May 14, 2025 • 46 mins
🔑 Invest America Initiative
- Core Idea: Automatically create an investment account for every newborn in the U.S., seeded with $1,000 from the government.
- Contribution Cap: Up to $5,000 per year can be added to the account in a tax-advantaged way by family, friends, employers, or philanthropists.
- Investment Strategy: Funds would be invested in broad market instruments like ETFs or mutual funds tied to the S&P 500.
- Goal: To promote financial literacy, economic mobility, and long-term wealth accumulation for all children, regardless of socioeconomic background.
🧠Key Arguments in Favor
- Compound Growth: Starting at birth allows for decades of compounding, potentially resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars by adulthood.
- Capitalist Mindset: Encourages children to become stakeholders in the economy, fostering a pro-capitalist outlook.
- Bipartisan Appeal: Though led by Republicans, the initiative has conceptual overlap with Democratic proposals like Cory Booker's "baby bonds."
- Private Sector Support: Backed by major CEOs and companies, with commitments to contribute to employee children's accounts.
- Philanthropic Potential: Wealthy individuals and foundations could match or supplement contributions, especially for low-income families.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
I believe it is God's job to sit in judgment,
my job to defend America and to promote the fundamental
interest of stability, prosperity, and peace. That's what I really
want to do.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
You're listening to the forty seven Morning Update with Ben Ferguson.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Good Wednesday morning. Ben Ferguson with you. It's so nice
to have you on the forty seven Morning Update. And
today's show is going to be a little bit different
than normal. Why we're talking about a transformative idea, the
invest America four oh one K accounts for every newborn
child in America. It's also being called MAGA accounts, and
(00:41):
it could fundamentally change the way this country and it
could fundamentally change the way that American children grow up.
I had a very interesting conversation with the architect behind
this center, Ted Cruz, and the podcast that we do
together called Verdict with Ted Cruz. This could be quote
one of the most consequential new proposals in the House's
(01:05):
GOP's massive tax plan. This is something that Donald Trump
is also behind, and I want you to hear everything
about this plan. I also hope you will share this
podcast wherever you can. And there is another architect as well,
getting involved in working all of the details, a billionaire
(01:25):
who has now decided that he wants to give back
and give every child a better future. But before we
get into that, I want to tell you about my
friends at IFCJ. It's now the month of May, and
eighty years ago, this very month, the horror of the Holocausts,
the final solution came to an end. But do you
(01:47):
know that half of all Holocaust survivors live in Israel.
The pain of the past now intensifies today by October
seventh and the rise of anti Semitism everywhere, and along
with other elderly Jews, thousands in israelive below the poverty line.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
There's no safety net.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
That's why I support the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews,
and the Fellowship provides a lifeline to these precious ones
in the form of basic things like hot meals and
boxes full of healthy food. And for only twenty five
dollars you can out provide a nutritious food box to
(02:31):
a Jewish person in need in Israel. Better yet, three
hundred and fifty dollars provides hot meals for an entire year.
So if you are ready to stand with the people
in Israel. Give generously by calling eight eight eight four
eight eight if CJ that's eighty eight four eight eight
(02:54):
four three two five, or go online to give it
if dot org. That's im CJ dot org. It's the
forty seven Morning Update and it starts right now story
number one. All right, So Center, let's talk about the
invest America. This idea, it is something you've actually been
(03:16):
working on for quite some time. Plus you have a
special guest joining us to explain it as well.
Speaker 5 (03:21):
Well.
Speaker 6 (03:21):
I'm very proud to welcome Brad Gershner. Brad is a
major Silicon Valley entrepreneur. He runs a hedge fund, Altimeter Capital,
in Silicon Valley. He's been incredibly successful and he's become
a really good friend over the past year. And he
is calling in and joining Verdict from Riad Saudi Arabia.
So he is there with the President, with David Sachs.
(03:44):
He is on the trip. And I will tell you
when we talked about the four victories in the House bill,
the victory of invest America, I don't think there is
any person who has worked harder to make this a
reality than Brad has. And I met Brad a little
over a year ago. He and I have been working
(04:05):
together on this since April of last year, and he
has been working to build the business coalition behind invest
America and bringing together major CEOs, business leaders that see
the incredible power of four oh one k's for every
newborn in America. And so Brad from from Riod on
(04:28):
the other side of the planet, and it is by
the way right now, Ben and I are doing this.
It is eleven twenty six pm in d C. It
is six twenty six in the morning in Riod, And
so he got up to join us. Brad, Welcome to Verdict.
Speaker 5 (04:42):
Oh, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me. Ben,
good to connect and Senator Wow, just watching the launch
of Invest America under your leadership. Today the Housewaves and
Means Committee Jason Smith, the Speaker of the House, it's
an exciting day. And I can tell you it's also
an exciting day in Ria, Saudi Arabia. The US is
(05:04):
back on its front foot. As you said, I'm traveling
with David Sachs, who is spreading the accelerationists gospel of
artificial intelligence. We want the world running on US, compute
on USAI and so it's been a it's been a
really encouraging trip. But I'm thrilled to be here, thrilled
(05:26):
to be on the verdict because of Best America, I
think could change the country. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (05:30):
Look, I fully agree, and I will say to our listeners.
David Sachs is another incredibly successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur. He's
been someone I've known for a long time. He's one
of the hosts of the All In podcast, which is
incredibly successful. And Brad runs in that circle as well.
And David is serving in the White House right now
(05:51):
as the President's Chief Advisor on Artificial Intelligence and chief
Advisor and cryptocurrency, and so he's doing a great job.
And he and Brad are are traveling to the Middle
East and and just today they announced what a trillion
dollars in new investments in the United States, and so
it's really potent.
Speaker 5 (06:09):
Uh.
Speaker 6 (06:09):
But but let's let's do a deep dive into invest America. Now,
I'll tell you, bet, Ben, Do you know how I
got to know Brad?
Speaker 4 (06:19):
How is that?
Speaker 5 (06:21):
So?
Speaker 6 (06:21):
Last spring, I'm sitting at a poker table in Vegas.
It's about one in the morning.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
I'm already I'm already in on this story.
Speaker 5 (06:30):
And I'm every starts with the punker table.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
That's right at one am in Vegas.
Speaker 6 (06:36):
Yes, And every every year I do a fundraiser in
Vegas where we play poker. It's great fun. We usually
play till three or four in the morning, and we
get typically a number of poker pros who come and
join us and play. And so last year I was
playing with, among others, Phil Hellmuth, who who is one
of the greatest poker players to ever live. If if
(06:57):
Phil were on, he would say he is the greatest
poker player to ever live. And a Brad, you know
that's true, but but greatest. He's got a good argument.
He's got he he has got fifteen bracelets, he's he's
a World Series champion. And we're talking and we're sitting
there talking and playing. And I played with Phil a
(07:18):
number of times and he says, hey, do you know
Brad gerstro I said, no, no, idea, who is he?
And he said, all right, you got to know him.
He's a great guy. He's like driving this this great
program to to like have every every baby at every
child in America invested the stock market. I said, that's interesting.
I want to know more about that. Phil pulled out
his phone and texted Brad and me connected us on
(07:40):
on cell that night at one in the morning, and
we began working together. Uh, starting in spring of last year.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
That's incredible. That's that is how a friendship grows. And
let me guess that's how you guys both got in
on this. Hey, what a brilliant idea to allow every
kid in America, it's got a so security number, to
be able to start investing in essence the day they're
born understand that they have a chance to have a
nest egg when they grow older. I've got three boys, center.
(08:11):
This is something I think about. It's two things. I
think about college. I think about saving for school, and
I think about them having something to start out their
lives with. And that's the essence of what you guys
are trying to pull off here.
Speaker 6 (08:22):
So let me describe the vision of it, and then
I want Brad to tell the story because he really
did the shoe leather to make this work. But the
vision of it, and it is included in the House
Ways and Means draft right now, is that every newborn
child in America will have an investment account. Created automatically
open for them and seeded with one thousand dollars one
(08:45):
thousand dollars that comes from the government to start it.
That's important to get it going. But even more important
is that every one of those accounts, you can contribute
up to five thousand dollars a year to those accounts
in a tax advantaged way. And and that money can
come from friends, it can come from family, and it
(09:07):
can come from your parents or relatives, employers. And I
think that's a really big we're going to talk about
how that's a big accelerator. Uh And and you could
accumulate in a tax advantage way. And and there are
two massive advantages for this. Number One, every child in
America begins to experience the benefits of compound growth. And
(09:31):
these accounts, by the way, they're not savings accounts. These
are investment accounts that are that that that that are
invested in neither ETFs or mutual funds that are invested
in the S and P five hundred. So so it
makes every newborn child an investor in the American stock market.
That enables them. And and and look, as you know,
(09:52):
well as our listeners know well, compound growth the miracle
of compound growth is one of the great miracles of
the world. And if you get people investing for a
long time, starting at birth, you can get incredible numbers.
So Ben, let me ask you this. You have a
newborn child born this year, thousand dollars comes in to
set it, and through friends and family or an employer,
(10:13):
five thousand dollars a year gets invested for the first
eighteen years of their life. If you assume seven percent growth,
which has been the historical average for the stock market,
what do you think that eighteen year old has on
his eighteenth birthday.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
I'm going to go with hundreds of thousands, if not
over a million.
Speaker 6 (10:30):
One hundred and seventy thousand dollars. One hundred and seventy
thousand dollars. And by the way, this is not for
a rich kid. This is every baby in America. If
you're contributing all along, what do you think they have
if they continue doing that until age thirty five?
Speaker 4 (10:47):
What is it?
Speaker 6 (10:48):
Seven hundred thousand dollars?
