Yes, really. And it’s already stirring up some serious backlash, especially from Whoopi Goldberg.
During Wednesday’s episode of The View, Whoopi didn’t hold back. In a tone dripping with sarcasm, she introduced the topic and immediately tore into the idea. “I am incredibly insulted by this, because they don’t know how women’s bodies work, and they don’t know what it costs to raise a child, or just have a child,” she said bluntly.
She called out the proposal’s financial naivety, arguing that $5,000 doesn’t even scratch the surface when it comes to the real costs involved in childbirth and child-rearing. And she made a fair point—after taxes, it’s not even the full amount. “$5,000? I don’t know what $5,000 is supposed to do. And it’s not even $5,000, because you have to cut it in half, you got to pay taxes on it. So they’re offering you $2,500 to have a baby,” she said, clearly unimpressed.
Alyssa Farah Griffin, one of her co-hosts and a former White House staffer, tried to defend the idea, noting that the actual tax bite would depend on individual income brackets. She said, “some money was better than no money,” but Whoopi shut that down fast. “No, not in this case. No,” she replied sharply, according to The Wrap.
Then, Goldberg dug deeper, bringing up the Trump administration’s track record on family-related funding. “$1 billion in funding for schools and food banks, to buy food, was cut,” she said. “Withdrew funding for investigating child sexual abuse and internet crimes against children, cut. Fired the entire staff running a program to help low-income households pay their heating and cooling bills. Now, these families already exist!”
Her argument? It makes no sense to pay people to have more kids when so many families already struggling are being left behind. “If you want people to have children, you have to not scare them by cutting all these programs that they may need,” she explained.
Before wrapping up, she returned to the absurdity of the proposal, saying, “I am insulted by that amount, because you can’t even go to the hospital for $5,000 for goodness sakes.” She also wasn’t keen on the government “paying” people to reproduce, adding, “Why not make sure that kids we already have, have a shot at good schooling?”
Classic Whoopi—sharp, real, and not letting nonsense slide.