President Donald Trump is promising American adults $5,000 each if Republicans keep the House and Senate after the November midterms. Trump announced the idea Wednesday at the GOP gathering in Dallas while Republicans try to hold their congressional majorities.
Sending that much money across the United States would mean a large federal expense. With each person getting $5,000, the cost could pass $1 trillion quickly. The government is currently spending about $1.8 trillion more than it collects on an annual basis, all amid inflation concerns for consumers and the markets.
Trump made the offer depend on the election result. “If the Republicans win, you win with us, and you get $5,000,” he said. “It will be called the Trump Dividend.”
He described the checks like cash companies sometimes return to shareholders, while pointing to what he called “our tremendous strength and success economically.”
JD Vance limits Trump’s $5,000 proposal while the funding numbers fall short
Vice President JD Vance wasted no time in trying to scale down the proposal an hour after Trump’s address, stating that some of America’s wealthiest could be cut out of the plan. Tariff revenue could be used in order to cover the expenses as well. But here lies the issue, as tariff receipts are significantly lower than the required sum for this payment scheme.
Before even the Supreme Court rejected most of Trump’s tariffs last year, the government was already not receiving enough funds to pay for such an endeavor worth $1 trillion or more. In order to implement a national payment system, Congress needs to find additional sources of funding.
The proposal also lands at a rough time for federal finances. Total U.S. debt went above $40 trillion for the first time last month. Trump has often complained that the party holding the White House usually gives up seats during midterm elections. Republicans are trying to stop that from happening this November.
“We’re going to change that,” Trump said. “There’s no reason for it.”
The proposal also recalls Elon Musk’s role in last year’s Wisconsin Supreme Court contest. Elon handed million-dollar checks to voters as he tried to help a candidate win. The candidate ended up losing anyway.
Trump has brought up cash payments before, but he had never connected the idea this directly to Republicans keeping Congress. Earlier this year, he talked about a $2,000 dividend and said he might be able to issue it without congressional approval. Last year, he sent service members $1,776 apiece and called the payment a “warrior dividend.”
Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio backed the new proposal almost immediately today. “I will get a bill ready so that we can get the Trump Dividend passed immediately after the November 3rd election,” Bernie wrote on X late Wednesday. “Because Republicans (and America) will win!”
Rising federal debt and the Iran war complicate Trump’s latest cash proposal
Trump also used part of the Dallas speech to talk about the war with Iran. He said Tehran had been “two, maybe three weeks away from having a nuclear weapon.” During the same appearance, he acknowledged the financial pain coming from the conflict as crude prices moved higher.
Trump then acted out a conversation he said he had with his economic advisers before the fighting started. “I hate to do this to you,” Trump said he told them, while saying the economy had been doing well before the choice to begin the war.
Federal finances are already carrying a heavy debt load. Government debt is now about the same size as 100% of U.S. national income, based on Treasury figures. America has not been around that level since the World War II period.
The numbers looked different before that. Federal debt was close to 40% of GDP in the early 1940s. Massive wartime expenses then sent the ratio above 100% during 1945 and 1946, when it reached the highest point of that period.
Following the conclusion of the war, economic growth and federal budgetary constraints gradually reduced that ratio. By the mid-1970s, the nation’s debt-to-GDP ratio was below 25%. For decades after that, it remained within the range of 30% to 40%.
The global economic downturn of 2008 was to alter that trend. The COVID-19 outbreak arrived in 2020, bringing another large round of government support. Debt then returned to close to 100% and has remained around there since. Treasury data also shows the ratio kept moving higher during the first quarter of this year.
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