Speaker 4 (10:50):
There you go.
Speaker 6 (10:51):
Now, that is transformational. But I'll tell you that's not
what Brad said that sold me on this. So Brad,
when he talked to me about this. I said, all right,
tell me your idea, and he pitched it. Here was
the argument he made. I'm gonna let him make it
in about thirty seconds. But the argument he made is
he said, look, young people, roughly half of them say
(11:11):
they believe in socialism. They don't believe in capitalism. The
real power of this is you're making every child in
America a capitalist. You're giving them a stake in the
American free enterprise system. You're giving him an ownership. So
you could have a ten twelve year old kid pull
out an app on his or her phone and say,
wait a second, I own one hundred dollars worth of
(11:34):
Apple stock, I own fifty bucks worth of Boeing, I
own seventy five bucks worth of worth of McDonald's. And
when they go in and buy a Big Mac, they're like,
wait a second. I'm not just a customer. I'm a stockholder.
I'm an owner of this company. And I think that
is profoundly powerful. And Brad, I want to give you
credit because you have been a relentless evangelist. You have
(11:58):
devoted thousand, if not tens of thousands of hours to
this and and and this vision. I believe in it.
But but, but I would not have been sold on
this idea had had you not put in so much
shoe leather and built such a strong business coalition behind it.
Speaker 5 (12:14):
Well, you described it incredibly well. And the reason I
think we have such incredible support, incredible support in the
business community. These are the world's uh, you know, greatest CEOs.
You know, Jensen Hwang and Dvidian Renee has at arm
and Michael Dell's and and and Soffra cats at uh
you know at Oracle, and Fittman at iHeartMedia and and
(12:38):
Lisa Sue at A and b uh you know, Ryan
McInerney and Visa or Mel mcdermain at uh you know
Service now Darkasha shahiat Uber and the list goes on.
And notice you know are on the CEOs. It's not
a partisan issue. And we have incredible bipartisan support as
well on Capitol Hill because every parent's a better life
(13:01):
for their kid, right. I grew up in rural Indiana.
My dad was a first time entrepreneur and in nineteen
seventy eight in the rust belt, starting an autoparts manufacturing
business with double digit inflation, double digit interest rates. We
lost the house, We lost everything, so I understand profoundly
what it feels like to finally be in the game,
(13:23):
to finally own something. But for every parent who wants
a better life for their kid, whether they're in rural Texas,
whether they're in inner city Trenton, whether they're in rural Indiana,
I'm talking every town, every main street in America, those
kids will have a shot. They have skin in the game.
The most powerful economy in the world is the American economy.
(13:45):
For seventy five years, the S and P five hundred
has compounded at ten point two percent. And what has
Warren Buffett told us, start with a really small snowball
about a really long hill, And the longest hill you
can possibly imagine is starting at birth. Almost every American
today misses the first twenty five years of compounding. That's
(14:07):
nearly one third of your life. By starting these kids
off early, we give every kid a shot. We unlocked
all of that human potential and the financial literacy, the
hope and optimism, and their opportunity to participate in the
system is going to skyrocket. It's sad that less than
half of kids under the age of forty, or folks
(14:28):
under the age of forty have a positive view of capitalism,
but they're left out. They're not capitalists, they're not owners,
so it's easier for them to feel like the system
is rigged against them. This is going to change that
by aligning everybody with our capitalist, free enterprise principles.
Speaker 6 (14:46):
So let me ask a quick question. Brad, you mentioned
your dad. You guys lost your home when you were
a kid, so I did too. How old were you
when that happened.
Speaker 5 (14:55):
I was in sixth grade, so I.
Speaker 6 (14:58):
Was in high school and my parents were small business
owners in Houston. And in the eighties, oil collapsed and
my parents went bankrupt and we lost our business, we
lost our home. I didn't realize You and I've been
friends a long time, but we haven't talked about this
that we both went through the experience. It's a traumatic
experience when you lose your home through through financial stress,
(15:18):
and it makes an impact on a kid, whether sixth
grade or for me it was eleventh grade, but it
you never forget it.
Speaker 5 (15:27):
Well, I you know, I say, in life, you're either
running away from something or running towards something, And to me,
it plannet a seed and that seed was that I
didn't want my family to feel the pain that I
was feeling at that point in my life. And you know,
as a kid, my life I thought was pretty good,
but I felt bad for my dad. I felt bad
(15:48):
for my mom because I saw them struggling. And so
I know, you know later in life talking to mom,
she's now turning eighty nine next or turning ninety here
next week. Amazing, beautiful woman. But you know, she felt
the guilt of not being able to provide, not knowing
whether her child was going to have a better tomorrow.
(16:09):
And you know, she is such a supporter of this
idea because she said it would have taken so much
pressure off her just knowing that her kids were going
to have a shot. And so I think everybody deserves
you know, you and I have talked about this. See
this with a thousand bucks in the s and p.
Five hundred and then get out of the way and
let the magic of the private sector do its thing.
(16:32):
We're going to have a thousand to one contribution my parents,
you know, and we've done the study that it's not
just rich parents who say for their kids. Here's a
little known fact. You know, the reason poorer folks don't
save as much is because of course they don't have
savings accounts. This is going to disproportionately benefit the people
(16:55):
who are least likely to participate in the market. And
who is that right? Those are the people who are
the lowest boutumn fifty percent of the economy today. Because
it's hard to open up a custodial account for your child,
almost nobody does it. But if you start them off
with an account and you make it really easy for
(17:16):
these parents to venmull in twenty bucks a week or
thirty bucks a week, right to give up their Starbucks
in order that their kid might be able to save
a little bit more money. What we've learned is that
cohorts of four families say that about the rate that
the cohorts from wealthier families if they have an account. Well,
we're going to make it super easy for those parents
(17:37):
to contribute.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
My dad was a police officer I grew up.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
I would say lower middle class would be a fair
way of putting it. But there were several times where
we you know, things got really really tight and my
dad just put his head down and went to work
as a police officer. And I remember thinking, if he
only was able to at a younger age start investing,
(18:05):
especially even thinking about college.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
We knew that we were on our own.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
I mean, I knew that if I want to go
to college, I better be either good education, at having
great grades, or at a sport. It was made very
clear to me. But I can't imagine how.
Speaker 6 (18:20):
By the way, brad Ben went to Ole miss on
a tennis scholarship. Yeah, so that's how he went to college.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
No, and I knew that. I knew for that.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
The pressure to get out was if I'm going to
go to college, I have to do these are my
only two options because there was no savings account, there
was no college fund, there was nothing. And I and
I look now as a father with two three kids,
and I and I sit there, I know, right, one
of the twins, right, which everyone's my favorite today.
Speaker 6 (18:50):
I'm gonna get you in trouble because whoever it is,
he's going to listen and be like, dad, what about me?
Speaker 4 (18:55):
Exactly?
Speaker 3 (18:56):
And And but I sit there and I look at
my dad, and I feel bad now because I'm like,
I know, he just put his head down and he
made whatever he could make being a police officer. This
could have been transformative, I think for the pressure that
you just mentioned. It seems overwhelming to set up an account.
It seems overwhelming to start it, and so many parents
(19:17):
just assume I don't have enough money to do it.
So I'm not even going to be embarrassed and go
in and try seven account with one hundred dollars or
fifty dollars to start that nest egg.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
This could be transforming.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
And for a lot of parents that are just wanting
their kids to have a better life, the number one
thing that holds them back is that worry or the
embarrassment that they're not walking in with enough might have start.
Speaker 5 (19:37):
It one hundred percent that well said. They call it
in economics the cold start problem, right, the cold start
problem is I don't know how, or I'm embarrassed, or
I don't have the time. Remember, lots of parents are
working one or two jobs. You know they not only
do they not know how, It takes time right to
(19:59):
set these things up. They're complex, and then you run
into questions and then how do you fund it? And
you know you have to have that next next fag
to get started, so it will unlock that power. But
let let me talk about two other areas we're going
to get incredible private sector participation. So we now have
companies representing ten millions of employees. And I mentioned a
(20:21):
lot of them, you know, but literally from Uber to
Goldman Sachs, from T Mobile to iHeartMedia, from a m
D to the southern companies, you know, an energy company.
And we're just getting started, right Wait until the President
and and folks on Capitol Hill and all these CEOs,
wait until we have this seat, this set up, and
(20:41):
we're going to ask every company in America to participate
in this, and it's going to become a feature of
their corporate benefit program and they're going to match and
what we've asked them to do by joining the CEO Council,
they've committed to two things. Number one, that they that
they agree to do what they can to help get
this pass. They think it's a great idea. But number two,
(21:03):
they've all made a commitment to contribute to the counts,
the accounts of the kids of their employees at a
level of participation that makes sense for their company. And
so I just had, you know, over here we're talking
about some people heard me talking about it yesterday. Another
couple of companies, you know set up. I was you know,
I was on Charlie Kirk last night and Charlie said,
(21:24):
we're going to do this for our employees, and so,
you know, I think that once people know about this,
we're going to have broad based participation. And when they
start adding one thousand dollars at birth or two thousand
dollars in that in those first few years, you're going
to double and triple those amounts that Ted was talking
about through the power of compounding. So whatever number you
(21:47):
get to starting at age zero, by agat, if you
start with twice the amount or three times the amount
of just skyrockets. But so that's corporals. But we're also
going to have some other big announcements. We have philanthropists
in this country. These are folks who you know, may
have millions of dollars, may have billions of dollars, may
have hundreds of billions of dollars, who've committed to adding
(22:10):
dollars to the accounts of these kids. So we're going
to make it really easy for philanthropy. Remember, we have
twenty trillion dollars of wealth transfer that's going to occur
in this country over the next fifteen years. You know,
as baby as the baby boomers, retire, move on, et cetera.
