At his party’s midterm convention in Texas, President Donald Trump said that, if Republicans retain control of Congress in November, he “will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000.”
asserted
he → say → 5,000
That pledge reflects an epic lack of subtlety, even for Trump.
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pledge → reflect → Trump
It also places him in line with a long history of politicians from both parties who have implicitly and sometimes explicitly tried to buy votes with promises of government largesse.
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who → place → largesse
Given Trump’s other recent failed benefit check promises, it also suggests the prudent shouldn’t count on spending this latest proposed windfall anytime soon.
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prudent → give → windfall
Many will recall that two January 2021 Senate special elections in Georgia turned effectively on the same question: which party controls Congress — and with it, whether voters nationwide would receive thousands of dollars in federal “stimulus checks.”
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voters → recall → checks
As CNN reported then, “President-elect Joe Biden said electing Democrats Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock in Tuesday’s runoff elections would end the gridlock in Washington and allow a Democrat-controlled Senate to provide $2,000 stimulus checks to Americans.”
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Senate → report → Americans
With Trump-like directness, Biden said, “If you send Jon and the Reverend to Washington, those $2,000 checks will go out the door.”
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checks → say → door
Ossoff and Warnock won and later cast decisive votes for Biden’s March 2021 American Rescue Plan, which showered the country with the promised stimulus checks.
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which → win → checks
In his current term, Trump has been far less effective at turning similar promises into action.
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Trump → turn → action
He previously expressed support for would-be $5,000 “DOGE dividends,” which would have nominally reflected a share of savings achieved by the Department of Government Efficiency.
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which → express → Efficiency
He also proposed tariff-rebate checks worth “at least” $2,000 for low- and middle-income individuals — ironically backed by the same revenues he suggests will cover his latest $5,000 dividend plan.
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he → propose → plan
Yet those unfulfilled promises pale in comparison with the mother of all government check-writing plans: then-Sen. Kamala Harris’s (D-CA) 2020 COVID-19 pandemic universal basic income proposal, which was released three months before Biden chose her as his running mate.
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Biden → pale → mate
Harris’s legislation never advanced, but if it had, most Americans would have received $2,000 checks each month between March 2020 and August 2023.
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Americans → advance → March
Across 42 months, the proposed legislation would have conservatively cost an eye-watering $21 trillion, which assumes a scheme so massive, once started, could ever have been stopped.
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which → propose → scheme
That’s just a sample of the “check” portion of Washington’s recent vote-buying agenda, but other benefits-for-votes schemes abound.
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schemes → ’ → agenda
Biden-era student loan forgiveness plans targeted millions of often-reluctant young voters.
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plans → target → voters
In 2010, Obamacare created millions of new adult Medicaid and other health coverage recipients, which then-Vice President Biden called a “big f***ing deal” for obvious reasons.
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Biden → create → reasons
The 2002 farm bill crafted by the Bush administration expanded food stamp eligibility for noncitizens, in a move designed to appeal to Hispanic voters, whom the White House was “ardently courting.”
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House → craft → whom
That legislation led to an eventual doubling of the national food stamp caseload and tripling of the program’s costs.
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legislation → lead → costs
In the 1960s and early 1970s, Congress regularly passed politically popular across-the-board Social Security benefit increases before finally adopting automatic inflation adjustments.
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Congress → pass → adjustments
It was surely no coincidence that a 1972 law providing a 20% benefit increase took effect two months before that fall’s elections.
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law → provide → elections
Those and other popular benefit expansions, along with trillion-dollar stimulus packages and soaring entitlement spending, all contributed to today’s $40 trillion in federal debt.
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Those → soar → debt
With annual deficits totaling $2 trillion, including $1 trillion and rising in interest payments alone, that legacy of fiscal incontinence is one of the biggest hurdles to Trump’s fulfilling his latest dividend check promises.
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Trump → total → promises
Maya MacGuineas, the president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, noted the “fiscally dangerous” proposal would cost $1.2 trillion in a single year.
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proposal → note → year
The proposal would require approval by Congress and members of the president’s own party have openly questioned the plan’s merits and enormous price tag.
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members → require → merits
All of which suggests that the legacy of unaffordable promises politicians have made in the past to secure reelection may finally be catching up with contemporary vote-buying attempts.
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politicians → suggest → attempts
If so, that’s both ironic and long overdue.
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that → ’ → ?
The Aporia
