'I'm under no illusions': Facebook co-founder discusses Trump's new affordability pitch

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Well, I don't know about that. I think it's a step in the right direction in that every child in the United States who's born between 2025 and 2028 will get that $1,000 that you just outlined. And the important thing is that all of these kids will have accounts that'll be invested in the stock market and that'll compound. The problem is it's $1,000. That's not nothing. But I think most families struggling to make ends meet when they think about saving for college or putting a down payment on a home know that $1,000 is not going to go very far. So I think the opportunity for us as progressives is that we need to build on it and be ready to modify it and to do something more like Senator Booker has proposed where they got this idea in the first place, which is to create these accounts, but then to fund them disproportionately for families that live in low-income zip codes or moms who give birth who are on Medicare. And that way we can close the wealth gap, particularly helping families at the bottom. So I think there's a way to make these more just if we manage it right.

Yeah, there's a cap on the fee structure which is pretty low. So I'm less concerned about that. The problem is that once you park this money in the account, it will grow over time, but when you take it out, you have a 10% penalty if it's not for a specified use and you pay taxes on it. So it's not like a 529 account or some of these other accounts where parents can save and pay for college. It's actually not that great as an investment scheme. So I don't expect that a lot of middle class or upper class families will even use it as a vehicle for savings because they've got better more tax efficient things. So again that's where it is now. The question is how can we change it to make it better? It should be tax-free. It should grow over time, particularly disproportionately so for the families that need it most.

Yeah. Personally, I think we have to have both. We have to have that systems change, but we also can invest agency in people and in families. And some of the biggest scholars on this idea are people like Derek Hamilton, Sandy Darity. These folks have worked particularly on the racial wealth gap for a long time. And what they've seen is if you want to close that wealth gap, you got to start early with kids and you got to give them money that will compound with market returns so that they have a chance to catch up to the wealthiest families who are already doing that in the first place. So I think you need both. You need those accounts and you need that system.