And many of these people want to give away this
(22:30):
money during their lifetime. But if you're Mike Bdell and
you have over one hundred billion dollars, you simply can't
give it away through charities fast enough. This gives you
a financial infrastructure right in order to match. So Michael
might say, I'm going to contribute to this five O
one C three and match for every kid in the
state of Texas, or maybe every kid in the country,
(22:53):
or maybe just every kid in the state of Texas
whose family earns under one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
He's going to give five thousand dollars to each of
those kids. So we're gonna unlock the power of philanthropy
for invest America. And then finally I'll drop this out there.
I think you're going to see incredible experimentation at the
state and local and church level. Right this is going
(23:18):
to uh. I've had states reach out to me, folks
running for governor reach out to me, and you're going
to be hearing some announcements where they say, in order
to attract people to our state, we're going to launch
them at birth. We'll take some of our our revenue
from you know, from alcohol and cigarettes. We'll take some
of the you know that revenue, and we'll put it
(23:40):
into account for a kid who's born in this state,
and better yet, we may make you know, in a
bonus account if they graduate from high school in the state.
Because not only do we want to attract people, what
we want to keep them here. And so listen, there's
going to be a million entrepreneurial flowers that bloom on
top of this, and all of it gets back to
(24:03):
this fundamental We have too few people who participate in
the upside of America less. You know, seventy percent of
people have no skin in the game. They'll never have
an account their entire lifetime. That compounds. We're going to
change all that, and the senators leadership has been absolutely
crucial in order to make it happen.
Speaker 6 (24:24):
So, Ben, let me ask you something. Yeah, are you
excited listening to this?
Speaker 4 (24:28):
I am, because I am. No, I am, and I
think this is something that we've been missing.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
You know, you remember when I was working with the
Bush administration, it was on Social Security form because it
was just a ponzi scheme in essence, where I was like,
what are we doing?
Speaker 4 (24:44):
How are we not giving people more with investing?
Speaker 3 (24:47):
And this is one of those things that for me,
is about financial freedom, and it allows people a chance
to succeed in the greatest country in the world and
do it in a way that is just so smart.
And I can't imagine what this is going to do
for single moms, for people that are working nine to
(25:08):
five jobs, two jobs, working hourly jobs. They say, now
I feel like even I can give my kids a
better life, because that's ultimately I think what every parent wants.
They want to give their chance, their kid a chance
to a better life than they live. And this is
an example of starting literally at day one of their
birth saying we've got.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
You and this dag. Now let's go and build on it.
Speaker 6 (25:29):
So Ben, one of the things Brad was describing that
has me really excited is the accelerator that is built
into it. So seating every account with a thousand dollars
is valuable. By the way, there are three point seven
million babies born every year, and so one thousand dollars
for three point seven million babies a three point seven
(25:50):
billion dollars a year. That means this will cost thirty
seven billion dollars over ten years. This is a four
to five trillion dollar tax cut. So thirty seven billion
dollars is a releivetively small piece. But you want to
talk about how it transforms America. That seed money is important.
Even more important is simply creating the account. As Brad noticed,
(26:12):
you know, two thirds of Americans will not have an
investment account, will not be invested in the market. And
we're creating a world where every child, every single child,
from gazillionaire kids to a homeless kid on the street
is suddenly has an account invested the market. That is transformative.
But then the accelerator. So what Brad has worked for
(26:35):
several years is he's brought together world class CEO some
of the most prominent CEOs in the country. He mentioned
Michael Dell. That was not theoretical. Michael is Michael is
a good friend of mine. He's a Texan, incredible entrepreneur
worth over one hundred billion dollars. Michael is the chairman
of the CEO Council for Invest America. So Michael is
(26:55):
leaning in heart. He's committed Dell Computers. When passes, Dell
will help fund the accounts for the kids of their employees.
That's powerful. But as Brad said, also Michael is quite
interested on the philanthropic side in supporting not just the
accounts for the children of his employees, but more broadly
(27:17):
having a bigger impact. I think we will see think
for a second, Ben about four to one k's. Remember
when we were kids, four O one k's didn't exist.
Now just about every every job at a big company,
it's part of the plan. It's part of the plan,
and the employer matches four A one K contributions makes
(27:37):
their own contributions. It's a really attractive employee benefit. And
what I like about this is the accelerator component that
I think you will end up having real wealth creation
that changes. Look an eighteen year old kid who's got
a single mom, who's not coming from money, who's living
in a rough environment, who suddenly got a couple one
(28:00):
hundred thousand dollars invested in the stock market. That changes
their whole life. This is this is life changing.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
And well this also seems I go back to the
trickle down effect, and you know it's like four to
one ks. You remember when it was your grandparents and
your parents when you go to get your first job,
your first real job, Like, do.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
They have a four to one k?
Speaker 3 (28:23):
It's not the twenty one to twenty three year old
that's asking that question, it's the parents and grandparents.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
I remember when I got my first other. They do
they match? Where they match? They have a four to
one K.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Imagine if you get that started in the mindset at
age literally zero, that can transform an entire nation.
Speaker 6 (28:42):
So, Brad, let me ask you something. How did you
get involved in this to begin with? Because you were
passionate and working on this. I got involved with you
about a year ago, but you were passionate involved in
this long before that. What was the kernel of the
idea that started this?
Speaker 5 (28:57):
Well, you know, you'll appreciate this senator as a as
a dad yourself. But you know I have two boys,
Lincoln and Jack, and they're sixteen and fourteen. And one
of the things we talk about a lot when we
sit around the dinner table is when we see problems,
don't complain about them, right, have a bias to action,
(29:20):
have a bias to action, do something about it, don't
just sit around and complain. And so, coming out of COVID,
I was showing them the investment accounts I set up
when they were born, yep. And we're talking about the
power of compounding, and we were showing they were talking
about the stocks that they owned, and I could see
(29:40):
their excitement and they said, Dad, when are we going
to be able to, you know, have some control over
what we're investing in. We want to learn more when
you set up a Robinhood account for course, et cetera.
And then we started talking about the wealth gap and
we started, you know, my son Lincoln brought me something
you know that was ahead line and it said ninety
(30:01):
three percent of stocks are owned by the wealthiest ten
percent of Americans. Yeah, and he said, Dad, I feel
I feel like, you know, I'm I'm glad you set
this up for me when I was a kid, but
I kind of feel guilty, like, what, why can't everybody
you know have this this uh, you know, same benefit?
And and I said, you know, we got to fix this.
(30:23):
And so he said to me, what are you going
to do about it? And I turned to him and
I said, no, what are we going to do about it?
And we made a commitment as a family that we're
going to do something about this. Yep. And you know,
it's been been one of the best parts of the journey.
We set up a five oh one C three uh
calling Best America, and we literally, you know, just started
(30:45):
uh you know, making the calls. And it was lining
up light minded thinkers in the private sector and lining
up light light minded folks in Washington. And you and
I have talked about this. I you know, I had
the good fortune when I was returning from studying overseas
in nineteen ninety ninety one to show up in Washington
(31:07):
and go work for the late and great Senator from Indiana,
Richard Lueger. Lub was a Rhodes scholar. He was a
mayor of Indianapolis, became a long serving senator, credible senator
and at the time he was working on denuclearizing the
nuclear stockpiles coming out of the Cold War with Sam Nunn.
(31:28):
And let's just say later in life, I went on
to have some success, and when I saw the Senator
in those later years, he said to me, you know,
don't waste it. You know, remember those days, remember those
runs around the wall in the mall in Washington, and
make sure you do something that matters. And so as
a family, we want to do something that matters and
(31:49):
I will say in the House, in the Senate, you know,
you know, in the White House, and in a broad
bipartisan way, and that was something that was really important
to me. We've had incredible support, and I said, I've
never seen an idea with a better product market fit.
Everybody I talked to in the private sector in Washington
(32:11):
was intrigued by the idea. But I remember we were
speaking with them. Speaker McCarthy in the House. Lincoln was
in the meeting with me. We had an incredible meeting
with the Speaker and we walked out and I said
to him, as we're looking at the rotunda in the House,
I said, every single good idea in America has started
with a conversation just like that. Right, As an entrepreneur
(32:34):
in Silica Valley, nothing happened in Zilica Valley right, not Google,
not open Ai, not Facebook, right without a conversation on
the back of a napkin. That starts as an idea.
And so I had started a few companies in Valley.
I knew something about starting things, and we just got
started and the snowball started rolling. And here we are
(32:55):
three and a half years later, and I think we're
on the precipice, great leadership, the great leadership in the
House and the White House of making this happen. And
I agree with you. I think we're going to look
back in ten or twenty years and this is going
to be a massive legacy of this moment.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
You just said a word a moment ago, the word
and it's become a bad word now. Is bipartisan? It
like never happens anymore. So I'm going to ask both
of you this, is there a chance that this can
be such a great idea that it is in fact
bi partisan and that Democrats and Republicans can work together
like they used to twenty thirty years ago. When there
(33:34):
are nonpartisan ideas that are just great ideas that are
great for all Americans. And this one, by the way,
I would actually argue with Skew Moore to helping those
that are poor in this country.
Speaker 6 (33:44):
Look at anyone else, unquestionably, and I'll give you some
positive signs on this one. There are significant overlaps between
this idea and an idea that Corey Booker had called
baby bonds, and his idea was to create bonds and
create a savings account for every baby born in America
and when he was running for president, he campaign on
that Corey's a friend of mine, Brad knows Corey. Well,
(34:07):
I will say this is different from Corey's baby bonds,
because I was not a supporter of just the baby
bonds of an investment account that is accruing interest. What
really sold me on this was making a generation of capitalists.
