President Donald Trump pledged to send every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections.
According to Associated Press, the US president’s dubious promise would likely cost more than $1 trillion and require congressional approval, and would further exacerbate the country’s nearly $1.8 trillion annual budget deficit and concerns about inflation.
Trump Dividend
rump said during the GOP’s midterm convention in Dallas, “If the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000. It will be called the Trump Dividend.”
He likened the payments to a corporation’s distributions to shareholders, citing “our tremendous strength and success economically.”
During a nearly two-hour long speech he also urged voters to “pretend that I’m on the ballot,” despite his historic unpopularity causing many vulnerable Republican politicians to avoid the event.
Surrounded by supporters waving American flag placards, Trump claimed, without evidence, that his second term had been “the most successful two years, financially and every other way, in the history of the presidency.”
The 80-year-old said, “There is a crazy little sick cloud over our country. We will defeat communism in America.”
Within an hour, Vice President JD Vance appeared to try to walk back Trump’s proposal by suggesting the dividend payments would not go to the wealthy.
Vance suggested it could be paid for by US tariff revenues, though the suggested payment dwarfs what the US has taken in through the protectionist measures.
It is worth noting, Congress would need to approve or otherwise acquiesce to the payment.
The sum would far exceed US tariff revenues even before the Supreme Court tossed much of the president’s tariff program last year. The national debt last month topped $40 trillion for the first time.
