With his approval ratings in the gutter, US president Donald Trump is cooking up another cash advance for the American people, and it’s a doozy.
At the first-ever Republican Midterm Convention in Dallas, Texas — which is really more of a MAGA pep rally than a legitimate party assembly — President Trump promised that “if the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them, I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000,” the BBC reported.
“Because we’ve done so well and because our country is making so much money, that only I can make you this promise,” Trump told supporters in a slightly garbled quote, to rapturous applause. As Al Jazeera noted, the president was scant on the details around the payments, saying only that the money would have to be spent on US goods and services.
“We don’t want you going to Canada to spend the money,” Trump admonished the crowd.
Split across the entire adult-aged population of the US, we’re talking 270 million $5,000 checks. While that would no doubt provide some relief for working class families struggling under Trump’s erratic economic regime, it would immediately cost taxpayers $1.3 trillion, before factoring in administrative costs and hits to the inflation rate, per Al Jazeera.
Such a payout would essentially land straight on the US national balance sheet, Fortune explains, which is already so far in the red that it suffers a $2 trillion annual deficit.
Though the math on this is pretty simple, the massive figure leaves more questions around the theoretical payout than answers. For example, if Republicans have control of the House and the Senate, why not issue the $5,000 check now, to demonstrate what the party can do for voters? Given that Trump’s second term has been defined by broken promises and financial misconduct, voters from across the political spectrum are quickly running out of patience for more GOP can-kicking.
Either way, we’re talking about an 80 year old man who recently started believing he was lifted from the rubble of the World Trade Center collapse — which is to say there’s a pretty good chance he won’t remember his $1.3 trillion promise come November.
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