Was the fact that this money is not just a
savings account, which is easy for Democrats to support, but
(34:28):
rather it is investing in the equity markets. It is
making children owners of the major companies in America, and
that to me was really exciting. That being said, I
think there's a good chance that we will get Democrats
to support this. I'll say Dick Durbin, who is the
Democrat whip and very liberal senator, although I've served with
(34:49):
him on the Judiciary Committee for thirteen years. Dick Durbin,
in a press story today, actually praised this idea. And
it's common about me that Dick is wicked smart, but
we say about me, as he said, well, a stop
clock is right twice a day. And I actually ran
into Dick in the wall in the hallway and I said, Dick,
(35:10):
you praised me in the press he said it must
have been a mistake. And I reminded him of the
quote and he laughed, and I said, Dick, it's a
good thing you're retiring. They might primary in the Democrat
primary for saying something nice about me, but it's And
I'll tell you there was another Democrat senator, a freshman,
it was newly elected, who came and approached me and said,
I really like this idea. This is interesting. And I said, well, look,
(35:31):
so no Democrat is going to vote for the reconciliation bill.
That's going to be a pure party line bill. So
the actual bill that passes this no Democrat will vote for.
But what I told this this Democrat freshman, I said, well,
co sponsor my invest America bill, so you can make
clear you supported. I think we've got a decent chance
of getting Democrats on board. Brad did a good job
(35:53):
of talking to them. And I will tell you a
couple of things. So Brad was describing all the time
and energy he put in and he said, quite modestly,
he said, well, I've had some success in business. Ben
Let me be clear, Brad is a billionaire, like he's
got a crap ton of money, and he could sit
(36:13):
back and play golf all day long and never need
to work again, and he'd be fine, and his kids
would be fine, and his grandkids would be fine. But
he's not doing that. A He's got a ton of energy,
but he has poured so much time and energy and money.
So I will tell you the way this got done
is he was relentless. He was talking to everybody in
the House. Why is this in the House bill? Because
(36:35):
Brad was talking repeatedly to Jason Smith, the Chairman of
Ways and Means. He was talking repeatedly to Mike Johnson,
the Speaker of the House. By the way, I was too.
I was talking to both of them. They're both good friends.
He was talking repeatedly to me and other senators. I
sat down with Brad this week with Mike Crapo, the
chairman of the Finance Committee, who's drafting the tax portion
of the reconciliation of the Senate. He's been talking in
(36:57):
the White House to Kevin Hasset, who runs the National
Economic Council, over and over and over again. He's been
talking to the President. It has been that relentless. And
by the way, President Trump weighed in directly with the
Speaker of the House and said, I like this idea included.
How did this idea get like, like a lot of
the press is shocked, why is this in the House bill?
(37:19):
A big part of the reason is the President weighed
in and said I really like this idea, and so
the House included it. That wouldn't have happened without Brad's
efforts and my efforts making the case to the House,
to the Senate, and to the White House. And I
think we will get this done and it will have
an impact. When all three of us are dead and buried,
(37:42):
this will still be having a profound impact.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
So for people that are listening, and this is when
I get genuinely excited and they say, all right, I
want to support this, what do they do?
Speaker 4 (37:52):
Is it call?
Speaker 3 (37:53):
Is this one of those where you say, call your
congress person, regardless of party, call your senator?
Speaker 4 (37:59):
I mean that sound like a White House on boards.
You don't have to call them.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
But what is it that the American people need to
do to help this get across the fish line as well?
Speaker 6 (38:05):
So I've got an answer to that, and I want
Brad to chime in on this also, but I'd say
speak out, use your voice and say, this is a
great idea, and I like this, and Brad today was texting,
so he and I started the morning. Early this morning,
I did an interview on Squawkbox on CNBC, which I
love doing, and Brad called in form riod. By the way,
(38:27):
you might think, Okay, a billionaire Silicon Valley investor in
Saudi Arabia calling in the c NBC Squawkbox, this is
high falutin. This is fancy schmancy. Brad sent me the
picture of him. He was literally standing there holding his
laptop in the air like filming it on a zoom.
(38:48):
It was as low tech as can be. And we
did the interview together. But I want to tell you
two things on this because this is the answer to
what you can do. One, when I finished that interview,
and also when I finished the interview with Larry Cudlow,
which I did this afternoon, this is so cool. In
both instances, the cameraman who was filming us like the
(39:08):
squ I haven't told you this, Brad. At the end
of squawk the cameraman said, Wow, I have a daughter
as a senior in high school. I'd love for her
to have one hundred and seventy thousand dollars, and like
the cameraman on, Cudlow said basically the same thing. I mean,
it was, you want to talk about a message that
resonates people think, wait, this could really help my kid.
(39:31):
And that was cool, But on the question of what
you can do, and I'm so brad today at eleven
thirty six am, he texted me, how are you tackling
the quote this is socialism? Retort? And so there are
some people online who are saying, that's just saying that.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
By the way, people are coming after you in the
White House saying this is socialism straight up.
Speaker 4 (39:52):
So let's respond to that. Okay.
Speaker 6 (39:54):
So I texted him back. I'm just going to read
you my text. I said, yep, it's the opposite of socialism.
The definition of socialism is government ownership or control of
the means of production or distribution. This is ownership and
control by millions of citizens. It is making them capitalists.
(40:15):
Online people use quote socialism as a shorthand for any
government spending or tax credits. But obviously some is good
and some is bad. And so I will say what
I will encourage our listeners to just speak out and say, look,
helping people creating a vehicle for our children to invest,
to accumulate wealth, to transform their lives, to have resources
(40:39):
to get an education, to buy a house, to start
a business, to climb the economic ladder much faster. That
is incredibly worthwhile. And creating people who are capitalists and
invested in the free market system, that is, if anything,
more valuable. And so I think adding your voices and
by the way, for some of the critics, they're quieted
(41:00):
by the fact that the President Trump enthusiastically supports this,
but but it is really transformed. To Brad, what do
you think about that? I kind of went at a rant.
Speaker 5 (41:10):
No, well said number one. I would say on Twitter
or X follow it at invest America twenty four. So
it's just at Invest America twenty four. And what we're
going to do there, like we've been doing for three years,
We're just going to continue to post the updates so
people can stay informed. Right. Secondly, as the senator said,
way in you know, use your voice, use your voice
(41:33):
in your social networks, direct people to follow it. We're
building the movement, and the movement's going to last well
beyond just getting the legislation pass. Remember when we passed
the legislation. Now the Treasury Department is going to set
up these accounts, and so you know, we're going to
integrate this into the financial literacy across the country. There
are already thirty states that require literacy in high school.
(41:58):
But think about this, it's hard to learn about financial
literacy when your parents don't own anything, when you don't
own anything, and you have no prospect of owning anything.
Now they're going to say, get out your phone, open
up your Best America account. We're going to talk about
how you got twenty five thousand dollars in that account,
what it means to own a little bit of Nvidia
or Berkshire halfway, how compounding works, how stocks work, what
(42:20):
voting rights you know in these companies mean. So like,
this is going to be a movement that lasts well
beyond you know, just getting the legislation, but certainly way in.
And yeah, I want to underscore Senator that, you know,
the Senator's leadership has been incredible here. But what will
(42:41):
make this big and beautiful is by building a giant tent.
I will tell you this. I have had former Democratic president,
I had had lots of members of the Democratic Party
in the Senate, in the House and across America, tell
me what a great idea this is the I can't
wait until this happens for the benefit of their kids,
(43:03):
because I want to return to this fundamental principle. If
you're a parent, if you've experienced having a child, you
know you would give the shirt off your back to
your child. There's nothing parents want more that a better
shot for their kid than the shot that they had.
And this is the way that we do it. It
unleashes economic mobility, it unleashes human potential. It aligns everybody
(43:28):
with the democratic, free market, free enterprise principles which has
made this country so great. You know, here I am
in Saudi Arabia today, I'm looking out the window of
my hotel and I will tell you, while it's a
very wealthy nation, the wealth is not equally distributed. Right.
One of the powers of America is we have the
(43:49):
greatest economic mobility in the world. But for too long,
over the course of the last thirty years, we've had
a concentration of that because the stock market has been
the thing that's compounded all the value, and less than
three percent of the market is owned by the bottom
sixty percent of people. We're going to turn that on
(44:12):
its head by getting everybody into the game. And so
every rural town in Texas, Senator, where you have folks
who want to vote for you, it doesn't matter the color,
the race, doesn't matter if you're working one or two jobs.
You're going to have a lot more hope for your
kid and you're going to have an account that you
can contribute to that future. So that's all I would
(44:32):
weigh in, you know, and I hope people have an
open mind. I think they will. You know, you mentioned
Social Security and obviously that's a sacred promise got to
be met, and this is something totally different. But you know,
if I asked you guys, most Americans would have no
idea whether that was passed by a Republican or a Democrat.
Most Americans would have no idea about the political debates.
(44:55):
Most Americans would have no idea. You know how many
votes had caught in favor of it. Republican votes are
where they Democrat votes. Right, What people remember is doing
something that helps America come together on Team America, something
that unites us not divides us, right, something that uplifts
families around the country. And I can't think of anything
(45:16):
more powerful than the power of invest America accounts for
all these kids born. You know, I'll leave you with this.
