There appears to be more activity on social media than on Capitol Hill thus far regarding President Trump’s proposal to send $2,000 payments, or more, to most Americans as a “dividend” from revenue collected through his tariffs policy.
The president first floated the idea of direct payments in a post to Truth Social on Saturday, tying them to health care.
“I am recommending to Senate Republicans that the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars currently being sent to money sucking Insurance Companies in order to save the bad Healthcare provided by ObamaCare, BE SENT DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE SO THAT THEY CAN PURCHASE THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER, HEALTHCARE,” the president stated.
Then, on Sunday, he proposed payments tied to tariffs on imported goods.
“People that are against Tariffs are FOOLS! We are now the Richest, Most Respected Country In the World, With Almost No Inflation, and A Record Stock Market Price. 401k’s are Highest EVER. We are taking in Trillions of Dollars and will soon begin paying down our ENORMOUS DEBT, $37 Trillion. Record Investment in the USA, plants and factories going up all over the place. A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone,” he wrote.
The president then followed up with another Truth Social post, saying “Republicans should give money DIRECTLY to your personal HEALTH SAVINGS ACCOUNTS that I expanded in our GREAT BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL.”
The president’s pitch came as Democrats and Republicans were at an impasse over the federal government shutdown and specifically, health care subsidies. On Sunday evening, however, eight Senate Democrats broke rank with party leadership and voted in favor of a House-passed resolution to fund the government through the end of January.
How exactly the payments would work, and if Congress would approve them, remains uncertain.
In an interview on ABC, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the president’s proposal was not yet formal and wasn’t ready to be presented to Senate Republicans. He said the payments “could come in a lot of forms” and not solely direct payments.
“It could be just the tax decreases that we are seeing on the president’s agenda: no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, deductibility of auto loans,” Bessent told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.
Through the first three quarters of this year, the U.S. Treasury Department collected $195 billion from tariffs on foreign goods, the department said.
Exactly where the income cut-off would be for “high income” Americans is another open question.
Many experts say the $195 billion collected in tariff revenue suggests the total annual number could fall significantly short of the funding needed to issue $2,000 checks.
“If the cutoff is $100,000, 150 (million) adults would qualify, for a cost near $300 billion. If kids qualify, that grows,” wrote Erica York, vice-president of federal tax policy at the Tax Foundation.
John Arnold, co-chair of Washington, DC-based Arnold Ventures, estimated the payments could cost as much as $513 billion.
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