Politicians often try to attract votes by obliquely appealing to the voter's self-interest. Vote for me, a candidate might say, and I'll cut taxes or boost school spending or protect your embattled industry from foreign competition. But Hillary Clinton is taking a more direct approach to parents.

Vote for me, she said the other day, and I might just give you $5,000.

The proposition, of course, was not so direct as to constitute a bribe, but it proved that in the realm of audacity, Barack Obama has some serious competition. She told an audience at a forum sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus, "I like the idea of giving every baby born in America a $5,000 account that will grown over time, so that when that young person turns 18, if they have finished high school, they will be able to access it to go to college or maybe they will be able to make that down payment on their first home."

That's right — a $5,000 bonus just for coming into the world.

She said this would also encourage kids to start saving at an early age. The idea pleased Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, a Clinton supporter who was there. Said she, "Every child born in the United States today owes $27,000 on the national debt; why not let them come get $5,000 to grow until they're 18?"

But Jones inadvertently highlighted the big flaw in the concept. It would be expensive — about $20 billion a year — and Clinton offered no way to pay for it. Absent a funding source, the cost would simply be piled on to the existing federal budget deficit, which is another way of saying it would be paid for by future taxpayers.

So instead of owing $27,000 each on the national debt at birth (actually, it's now above $29,000), newborns would owe even more. They'd get the gift at birth — and the bill a little later. It might be more helpful to cut the deficit and pay down the national debt so these taxpayers-in-embryo would not face an ever-growing mountain of deferred obligations.

If a President Clinton were to pursue the idea, citizens might notice another shortcoming: The baby bond wouldn't go very far toward paying for college. Assuming it earns 5 percent interest, it would add up to only about $13,000 18 years later. That's barely enough to cover a year's expenses at a typical public university even today. So it's safe to bet that in the legislative process, the amount of the original payment — and the ultimate cost — would be bid up considerably. If $5,000 is good, wouldn't $10,000 be twice as good?

But this risk doesn't seem to worry Clinton, who knows that handing out goodies is a time-tested way to ingratiate yourself with voters. Her suggestion brings to mind the comment of the 19th-century French economist Frederic Bastiat: "The state is the great fiction by which everybody seeks to live at the expense of everybody else." In the end, as the purported beneficiaries of her proposal would eventually find out to their sorrow, nothing comes for free.