Twenty twenty six is the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary
of this great American experiment. Right, and the three folks
on this on the Zoom or on this podcast are
living testiments. Right. Our parents struggled. Two of us had
(45:40):
parents still bankrupt. Right, and this country has been unbelievably
good to us. We can unlock that power for millions
and millions and millions more kids. And this is one
of the ways we can do. Lots of great ideas
out there, but you know, we got work to do
to get this passed. So I'm gonna be back in Washington,
work with the Senator, building that broad coalition, making sure
(46:03):
that we get it done. And you know, and just
can't thank you enough for your support.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
Thank you for listening to the forty seven Morning Update
with Ben Ferguson. Please make sure you hit subscribe wherever
you're listening to this podcast right now and for more
in depth news, also subscribe to the Ben Ferguson podcast
and we will see you back here tomorrow.
I believe it is God's job to sit in judgment,
my job to defend America and to promote the fundamental
interest of stability, prosperity, and peace. That's what I really
want to do.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
You're listening to the forty seven Morning Update with Ben Ferguson.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Good Wednesday morning. Ben Ferguson with you. It's so nice
to have you on the forty seven Morning Update. And
today's show is going to be a little bit different
than normal. Why we're talking about a transformative idea, the
invest America four oh one K accounts for every newborn
child in America. It's also being called MAGA accounts, and
(00:41):
it could fundamentally change the way this country and it
could fundamentally change the way that American children grow up.
I had a very interesting conversation with the architect behind
this center, Ted Cruz, and the podcast that we do
together called Verdict with Ted Cruz. This could be quote
one of the most consequential new proposals in the House's
(01:05):
GOP's massive tax plan. This is something that Donald Trump
is also behind, and I want you to hear everything
about this plan. I also hope you will share this
podcast wherever you can. And there is another architect as well,
getting involved in working all of the details, a billionaire
(01:25):
who has now decided that he wants to give back
and give every child a better future. But before we
get into that, I want to tell you about my
friends at IFCJ. It's now the month of May, and
eighty years ago, this very month, the horror of the Holocausts,
the final solution came to an end. But do you
(01:47):
know that half of all Holocaust survivors live in Israel.
The pain of the past now intensifies today by October
seventh and the rise of anti Semitism everywhere, and along
with other elderly Jews, thousands in israelive below the poverty line.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
There's no safety net.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
That's why I support the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews,
and the Fellowship provides a lifeline to these precious ones
in the form of basic things like hot meals and
boxes full of healthy food. And for only twenty five
dollars you can out provide a nutritious food box to
(02:31):
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So if you are ready to stand with the people
in Israel. Give generously by calling eight eight eight four
eight eight if CJ that's eighty eight four eight eight
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four three two five, or go online to give it
if dot org. That's im CJ dot org. It's the
forty seven Morning Update and it starts right now story
number one. All right, So Center, let's talk about the
invest America. This idea, it is something you've actually been
(03:16):
working on for quite some time. Plus you have a
special guest joining us to explain it as well.
Speaker 5 (03:21):
Well.
Speaker 6 (03:21):
I'm very proud to welcome Brad Gershner. Brad is a
major Silicon Valley entrepreneur. He runs a hedge fund, Altimeter Capital,
in Silicon Valley. He's been incredibly successful and he's become
a really good friend over the past year. And he
is calling in and joining Verdict from Riad Saudi Arabia.
So he is there with the President, with David Sachs.
(03:44):
He is on the trip. And I will tell you
when we talked about the four victories in the House bill,
the victory of invest America, I don't think there is
any person who has worked harder to make this a
reality than Brad has. And I met Brad a little
over a year ago. He and I have been working
(04:05):
together on this since April of last year, and he
has been working to build the business coalition behind invest
America and bringing together major CEOs, business leaders that see
the incredible power of four oh one k's for every
newborn in America. And so Brad from from Riod on
(04:28):
the other side of the planet, and it is by
the way right now, Ben and I are doing this.
It is eleven twenty six pm in d C. It
is six twenty six in the morning in Riod, And
so he got up to join us. Brad, Welcome to Verdict.
Speaker 5 (04:42):
Oh, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me. Ben,
good to connect and Senator Wow, just watching the launch
of Invest America under your leadership. Today the Housewaves and
Means Committee Jason Smith, the Speaker of the House, it's
an exciting day. And I can tell you it's also
an exciting day in Ria, Saudi Arabia. The US is
(05:04):
back on its front foot. As you said, I'm traveling
with David Sachs, who is spreading the accelerationists gospel of
artificial intelligence. We want the world running on US, compute
on USAI and so it's been a it's been a
really encouraging trip. But I'm thrilled to be here, thrilled
(05:26):
to be on the verdict because of Best America, I
think could change the country. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (05:30):
Look, I fully agree, and I will say to our listeners.
David Sachs is another incredibly successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur. He's
been someone I've known for a long time. He's one
of the hosts of the All In podcast, which is
incredibly successful. And Brad runs in that circle as well.
And David is serving in the White House right now
(05:51):
as the President's Chief Advisor on Artificial Intelligence and chief
Advisor and cryptocurrency, and so he's doing a great job.
And he and Brad are are traveling to the Middle
East and and just today they announced what a trillion
dollars in new investments in the United States, and so
it's really potent.
Speaker 5 (06:09):
Uh.
Speaker 6 (06:09):
But but let's let's do a deep dive into invest America. Now,
I'll tell you, bet, Ben, Do you know how I
got to know Brad?
Speaker 4 (06:19):
How is that?
Speaker 5 (06:21):
So?
Speaker 6 (06:21):
Last spring, I'm sitting at a poker table in Vegas.
It's about one in the morning.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
I'm already I'm already in on this story.
Speaker 5 (06:30):
And I'm every starts with the punker table.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
That's right at one am in Vegas.
Speaker 6 (06:36):
Yes, And every every year I do a fundraiser in
Vegas where we play poker. It's great fun. We usually
play till three or four in the morning, and we
get typically a number of poker pros who come and
join us and play. And so last year I was
playing with, among others, Phil Hellmuth, who who is one
of the greatest poker players to ever live. If if
(06:57):
Phil were on, he would say he is the greatest
poker player to ever live. And a Brad, you know
that's true, but but greatest. He's got a good argument.
He's got he he has got fifteen bracelets, he's he's
a World Series champion. And we're talking and we're sitting
there talking and playing. And I played with Phil a
(07:18):
number of times and he says, hey, do you know
Brad gerstro I said, no, no, idea, who is he?
And he said, all right, you got to know him.
He's a great guy. He's like driving this this great
program to to like have every every baby at every
child in America invested the stock market. I said, that's interesting.
I want to know more about that. Phil pulled out
his phone and texted Brad and me connected us on
(07:40):
on cell that night at one in the morning, and
we began working together. Uh, starting in spring of last year.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
That's incredible. That's that is how a friendship grows. And
let me guess that's how you guys both got in
on this. Hey, what a brilliant idea to allow every
kid in America, it's got a so security number, to
be able to start investing in essence the day they're
born understand that they have a chance to have a
nest egg when they grow older. I've got three boys, center.
(08:11):
This is something I think about. It's two things. I
think about college. I think about saving for school, and
I think about them having something to start out their
lives with. And that's the essence of what you guys
are trying to pull off here.
Speaker 6 (08:22):
So let me describe the vision of it, and then
I want Brad to tell the story because he really
did the shoe leather to make this work. But the
vision of it, and it is included in the House
Ways and Means draft right now, is that every newborn
child in America will have an investment account. Created automatically
open for them and seeded with one thousand dollars one
(08:45):
thousand dollars that comes from the government to start it.
That's important to get it going. But even more important
is that every one of those accounts, you can contribute
up to five thousand dollars a year to those accounts
in a tax advantaged way. And and that money can
come from friends, it can come from family, and it
(09:07):
can come from your parents or relatives, employers. And I
think that's a really big we're going to talk about
how that's a big accelerator. Uh And and you could
accumulate in a tax advantage way. And and there are
two massive advantages for this. Number One, every child in
America begins to experience the benefits of compound growth. And
(09:31):
these accounts, by the way, they're not savings accounts. These
are investment accounts that are that that that that are
invested in neither ETFs or mutual funds that are invested
in the S and P five hundred. So so it
makes every newborn child an investor in the American stock market.
That enables them. And and and look, as you know,
(09:52):
well as our listeners know well, compound growth the miracle
of compound growth is one of the great miracles of
the world. And if you get people investing for a
long time, starting at birth, you can get incredible numbers.
So Ben, let me ask you this. You have a
newborn child born this year, thousand dollars comes in to
set it, and through friends and family or an employer,
(10:13):
five thousand dollars a year gets invested for the first
eighteen years of their life. If you assume seven percent growth,
which has been the historical average for the stock market,
what do you think that eighteen year old has on
his eighteenth birthday.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
I'm going to go with hundreds of thousands, if not
over a million.
Speaker 6 (10:30):
One hundred and seventy thousand dollars. One hundred and seventy
thousand dollars. And by the way, this is not for
a rich kid. This is every baby in America. If
you're contributing all along, what do you think they have
if they continue doing that until age thirty five?
Speaker 4 (10:47):
What is it?
Speaker 6 (10:48):
Seven hundred thousand dollars?
Speaker 4 (10:50):
There you go.
Speaker 6 (10:51):
Now, that is transformational. But I'll tell you that's not
what Brad said that sold me on this. So Brad,
when he talked to me about this. I said, all right,
tell me your idea, and he pitched it. Here was
the argument he made. I'm gonna let him make it
in about thirty seconds. But the argument he made is
he said, look, young people, roughly half of them say
(11:11):
they believe in socialism. They don't believe in capitalism. The
real power of this is you're making every child in
America a capitalist. You're giving them a stake in the
American free enterprise system. You're giving him an ownership. So
you could have a ten twelve year old kid pull
out an app on his or her phone and say,
wait a second, I own one hundred dollars worth of
(11:34):
Apple stock, I own fifty bucks worth of Boeing, I
own seventy five bucks worth of worth of McDonald's. And
when they go in and buy a Big Mac, they're like,
wait a second. I'm not just a customer. I'm a stockholder.
