H6071 creates a baby-bond pilot program for certain low-income families. Under the bill, the state would place $3,000 into a trust account for each eligible Rhode Island child from birth to age one whose family was enrolled in the Rhode Island Works program during the prior year.
The Rhode Island State Senate passed H6071 on June 20, 2025 by a vote of 34 to 1. We have assigned pluses to the nays because this bill imposes government-directed wealth redistribution and creates state-managed trust accounts for selected children. While helping families build savings for their children is a worthwhile goal, this uses taxpayer money to pick winners and losers, expands dependency on taxpayer-funded benefits, and embraces the false notion that government handouts are the proper way to build generational wealth. A sounder and more constitutional approach is to remove legal barriers, so all parents can invest for their children equally under the law, without arbitrary eligibility rules, favoritism, or socialistic wealth-transfer schemes.
