
I love the “it’ll be 170k in account after 18 years of you contribute to it.”. Just ran that math through a compounding interest calculator and you’d need to contribute 300 bucks a month to the account on top of 10% yearly returns to get to 170k after 18 year. Over half of Americans say they don’t have 500 bucks in the back ain’t no one throwing 300 bucks a child into an account.
So almost all or those accounts are going to have less than 6 grand in them and Republicans will blame poor people for not managing their non-existent money better.
Edit: just did 700k at 35 and that came out to only 200 bucks a month over the full 35 years but if you take the 170k were assuming this 18 year old has and don’t touch it at 10% you end up with 860k at 35. Ted Cruz needs to do better math.
They’re just desperate to keep people investing into the system.
They want steady, never ending capital injection into the market, people paying zero attention and just using an index.
That makes it easy for them to grift with insider trading.
If only the wealthy bought stocks, who would they make money off of?
Fuck you FUCK NO
I will never undersatnd that amount of cognitive dissonance that MAGA voters have. If there’s one thing the majority of Americans agree on it’s that corporations are ruining lives yet they cheer whenever things like this happen. I remember when the whole thing with Luigi happened and even MAGA had the same mindset as everyone else.
Americans paying their payroll taxes into personal accounts invested in the stock market
“That little girl who is born this year, she’s going to be 70, and the math is if you contribute regularly to it, by the time she’s 18, she’ll have $170,000 in that account
Let’s say this girl starts working at 14, which is unlikely. Dipshit Ted Cruz thinks she’s going to contribute enough funds in 4 years (plus investment returns) to total 170,000? Give me the name of the trader in charge of that account!
Aside from that, in some parts of the country, $120k per year is the financial independence income floor. In 18 years, it’s going to be WAY over 170k.
I remember when I was young, I calculated that if I saved a certain reasonable amount per year, I’d be a millionaire by the time I was 55. And I was right — it was just enough to buy a house that would have sold for $20k when I was young, leaving me in debt and with minimal monthly liquid cash.
Either you made a lot of typos, or you think 14+4=70…
Even then, these “investment accounts” are supposed to start at birth, so even if your math was right, still wildly off.
Like, it’s still a grift, but I have no idea where you got those numbers
No typos. Go back and read the quotes.
He says this is supposed to be individual and based on payroll taxes. You don’t have payroll taxes until you are on the payroll.
You might not be right, but you’re confident, which is something…
How did we get it done this time? It’s because we gave the money to babies so the old people didn’t get p‑‑‑ed,” Cruz said.
"But babies grow up,” he pointed out.
“That little girl who is born this year, she’s going to be 70, and the math is if you contribute regularly to it, by the time she’s 18, she’ll have $170,000 in that account. By the time she’s 35, she’ll have $700,000 in that account,” Cruz added.
Fair warning, with a tone like that I almost didn’t bother helping you.
I legitimately didn’t read the article first tho, because I’ve heard about this months ago and remember things.
“by the time she’s 18, she’ll have $170,000”
That’s the quote, dude. She could conceivably start working at 14. So this hypothetical girl is gonna have to contribute a LOT in 4 years, 14+4 being 18, in order to hit that hypothetical $170,000 at age 18.
It’s because we gave the money to babies so the old people didn’t get p‑‑‑ed,” Cruz said.
Literally the entire point the entire conversation of “trump accounts” is they were started at birth…
She is not contributing regularly to it before she is 14, her parents are
Rather than invest in your own retirement (because you know it won’t happen) they want parents to start in eatment accounts for their children at birth and save for their retirement.
How the fuck can people both not remember this from previous news and not be able to figure it out from the context? One or the other should work for anyone, hell everyone should be able to do both, this is not difficult.
I keep hearing about the literacy crisis, is this that?
Quick edit:
Like, not just that you misunderstood it, but that presumably at least 5 other people did…
I legitimately thought just quoting the context would make it obvious, but seemingly no one got it because I didn’t explicitly type it out …
It’s just fucking depressing man