I'm an owner of this company. And I think that
is profoundly powerful. And Brad, I want to give you
credit because you have been a relentless evangelist. You have
(11:58):
devoted thousand, if not tens of thousands of hours to
this and and and this vision. I believe in it.
But but, but I would not have been sold on
this idea had had you not put in so much
shoe leather and built such a strong business coalition behind it.
Speaker 5 (12:14):
Well, you described it incredibly well. And the reason I
think we have such incredible support, incredible support in the
business community. These are the world's uh, you know, greatest CEOs.
You know, Jensen Hwang and Dvidian Renee has at arm
and Michael Dell's and and and Soffra cats at uh
you know at Oracle, and Fittman at iHeartMedia and and
(12:38):
Lisa Sue at A and b uh you know, Ryan
McInerney and Visa or Mel mcdermain at uh you know
Service now Darkasha shahiat Uber and the list goes on.
And notice you know are on the CEOs. It's not
a partisan issue. And we have incredible bipartisan support as
well on Capitol Hill because every parent's a better life
(13:01):
for their kid, right. I grew up in rural Indiana.
My dad was a first time entrepreneur and in nineteen
seventy eight in the rust belt, starting an autoparts manufacturing
business with double digit inflation, double digit interest rates. We
lost the house, We lost everything, so I understand profoundly
what it feels like to finally be in the game,
(13:23):
to finally own something. But for every parent who wants
a better life for their kid, whether they're in rural Texas,
whether they're in inner city Trenton, whether they're in rural Indiana,
I'm talking every town, every main street in America, those
kids will have a shot. They have skin in the game.
The most powerful economy in the world is the American economy.
(13:45):
For seventy five years, the S and P five hundred
has compounded at ten point two percent. And what has
Warren Buffett told us, start with a really small snowball
about a really long hill, And the longest hill you
can possibly imagine is starting at birth. Almost every American
today misses the first twenty five years of compounding. That's
(14:07):
nearly one third of your life. By starting these kids
off early, we give every kid a shot. We unlocked
all of that human potential and the financial literacy, the
hope and optimism, and their opportunity to participate in the
system is going to skyrocket. It's sad that less than
half of kids under the age of forty, or folks
(14:28):
under the age of forty have a positive view of capitalism,
but they're left out. They're not capitalists, they're not owners,
so it's easier for them to feel like the system
is rigged against them. This is going to change that
by aligning everybody with our capitalist, free enterprise principles.
Speaker 6 (14:46):
So let me ask a quick question. Brad, you mentioned
your dad. You guys lost your home when you were
a kid, so I did too. How old were you
when that happened.
Speaker 5 (14:55):
I was in sixth grade, so I.
Speaker 6 (14:58):
Was in high school and my parents were small business
owners in Houston. And in the eighties, oil collapsed and
my parents went bankrupt and we lost our business, we
lost our home. I didn't realize You and I've been
friends a long time, but we haven't talked about this
that we both went through the experience. It's a traumatic
experience when you lose your home through through financial stress,
(15:18):
and it makes an impact on a kid, whether sixth
grade or for me it was eleventh grade, but it
you never forget it.
Speaker 5 (15:27):
Well, I you know, I say, in life, you're either
running away from something or running towards something, And to me,
it plannet a seed and that seed was that I
didn't want my family to feel the pain that I
was feeling at that point in my life. And you know,
as a kid, my life I thought was pretty good,
but I felt bad for my dad. I felt bad
(15:48):
for my mom because I saw them struggling. And so
I know, you know later in life talking to mom,
she's now turning eighty nine next or turning ninety here
next week. Amazing, beautiful woman. But you know, she felt
the guilt of not being able to provide, not knowing
whether her child was going to have a better tomorrow.
(16:09):
And you know, she is such a supporter of this
idea because she said it would have taken so much
pressure off her just knowing that her kids were going
to have a shot. And so I think everybody deserves
you know, you and I have talked about this. See
this with a thousand bucks in the s and p.
Five hundred and then get out of the way and
let the magic of the private sector do its thing.
(16:32):
We're going to have a thousand to one contribution my parents,
you know, and we've done the study that it's not
just rich parents who say for their kids. Here's a
little known fact. You know, the reason poorer folks don't
save as much is because of course they don't have
savings accounts. This is going to disproportionately benefit the people
(16:55):
who are least likely to participate in the market. And
who is that right? Those are the people who are
the lowest boutumn fifty percent of the economy today. Because
it's hard to open up a custodial account for your child,
almost nobody does it. But if you start them off
with an account and you make it really easy for
(17:16):
these parents to venmull in twenty bucks a week or
thirty bucks a week, right to give up their Starbucks
in order that their kid might be able to save
a little bit more money. What we've learned is that
cohorts of four families say that about the rate that
the cohorts from wealthier families if they have an account. Well,
we're going to make it super easy for those parents
(17:37):
to contribute.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
My dad was a police officer I grew up.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
I would say lower middle class would be a fair
way of putting it. But there were several times where
we you know, things got really really tight and my
dad just put his head down and went to work
as a police officer. And I remember thinking, if he
only was able to at a younger age start investing,
(18:05):
especially even thinking about college.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
We knew that we were on our own.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
I mean, I knew that if I want to go
to college, I better be either good education, at having
great grades, or at a sport. It was made very
clear to me. But I can't imagine how.
Speaker 6 (18:20):
By the way, brad Ben went to Ole miss on
a tennis scholarship. Yeah, so that's how he went to college.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
No, and I knew that. I knew for that.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
The pressure to get out was if I'm going to
go to college, I have to do these are my
only two options because there was no savings account, there
was no college fund, there was nothing. And I and
I look now as a father with two three kids,
and I and I sit there, I know, right, one
of the twins, right, which everyone's my favorite today.
Speaker 6 (18:50):
I'm gonna get you in trouble because whoever it is,
he's going to listen and be like, dad, what about me?
Speaker 4 (18:55):
Exactly?
Speaker 3 (18:56):
And And but I sit there and I look at
my dad, and I feel bad now because I'm like,
I know, he just put his head down and he
made whatever he could make being a police officer. This
could have been transformative, I think for the pressure that
you just mentioned. It seems overwhelming to set up an account.
It seems overwhelming to start it, and so many parents
(19:17):
just assume I don't have enough money to do it.
So I'm not even going to be embarrassed and go
in and try seven account with one hundred dollars or
fifty dollars to start that nest egg.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
This could be transforming.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
And for a lot of parents that are just wanting
their kids to have a better life, the number one
thing that holds them back is that worry or the
embarrassment that they're not walking in with enough might have start.
Speaker 5 (19:37):
It one hundred percent that well said. They call it
in economics the cold start problem, right, the cold start
problem is I don't know how, or I'm embarrassed, or
I don't have the time. Remember, lots of parents are
working one or two jobs. You know they not only
do they not know how, It takes time right to
(19:59):
set these things up. They're complex, and then you run
into questions and then how do you fund it? And
you know you have to have that next next fag
to get started, so it will unlock that power. But
let let me talk about two other areas we're going
to get incredible private sector participation. So we now have
companies representing ten millions of employees. And I mentioned a
(20:21):
lot of them, you know, but literally from Uber to
Goldman Sachs, from T Mobile to iHeartMedia, from a m
D to the southern companies, you know, an energy company.
And we're just getting started, right Wait until the President
and and folks on Capitol Hill and all these CEOs,
wait until we have this seat, this set up, and
(20:41):
we're going to ask every company in America to participate
in this, and it's going to become a feature of
their corporate benefit program and they're going to match and
what we've asked them to do by joining the CEO Council,
they've committed to two things. Number one, that they that
they agree to do what they can to help get
this pass. They think it's a great idea. But number two,
(21:03):
they've all made a commitment to contribute to the counts,
the accounts of the kids of their employees at a
level of participation that makes sense for their company. And
so I just had, you know, over here we're talking
about some people heard me talking about it yesterday. Another
couple of companies, you know set up. I was you know,
I was on Charlie Kirk last night and Charlie said,
(21:24):
we're going to do this for our employees, and so,
you know, I think that once people know about this,
we're going to have broad based participation. And when they
start adding one thousand dollars at birth or two thousand
dollars in that in those first few years, you're going
to double and triple those amounts that Ted was talking
about through the power of compounding. So whatever number you
(21:47):
get to starting at age zero, by agat, if you
start with twice the amount or three times the amount
of just skyrockets. But so that's corporals. But we're also
going to have some other big announcements. We have philanthropists
in this country. These are folks who you know, may
have millions of dollars, may have billions of dollars, may
have hundreds of billions of dollars, who've committed to adding
(22:10):
dollars to the accounts of these kids. So we're going
to make it really easy for philanthropy. Remember, we have
twenty trillion dollars of wealth transfer that's going to occur
in this country over the next fifteen years. You know,
as baby as the baby boomers, retire, move on, et cetera.
And many of these people want to give away this
(22:30):
money during their lifetime. But if you're Mike Bdell and
you have over one hundred billion dollars, you simply can't
give it away through charities fast enough. This gives you
a financial infrastructure right in order to match. So Michael
might say, I'm going to contribute to this five O
one C three and match for every kid in the
state of Texas, or maybe every kid in the country,
(22:53):
or maybe just every kid in the state of Texas
whose family earns under one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
He's going to give five thousand dollars to each of
those kids. So we're gonna unlock the power of philanthropy
for invest America. And then finally I'll drop this out there.
