A Fox Business panel tore into President Donald Trump’s idea to pay a $5,000 bonus to new mothers Thursday, blasting it as “perverse” and a “Biden-Kamala-era stimmy.”
“$5,000 as a baby bonus won’t get anyone who is on the fence about starting a family to start a family,” said The Big Money Show co-host Dagen McDowell, slamming the plan as “completely unnecessary.”
The proposal, which aims to boost America’s birth rate by offering an incentive for procreation, is currently under consideration by the president’s administration. Trump said it “sounds like a good idea” when asked about it Wednesday.
McDowell suggested that there are already enough government incentives to have a child—like tax credits and prenatal healthcare through Medicare.
Investor Jonathan Hoenig went so far as to challenge whether the president should even try to boost the birth rate. He observed that the issue is one that Department of Government Efficiency head Elon Musk, who has 14 children with four different women, has advocated.
“What I don’t understand is this collapse Elon keeps alluding to. He’s doing his best to try to avoid the collapse—he has many children with many different mothers,” he said, pointing out that the United States population has grown remarkably over the last half century.
After joking about whether the bonus could work retroactively for people who already have kids, co-host Taylor Riggs eviscerated Trump’s plan.
“It creates a perverse incentive to have children because you want a check, without thinking through the long-term cost, which is much bigger than $5,000,” she said.
But perhaps the most damning indictment—at least to the president’s ears—came when co-host Jackie DeAngelis said it sounded like a move that could have been cooked up by the previous administration.
“I don’t agree with it. I call them like I see them. This feels like a Biden-Kamala-era stimmy to get people to do what you want them to do,” she said. “If we are concerned about population, I understand that. There are other ways that you guys have brought up that we can address this issue.”
The president is considering several proposals to boost the birth rate and has not yet made a final decision on the bonus, according to ABC.
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