Israel Anthem is turning down what is, on paper, free money. The 38-year-old father from Nashville has no plans to open a Trump account for his 14-month-old daughter.

“I’m not setting up one for my daughter,” he told Fortune. “I’ll put $1,000 of my own money in an account before I do that.”

His refusal stands out against the sheer scale of the program. Nearly 70 million Trump accounts have been created through automatic enrollment, White House spokesman Matthew Middleton told Fortune, and more than $8 billion has already been deposited nationwide, according to a Treasury official. Automatic enrollment, however, is only the first step: parents must still claim those accounts in order to manage them and request the one-time $1,000 federal contribution for an eligible child. As of July, Treasury data showed that more than 6.5 million families had signed up, including more than 1.5 million children eligible for the $1,000. How many of those automatically created accounts are eventually claimed will be a running measure of how families weigh that trade-off.

Employers have money riding on that step, too. By August, more than 50 companies had committed to contributing to Trump accounts for their employees’ children, according to the Treasury Department. Among them, Bank of America, BlackRock, and Charles Schwab pledged to match the federal government’s $1,000—an arrangement that would start those children with $2,000 before any family money is added.

For some parents, though, the money arrives with a name they don’t want attached to their child.

“I don’t want to put my daughter’s name on something attached to Trump for the rest of her life,” Anthem said.

How Trump accounts work

The program is designed to give children a financial cushion long before they earn a paycheck of their own. Created under Trump’s 2025 tax-and-spending law, Trump accounts are a type of individual retirement account for children. A one-time $1,000 federal contribution is available to eligible U.S. citizens born between 2025 and 2028 who have valid Social Security numbers.

Parents, relatives, and employers can add money on top, generally subject to a combined annual limit of $5,000 during childhood. The funds go into qualifying low-cost stock index funds—portfolios built to track a broad market benchmark rather than beat it—giving the savings time to grow, although returns aren’t guaranteed. Withdrawals are generally restricted until the calendar year the child turns 18, at which point traditional IRA rules begin to apply, including potential taxes and early-withdrawal penalties.

That financial appeal hasn’t eased Anthem’s distrust.

“I understand the logistics of it. I understand the math of it, but what I do not understand is Trump’s willingness to do something so supposedly generous,” he said.

The White House, for its part, has emphasized the program’s wealth-building potential. “With Trump Accounts, President Trump has secured a signature economic achievement designed to help every American child build savings and support a stronger financial future,” Middleton said.

A bipartisan idea with a new name

Government-funded savings accounts for children predate the Trump branding. In 2018, Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey proposed giving every American newborn a $1,000 account, followed by annual government deposits of up to $2,000 depending on family income. His American Opportunity Accounts proposal, often called “baby bonds,” was aimed at narrowing wealth inequality.

Booker has since backed Trump accounts, joining Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in a letter urging Fortune 1000 CEOs to contribute. In it, the senators wrote that the accounts “ensure that every American child is an immediate shareholder in America’s largest companies.”

When free money feels personal

For parents like Anthem, the issue isn’t what the accounts invest in. It’s whose name is on them.

The reaction fits a broader pattern in how people think about money, according to Scott Rick, a University of Michigan marketing professor who studies financial decisions and their role in relationships. Research on mental accounting suggests that labels and earmarks shape how people feel about money and how they use it, he said.

“When money is psychologically tainted, we often avoid it,” Rick told Fortune. “For many, the $1,000 Trump account contribution is the fruit of a poisonous tree.”

Deciding on a child’s behalf adds another layer, he said. Parents are weighing what they can provide financially against the values they want to pass down, and either choice can feel like doing right by their kid.

“How could I possibly make my child an implicit Trump supporter? How could I possibly deprive my child of free money, especially in this economy? Good parents could ask both questions,” Rick said.

Parents who accept the money may share those objections but feel they can’t afford to pass it up, he said. Others find it easier to separate their feelings about Trump from the financial benefit to their child. “Some people are just more capable of ‘separating the art from the artist,’ so to speak,” he said. “Indeed, there is some rationality to accepting the windfall here.”

The dilemma is also playing out in online forums, where parents seek advice on distinguishing between accepting the government contribution and investing their own money.

“Free money is free money,” one Reddit user wrote in the NewParents subreddit, adding that Trump-supporting relatives were welcome to contribute. The commenter said their own savings would go into their state’s 529 college savings account—a tax-advantaged vehicle reserved for education costs—instead.

Another Reddit commenter said they planned to open an account for their son, pointing to their own experience of still paying off college and postgraduate loans at nearly 40. “I see it as a benefit for my child rather than anything political,” the commenter wrote. “I wouldn’t care whose name was on the account, but that’s just me.”

Anthem, for his part, has little interest in claiming his daughter’s account. Even with the financial pressures of parenthood, he said he would rather set aside his own money than accept a benefit so closely associated with a president he opposes.

“We’ll find money other ways,” he said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.