I think you're going to see incredible experimentation at the
state and local and church level. Right this is going
(23:18):
to uh. I've had states reach out to me, folks
running for governor reach out to me, and you're going
to be hearing some announcements where they say, in order
to attract people to our state, we're going to launch
them at birth. We'll take some of our our revenue
from you know, from alcohol and cigarettes. We'll take some
of the you know that revenue, and we'll put it
(23:40):
into account for a kid who's born in this state,
and better yet, we may make you know, in a
bonus account if they graduate from high school in the state.
Because not only do we want to attract people, what
we want to keep them here. And so listen, there's
going to be a million entrepreneurial flowers that bloom on
top of this, and all of it gets back to
(24:03):
this fundamental We have too few people who participate in
the upside of America less. You know, seventy percent of
people have no skin in the game. They'll never have
an account their entire lifetime. That compounds. We're going to
change all that, and the senators leadership has been absolutely
crucial in order to make it happen.
Speaker 6 (24:24):
So, Ben, let me ask you something. Yeah, are you
excited listening to this?
Speaker 4 (24:28):
I am, because I am. No, I am, and I
think this is something that we've been missing.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
You know, you remember when I was working with the
Bush administration, it was on Social Security form because it
was just a ponzi scheme in essence, where I was like,
what are we doing?
Speaker 4 (24:44):
How are we not giving people more with investing?
Speaker 3 (24:47):
And this is one of those things that for me,
is about financial freedom, and it allows people a chance
to succeed in the greatest country in the world and
do it in a way that is just so smart.
And I can't imagine what this is going to do
for single moms, for people that are working nine to
(25:08):
five jobs, two jobs, working hourly jobs. They say, now
I feel like even I can give my kids a
better life, because that's ultimately I think what every parent wants.
They want to give their chance, their kid a chance
to a better life than they live. And this is
an example of starting literally at day one of their
birth saying we've got.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
You and this dag. Now let's go and build on it.
Speaker 6 (25:29):
So Ben, one of the things Brad was describing that
has me really excited is the accelerator that is built
into it. So seating every account with a thousand dollars
is valuable. By the way, there are three point seven
million babies born every year, and so one thousand dollars
for three point seven million babies a three point seven
(25:50):
billion dollars a year. That means this will cost thirty
seven billion dollars over ten years. This is a four
to five trillion dollar tax cut. So thirty seven billion
dollars is a releivetively small piece. But you want to
talk about how it transforms America. That seed money is important.
Even more important is simply creating the account. As Brad noticed,
(26:12):
you know, two thirds of Americans will not have an
investment account, will not be invested in the market. And
we're creating a world where every child, every single child,
from gazillionaire kids to a homeless kid on the street
is suddenly has an account invested the market. That is transformative.
But then the accelerator. So what Brad has worked for
(26:35):
several years is he's brought together world class CEO some
of the most prominent CEOs in the country. He mentioned
Michael Dell. That was not theoretical. Michael is Michael is
a good friend of mine. He's a Texan, incredible entrepreneur
worth over one hundred billion dollars. Michael is the chairman
of the CEO Council for Invest America. So Michael is
(26:55):
leaning in heart. He's committed Dell Computers. When passes, Dell
will help fund the accounts for the kids of their employees.
That's powerful. But as Brad said, also Michael is quite
interested on the philanthropic side in supporting not just the
accounts for the children of his employees, but more broadly
(27:17):
having a bigger impact. I think we will see think
for a second, Ben about four to one k's. Remember
when we were kids, four O one k's didn't exist.
Now just about every every job at a big company,
it's part of the plan. It's part of the plan,
and the employer matches four A one K contributions makes
(27:37):
their own contributions. It's a really attractive employee benefit. And
what I like about this is the accelerator component that
I think you will end up having real wealth creation
that changes. Look an eighteen year old kid who's got
a single mom, who's not coming from money, who's living
in a rough environment, who suddenly got a couple one
(28:00):
hundred thousand dollars invested in the stock market. That changes
their whole life. This is this is life changing.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
And well this also seems I go back to the
trickle down effect, and you know it's like four to
one ks. You remember when it was your grandparents and
your parents when you go to get your first job,
your first real job, Like, do.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
They have a four to one k?
Speaker 3 (28:23):
It's not the twenty one to twenty three year old
that's asking that question, it's the parents and grandparents.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
I remember when I got my first other. They do
they match? Where they match? They have a four to
one K.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Imagine if you get that started in the mindset at
age literally zero, that can transform an entire nation.
Speaker 6 (28:42):
So, Brad, let me ask you something. How did you
get involved in this to begin with? Because you were
passionate and working on this. I got involved with you
about a year ago, but you were passionate involved in
this long before that. What was the kernel of the
idea that started this?
Speaker 5 (28:57):
Well, you know, you'll appreciate this senator as a as
a dad yourself. But you know I have two boys,
Lincoln and Jack, and they're sixteen and fourteen. And one
of the things we talk about a lot when we
sit around the dinner table is when we see problems,
don't complain about them, right, have a bias to action,
(29:20):
have a bias to action, do something about it, don't
just sit around and complain. And so, coming out of COVID,
I was showing them the investment accounts I set up
when they were born, yep. And we're talking about the
power of compounding, and we were showing they were talking
about the stocks that they owned, and I could see
(29:40):
their excitement and they said, Dad, when are we going
to be able to, you know, have some control over
what we're investing in. We want to learn more when
you set up a Robinhood account for course, et cetera.
And then we started talking about the wealth gap and
we started, you know, my son Lincoln brought me something
you know that was ahead line and it said ninety
(30:01):
three percent of stocks are owned by the wealthiest ten
percent of Americans. Yeah, and he said, Dad, I feel
I feel like, you know, I'm I'm glad you set
this up for me when I was a kid, but
I kind of feel guilty, like, what, why can't everybody
you know have this this uh, you know, same benefit?
And and I said, you know, we got to fix this.
(30:23):
And so he said to me, what are you going
to do about it? And I turned to him and
I said, no, what are we going to do about it?
And we made a commitment as a family that we're
going to do something about this. Yep. And you know,
it's been been one of the best parts of the journey.
We set up a five oh one C three uh
calling Best America, and we literally, you know, just started
(30:45):
uh you know, making the calls. And it was lining
up light minded thinkers in the private sector and lining
up light light minded folks in Washington. And you and
I have talked about this. I you know, I had
the good fortune when I was returning from studying overseas
in nineteen ninety ninety one to show up in Washington
(31:07):
and go work for the late and great Senator from Indiana,
Richard Lueger. Lub was a Rhodes scholar. He was a
mayor of Indianapolis, became a long serving senator, credible senator
and at the time he was working on denuclearizing the
nuclear stockpiles coming out of the Cold War with Sam Nunn.
(31:28):
And let's just say later in life, I went on
to have some success, and when I saw the Senator
in those later years, he said to me, you know,
don't waste it. You know, remember those days, remember those
runs around the wall in the mall in Washington, and
make sure you do something that matters. And so as
a family, we want to do something that matters and
(31:49):
I will say in the House, in the Senate, you know,
you know, in the White House, and in a broad
bipartisan way, and that was something that was really important
to me. We've had incredible support, and I said, I've
never seen an idea with a better product market fit.
Everybody I talked to in the private sector in Washington
(32:11):
was intrigued by the idea. But I remember we were
speaking with them. Speaker McCarthy in the House. Lincoln was
in the meeting with me. We had an incredible meeting
with the Speaker and we walked out and I said
to him, as we're looking at the rotunda in the House,
I said, every single good idea in America has started
with a conversation just like that. Right, As an entrepreneur
(32:34):
in Silica Valley, nothing happened in Zilica Valley right, not Google,
not open Ai, not Facebook, right without a conversation on
the back of a napkin. That starts as an idea.
And so I had started a few companies in Valley.
I knew something about starting things, and we just got
started and the snowball started rolling. And here we are
(32:55):
three and a half years later, and I think we're
on the precipice, great leadership, the great leadership in the
House and the White House of making this happen. And
I agree with you. I think we're going to look
back in ten or twenty years and this is going
to be a massive legacy of this moment.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
You just said a word a moment ago, the word
and it's become a bad word now. Is bipartisan? It
like never happens anymore. So I'm going to ask both
of you this, is there a chance that this can
be such a great idea that it is in fact
bi partisan and that Democrats and Republicans can work together
like they used to twenty thirty years ago. When there
(33:34):
are nonpartisan ideas that are just great ideas that are
great for all Americans. And this one, by the way,
I would actually argue with Skew Moore to helping those
that are poor in this country.
Speaker 6 (33:44):
Look at anyone else, unquestionably, and I'll give you some
positive signs on this one. There are significant overlaps between
this idea and an idea that Corey Booker had called
baby bonds, and his idea was to create bonds and
create a savings account for every baby born in America
and when he was running for president, he campaign on
that Corey's a friend of mine, Brad knows Corey. Well,
(34:07):
I will say this is different from Corey's baby bonds,
because I was not a supporter of just the baby
bonds of an investment account that is accruing interest. What
really sold me on this was making a generation of capitalists.
