"Paul H. O'Neill, has been giving speeches around the country, promoting an even bolder plan he has devised for children's accounts that he says would guarantee every American at least $1 million by age 65"

I'm almost 59 yo. Can I please have $750,000 now?

We don't all get to the Promised Land.

Darn. Looks like I was born too soon.

I just want to get part way to the Promised Land.

The idea is to give newborns or young children a miniature version of what affluent families have long provided their offspring: a trust fund. To induce parents to save, [...] [the programme] provides an initial deposit, then matches family contributions for four years - up to $1,200 in the Michigan experiment.

Matching deposits is an excellent policy, although they are having a hard time encouraging the marginally solvent families in the programme to contribute anything.
Maybe they should match 2 - 1.

In today's economy, a savings account "is as fundamental as land was back in the 18th and 19th century," said Ray Boshara [...]

Since the early 1990s, the typical American's savings rate has plunged from $7.70 per $100 earned to $1.80, according to federal figures.

Except that, as we know, the "savings rate" figures don't include the value of any growth in equity, and many (including our esteemed host) have speculated that the average American is counting her home equity as part of her savings - which is a fair assessment, but riskier than the average American knows - and is therefore saving less of her income in traditional ways.
If that is the case, then land (defined as a residential dwelling) will be as fundamental during the 21st century as it was back in the 18th and 19th century.

O'Neill said his plan, which he estimates would cost $144 billion, would create "a fundamentally different society than any one on Earth."

Yes it would, and IF it really would cost only $ 144 billion, it should be implemented immediately. $ 144 billion = free*, and our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren would thank us - although for different reasons.

Despite bipartisan cheerleading, such accounts have skeptics on the right, who are disdainful of a new government handout, and on the left, who fear the expense would drain money from other social needs. So far, White House officials are unenthusiastic, saying that any available money should be used to prop up Social Security and that it would be wasteful to give an account to every baby, including ones born into families that are rich.

Now this is the kind of situation that a social critic loves - idiocy all around.

Since the right isn't going to get SS eliminated, why not replace a flawed handout with an improved handout ?
It's very much like welfare reform: Mend it, don't end it.

The left and the White House are making mountains out of molehills. Giving every infant $ 500 isn't about to break the bank, it may in time slightly lessen the demand for services from the programmes that the left worries about funding, and if we put the money into SS, it would prop it up for about three days.

Worrying about giving accounts to rich babies is offensive for two reasons.
First, one of the central principles of the American dream is that everyone gets treated equally by the gov't. If we start saying that rich people don't get access to the same retirement programmes as the average American, it makes it easier for the rich to justify getting different and favorable treatment from the gov't in other areas.
Second, "give" rich tots an account ?
Who pays for these accounts ?
A rich tot's parents would have funded over two-thirds of the programme in the first place.

* The gov't is going to start selling 30-year bonds again next year, and can get thirty-year money for under 5%. If O'Neill is correct, and the worst performance on Wall Street over any 25-year period was 6%, then we could sell bonds to raise the initial funding, and pay for them out of the earnings on the accounts.
That strategy, incidentally, is touted by SOME personal financial planners, as well: They advocate getting a thirty-year second mortgage on the ol' homestead, and putting that money into the stock market, to take advantage of (what should be) the higher-than-mortgage-interest growth rates of the stock market.