The program for babies born during Trump’s second term would involve a one-time $1,000 federal contribution into an index fund tied to the stock market – with some of the money available at age 18.
Who will benefit from President Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’?
The nations richest Americans will see benefits from the Trump administration’s “Big, Beautiful Bill,” while the poorest will be left behind.
WASHINGTON — In his first term, President Donald Trump made waves when he put his name on stimulus checks the U.S. government sent to millions of Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now, the Republican president is celebrating a provision tucked into the GOP tax bill that would create and affix his name onto investment accounts for babies, if the legislation that very narrowly passed the House makes it through the Senate and becomes law.
The program for American children born during Trump’s current term would involve a one-time contribution from the federal government of $1,000 per toddler into a mutual or index fund that is tied to the performance of the stock market. The legislation also allows for parents to make contributions of up to $5,000 in outside contributions annually during childhood – and the child could then access some of the money when they turn 18 for things like education, training or a first-time home purchase. The full balance would be available at age 30.
House Republicans changed the name of the program from “MAGA accounts” to “Trump accounts” before the bill’s passage last month, offering the president a tangible benefit for working-class Americans that he can put his stamp on.
The program also serves as a counter to Democratic arguments that the legislation that extends the GOP’s 2017 tax cuts primarily helps the nation’s wealthiest Americans. Trump is set to announce at a June 9 event that a handful of large corporations have further pledged to contribute to their employees’ accounts.
The term-limited Trump is set to leave office on Jan. 20, 2029, but he and the GOP could benefit politically from the creation of the program in the 2026 campaign. Midterm elections have historically been unkind to the sitting president’s political party, and Republicans have been sprinting to get their tax cut bill through quick enough to improve their political fortunes.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the bill would “change the lives of working, middle class families across America” through tax cuts, increasing the child tax credit, “AND by creating this incredible new “’Trump Account’ program, which will put the lives of young Americans on the right financial path!”
White House pushes ‘Trump accounts’ as Senate debates tax cut bill
The House overcame a myriad of obstacles, coming from pockets of lawmakers in the GOP and a unified opposition from Democrat, to pass the lower chamber in late May. It has since run into trouble in the Senate, where conservative Republicans have raised fresh concerns that the bill would balloon the national debt.
They are also fighting over provisions dealing with Medicaid and the state and local tax deduction that were critical to the bill’s passage in the House. Only three Republicans can defect for the bill to pass. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, has said he’s a no, while senators such as Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, have pushed to get the pricetag down.
Trump has been putting public and private pressure on lawmakers to vote for the bill. The White House last week touted support from police officers in a bid to bring attention to Trump’s fulfillment of a campaign pledge in the legislation to eliminate taxes on overtime.
This week, he’s turning his attention to the investment fund for newborns in the legislation that would start as a pilot program. The benefit is backdated to begin on January 1, 2024 and end on January 1, 2029, just before the end of Trump’s second term, though the White House hopes the program will be so popular that it is permanently extended.
CEOs pledge to invest in ‘Trump account’ program
The White House offered to sweeten the pot on June 9, when it said the CEOs of several large corporations would make billons of dollars in additional investments into accounts for the children of their employees.
Dell Technologies, Salesforce, Uber and Goldman Sachs were among the companies the White House said would be participating.
In a statement provided by the White House ahead of the event, Michael Dell, the CEO of Dell Technologies, said his company would “match dollar for dollar the government’s seed investment into these accounts for all the children born to Dell team members.”
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang called Trump’s plan “visionary—a seed fund for America’s next generation” and said his company would contribute an unspecified amount to the accounts of its employees children.
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