Was the fact that this money is not just a
savings account, which is easy for Democrats to support, but
(34:28):
rather it is investing in the equity markets. It is
making children owners of the major companies in America, and
that to me was really exciting. That being said, I
think there's a good chance that we will get Democrats
to support this. I'll say Dick Durbin, who is the
Democrat whip and very liberal senator, although I've served with
(34:49):
him on the Judiciary Committee for thirteen years. Dick Durbin,
in a press story today, actually praised this idea. And
it's common about me that Dick is wicked smart, but
we say about me, as he said, well, a stop
clock is right twice a day. And I actually ran
into Dick in the wall in the hallway and I said, Dick,
(35:10):
you praised me in the press he said it must
have been a mistake. And I reminded him of the
quote and he laughed, and I said, Dick, it's a
good thing you're retiring. They might primary in the Democrat
primary for saying something nice about me, but it's And
I'll tell you there was another Democrat senator, a freshman,
it was newly elected, who came and approached me and said,
I really like this idea. This is interesting. And I said, well, look,
(35:31):
so no Democrat is going to vote for the reconciliation bill.
That's going to be a pure party line bill. So
the actual bill that passes this no Democrat will vote for.
But what I told this this Democrat freshman, I said, well,
co sponsor my invest America bill, so you can make
clear you supported. I think we've got a decent chance
of getting Democrats on board. Brad did a good job
(35:53):
of talking to them. And I will tell you a
couple of things. So Brad was describing all the time
and energy he put in and he said, quite modestly,
he said, well, I've had some success in business. Ben
Let me be clear, Brad is a billionaire, like he's
got a crap ton of money, and he could sit
(36:13):
back and play golf all day long and never need
to work again, and he'd be fine, and his kids
would be fine, and his grandkids would be fine. But
he's not doing that. A He's got a ton of energy,
but he has poured so much time and energy and money.
So I will tell you the way this got done
is he was relentless. He was talking to everybody in
the House. Why is this in the House bill? Because
(36:35):
Brad was talking repeatedly to Jason Smith, the Chairman of
Ways and Means. He was talking repeatedly to Mike Johnson,
the Speaker of the House. By the way, I was too.
I was talking to both of them. They're both good friends.
He was talking repeatedly to me and other senators. I
sat down with Brad this week with Mike Crapo, the
chairman of the Finance Committee, who's drafting the tax portion
of the reconciliation of the Senate. He's been talking in
(36:57):
the White House to Kevin Hasset, who runs the National
Economic Council, over and over and over again. He's been
talking to the President. It has been that relentless. And
by the way, President Trump weighed in directly with the
Speaker of the House and said, I like this idea included.
How did this idea get like, like a lot of
the press is shocked, why is this in the House bill?
(37:19):
A big part of the reason is the President weighed
in and said I really like this idea, and so
the House included it. That wouldn't have happened without Brad's
efforts and my efforts making the case to the House,
to the Senate, and to the White House. And I
think we will get this done and it will have
an impact. When all three of us are dead and buried,
(37:42):
this will still be having a profound impact.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
So for people that are listening, and this is when
I get genuinely excited and they say, all right, I
want to support this, what do they do?
Speaker 4 (37:52):
Is it call?
Speaker 3 (37:53):
Is this one of those where you say, call your
congress person, regardless of party, call your senator?
Speaker 4 (37:59):
I mean that sound like a White House on boards.
You don't have to call them.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
But what is it that the American people need to
do to help this get across the fish line as well?
Speaker 6 (38:05):
So I've got an answer to that, and I want
Brad to chime in on this also, but I'd say
speak out, use your voice and say, this is a
great idea, and I like this, and Brad today was texting,
so he and I started the morning. Early this morning,
I did an interview on Squawkbox on CNBC, which I
love doing, and Brad called in form riod. By the way,
(38:27):
you might think, Okay, a billionaire Silicon Valley investor in
Saudi Arabia calling in the c NBC Squawkbox, this is
high falutin. This is fancy schmancy. Brad sent me the
picture of him. He was literally standing there holding his
laptop in the air like filming it on a zoom.
(38:48):
It was as low tech as can be. And we
did the interview together. But I want to tell you
two things on this because this is the answer to
what you can do. One, when I finished that interview,
and also when I finished the interview with Larry Cudlow,
which I did this afternoon, this is so cool. In
both instances, the cameraman who was filming us like the
(39:08):
squ I haven't told you this, Brad. At the end
of squawk the cameraman said, Wow, I have a daughter
as a senior in high school. I'd love for her
to have one hundred and seventy thousand dollars, and like
the cameraman on, Cudlow said basically the same thing. I mean,
it was, you want to talk about a message that
resonates people think, wait, this could really help my kid.
(39:31):
And that was cool, But on the question of what
you can do, and I'm so brad today at eleven
thirty six am, he texted me, how are you tackling
the quote this is socialism? Retort? And so there are
some people online who are saying, that's just saying that.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
By the way, people are coming after you in the
White House saying this is socialism straight up.
Speaker 4 (39:52):
So let's respond to that. Okay.
Speaker 6 (39:54):
So I texted him back. I'm just going to read
you my text. I said, yep, it's the opposite of socialism.
The definition of socialism is government ownership or control of
the means of production or distribution. This is ownership and
control by millions of citizens. It is making them capitalists.
(40:15):
Online people use quote socialism as a shorthand for any
government spending or tax credits. But obviously some is good
and some is bad. And so I will say what
I will encourage our listeners to just speak out and say, look,
helping people creating a vehicle for our children to invest,
to accumulate wealth, to transform their lives, to have resources
(40:39):
to get an education, to buy a house, to start
a business, to climb the economic ladder much faster. That
is incredibly worthwhile. And creating people who are capitalists and
invested in the free market system, that is, if anything,
more valuable. And so I think adding your voices and
by the way, for some of the critics, they're quieted
(41:00):
by the fact that the President Trump enthusiastically supports this,
but but it is really transformed. To Brad, what do
you think about that? I kind of went at a rant.
Speaker 5 (41:10):
No, well said number one. I would say on Twitter
or X follow it at invest America twenty four. So
it's just at Invest America twenty four. And what we're
going to do there, like we've been doing for three years,
We're just going to continue to post the updates so
people can stay informed. Right. Secondly, as the senator said,
way in you know, use your voice, use your voice
(41:33):
in your social networks, direct people to follow it. We're
building the movement, and the movement's going to last well
beyond just getting the legislation pass. Remember when we passed
the legislation. Now the Treasury Department is going to set
up these accounts, and so you know, we're going to
integrate this into the financial literacy across the country. There
are already thirty states that require literacy in high school.
(41:58):
But think about this, it's hard to learn about financial
literacy when your parents don't own anything, when you don't
own anything, and you have no prospect of owning anything.
Now they're going to say, get out your phone, open
up your Best America account. We're going to talk about
how you got twenty five thousand dollars in that account,
what it means to own a little bit of Nvidia
or Berkshire halfway, how compounding works, how stocks work, what
(42:20):
voting rights you know in these companies mean. So like,
this is going to be a movement that lasts well
beyond you know, just getting the legislation, but certainly way in.
And yeah, I want to underscore Senator that, you know,
the Senator's leadership has been incredible here. But what will
(42:41):
make this big and beautiful is by building a giant tent.
I will tell you this. I have had former Democratic president,
I had had lots of members of the Democratic Party
in the Senate, in the House and across America, tell
me what a great idea this is the I can't
wait until this happens for the benefit of their kids,
(43:03):
because I want to return to this fundamental principle. If
you're a parent, if you've experienced having a child, you
know you would give the shirt off your back to
your child. There's nothing parents want more that a better
shot for their kid than the shot that they had.
And this is the way that we do it. It
unleashes economic mobility, it unleashes human potential. It aligns everybody
(43:28):
with the democratic, free market, free enterprise principles which has
made this country so great. You know, here I am
in Saudi Arabia today, I'm looking out the window of
my hotel and I will tell you, while it's a
very wealthy nation, the wealth is not equally distributed. Right.
One of the powers of America is we have the
(43:49):
greatest economic mobility in the world. But for too long,
over the course of the last thirty years, we've had
a concentration of that because the stock market has been
the thing that's compounded all the value, and less than
three percent of the market is owned by the bottom
sixty percent of people. We're going to turn that on
(44:12):
its head by getting everybody into the game. And so
every rural town in Texas, Senator, where you have folks
who want to vote for you, it doesn't matter the color,
the race, doesn't matter if you're working one or two jobs.
You're going to have a lot more hope for your
kid and you're going to have an account that you
can contribute to that future. So that's all I would
(44:32):
weigh in, you know, and I hope people have an
open mind. I think they will. You know, you mentioned
Social Security and obviously that's a sacred promise got to
be met, and this is something totally different. But you know,
if I asked you guys, most Americans would have no
idea whether that was passed by a Republican or a Democrat.
Most Americans would have no idea about the political debates.
(44:55):
Most Americans would have no idea. You know how many
votes had caught in favor of it. Republican votes are
where they Democrat votes. Right, What people remember is doing
something that helps America come together on Team America, something
that unites us not divides us, right, something that uplifts
families around the country. And I can't think of anything
(45:16):
more powerful than the power of invest America accounts for
all these kids born. You know, I'll leave you with this.
Twenty twenty six is the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary
of this great American experiment. Right, and the three folks
on this on the Zoom or on this podcast are
living testiments. Right. Our parents struggled. Two of us had
(45:40):
parents still bankrupt. Right, and this country has been unbelievably
good to us. We can unlock that power for millions
and millions and millions more kids. And this is one
of the ways we can do. Lots of great ideas
out there, but you know, we got work to do
to get this passed. So I'm gonna be back in Washington,
work with the Senator, building that broad coalition, making sure
(46:03):
that we get it done. And you know, and just
can't thank you enough for your support.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
Thank you for listening to the forty seven Morning Update
with Ben Ferguson. Please make sure you hit subscribe wherever
you're listening to this podcast right now and for more
in depth news, also subscribe to the Ben Ferguson podcast
and we will see you back here tomorrow.
Host
Ben Ferguson
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