Trump weighs giving Americans $2,000 from tariff revenues in bid for support
Donald Trump On Sunday, he considered giving $2,000 to most Americans, funded by tariff revenues collected by the president’s administration; this was an open bid to garner public support on the issue.
“Everyone will be paid a dividend of at least $2,000 per person (except high-income people!),” Trump wrote in his account. Real Social Platform on Sunday.
The post also encourages people to criticize tariffs by calling them “FOOLS!” He also emphasizes calling.
Such a plan would likely require congressional approval to go into effect. Earlier this year, Republican senator Josh Hawley of Missouri introduced a bill. $600 tariff discount for nearly all Americans and their dependent children.
“Americans deserve a four-year tax cut [Joe] Biden [White House] At the time, Hawley called “policies that devastate families’ savings and livelihoods” and said the legislation would “allow hard-working Americans to benefit from the wealth that Trump’s tariffs have brought back to this country.”
But U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in August that the administration’s main focus remains on reducing the national debt, which stands at $38.12 trillion, by using funds from tariff collections. He said the money would first be used to begin paying down the federal debt. not to give Discount vouchers for Americans.
According to the September report of the Ministry of Treasury, $195 billion Customs duties were collected in the first three quarters of the year.
But it appears the cost of distributing $2,000 checks could easily exceed the amount actually collected from the tariffs. According to calculations, the cost of these payments will be almost twice the amount received so far.
“If the deduction is $100,000, 150 million adults would qualify at a cost close to $300 billion,” wrote Erica York, the Tax Foundation’s vice president for federal tax policy. social media. “This goes up if kids qualify.”
“The math gets even worse when the full budget impact of the tariffs is taken into account,” York added. “To fix this, the tariffs generated a net revenue of $90 billion, compared to the $300 billion in cuts Trump proposed.”
John Arnold, co-chairman of Arnold Ventures, estimated It is stated that the cost of dividend payments may reach up to 513 billion dollars.
As of October, consumers were paying an average effective tariff rate of 18 percent; This rate is the highest since 1934. Yale Budget Lab. Since the president imposed widespread tariffs on global trading partners in April, companies have passed some of those costs on to consumers.
This isn’t the first time Trump has floated the idea of giving Americans stimulus checks based on revenue from tariffs. In October, he said he was considering offering Americans checks worth between $1,000 and $2,000 from income. In July, the president again suggested that the government might consider tariff reduction controls.
In February, he and tech mogul Elon Musk, who was still advising the White House at the time, said: taking into consideration idea of a $5,000 “dividend” check based on savings generated by the so-called department of government efficiency (Doge). These payments never materialized, as the national deficit actually increased under the Doge and the amount withheld from federal spending increased significantly. exaggerated.
US supreme court I heard arguments He appeared skeptical on Wednesday about Trump’s sweeping global tariffs and their legality.
