Crossposted from DKos

Those old enough to remember the 1972 presidential campaign will recall how mercilessly Nixon ridiculed George McGovern for his proposal to give every person in America $1,000 as a way of providing everyone a minimum income.

It became an icon for nutty-headed liberalism -- the welfare state run amok. They even had $1,000 bills printed up with McGovern's face on it.

Well, guess what? Giving everyone a thousand bucks is back -- but this time it's being pushed by none other than Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, junior senator but senior right-winger from the great state of Alabama.

WASHINGTON - Americans would have individual portable retirement accounts, jumpstarted with a $1,000 government contribution at birth and fed with employee and employer contributions throughout their working lives, under legislation being drafted by Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.

Yes, Sessions is actually proposing that the federal government spend $4 billion a year to give every child born in America $1,000. And, you know what? It's actually not that nutty an idea.

OK, I just threw up in my mouth a little because I found myself sort of, kind of agreeing with Jeff Sessions about something and the idea is just too repulsive for words.

Nonetheless, Jeff "McGovern" Sessions has laid out the biggest entitlement program since the last massive republican entitlement program -- the massive Medicare drug program to benefit pharmaceutical companies.

Sessions' proposal, named Portable Lifelong Universal Savings Accounts, called Plus Accounts, would start with a $1,000 contribution from the government for every newborn, starting in 2008. Once the individual was employed, 1 percent of each paycheck, pre-tax, would be automatically deposited into the account, and each employer would match the 1 percent. Workers and employers could voluntarily go up to 10 percent total, limited to the first $100,000 earned annually. The account would travel with the employee, job to job.

The national Plus Account fund would be run much like the Thrift Savings Plan for federal employees. Investment options would include a government securities fund, a fixed-income investment fund, a common stock fund and others, and the employee could choose his own investment strategy. The money could not be withdrawn until age 65, and taxes on the gains would be deferred until they were withdrawn. At death, the account could be passed along to beneficiaries like any other asset.

In one of the more conservative estimates, a person making $46,000 a year throughout his or her career and who contributed the minimum 1 percent and had a 5 percent rate of return would have $162,892 at age 65. The same employee earning a 6.59 percent rate of return would retire with $280,800.

Ah, but who would pay for this $1,000 handout, senator?

Sessions estimates that the annual $1,000 start-up contributions would cost the government $4 billion a year, plus administrative costs for a new board to oversee the Plus Account investments and manage the program. He said he would oppose a tax increase to pay for it.

"The easiest way to pay the $4 billion is to reduce spending in less-important areas," Sessions said. "We'll have to struggle with that."

Less-important areas? Hmmmmm. Let me think.

So far, we have spent about $356 billion in Iraq, give or take a few hundred million, over slightly less than four years. That's about $8 billion a month.

So, for every month that we shorten the war, we can fund Sessions' program for two years.

If we withdraw in six months instead of two years from now, America could jumpstart the retirement security of its children for the next 36 years -- more than an entire generation.

I'd say that was a lot more important than being a referee in a Sunni-vs.-Shiite steel cage death match -- wouldn't you, senator?