There are many questions one can ask regarding Donald Trump. The current POTUS may be perhaps the most divisive the country has ever had, and his colorful past lends itself to rather well to speculation.
Ignoring the obvious bombshell that is the Epstein files (and Trump’s alleged links to them), arguably the most trending talking point right now relates to his promise to pay a dividend to the tune of $2,000 to almost everyone in America.
The money, he claims, comes courtesy of the success of his hotly-debated tariff program. “A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone,” Trump wrote on Truth Social earlier this month.
Trump neglected to elaborate on a potential timeline for the payout, nor did he state exactly who would and wouldn’t be eligible for the dividend, aside from referring to ‘high income people’.
As is to be expected in tandem with such a lofty promise made without a concrete outline of how it will actually come to pass, there are a lot of doubters.
Economist Erica York wrote back when Trump announced the plan: “If the cutoff is $100,000, 150M adults would qualify, for a cost near $300 billion. … Adjusting for that, tariffs have raised $90 billion of net revenues compared to Trump’s proposed $300 billion rebate.”
Meanwhile, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, handing out the $2,000 dividend to the majority of Americans could run up a bill as high as $600 billion. For the record, that’s over five times as much as the anticipated revenue from Trump’s tariffs, imposed back in April.
Regardless of what critics have to say, the tariffs themselves have made money. So far, it’s estimated the US have pulled in somewhere close to $90 billion from many key countries around the world.
Even so, you don’t need to be a mathematics savant to know that $90 billion is still desperately short of the $600 billion the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget believe will be required.
So, how is Trump going to pull the proverbial rabbit out of the hat and save face?
Well, in typically bullish fashion, the 79-year-old recently doubled down on his promise to ensure that an eye-watering amount of US citizens get the promised $2,000. On Monday (November 24), Trump shared an update revealing he is confident the tariffs will soon increase dramatically, thus accounting for the expansive gap in funding.
In a post to Truth Social, Trump insisted that the ‘full benefit of the Tariffs had not yet been calculated’.
Simply put, many businesses in the US rushed to stockpile inventory prior to Trump’s tariffs coming into affect earlier this year, allowing them to postpone the hefty import fees they would otherwise have incurred.
With warehouses now running low on stock, however, Trump is banking on companies being forced to pay the full amount to continue operating their businesses, thus swelling the amount raised by the tariffs.
The president actually predicted the amount payable to the US would “skyrocket over and above the already historic levels of dollars received”.
Now, $2,000 per person sounds almost too good to be true, and there are those who remain skeptical as to its feasibility. Not to mention the fact that inflation in the US has been rising since January (according to the Consumer Price Index).
Where do you stand on the promised checks? Let us know in the comments box.
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