Politics
Republicans Oppose Trump Giving You $5,000 For Reasons They Will Explain Later
By Mor Michael, . BSN Network. Satire.
President Trump announced last week that every American adult would receive a $5,000 check if Republicans hold the House and Senate in the midterms, a proposal that accomplished something no piece of legislation has managed in years: it made both parties angry at the same time, for opposite reasons, with equal confidence.
Democrats called it a bribe. Republicans called it fiscally irresponsible. Economists called it inflationary. The one group that did not issue a formal statement was the American public, which, according to three separate polls conducted over 48 hours, mostly just wanted the $5,000.
Senator John Thune of South Dakota said the proposal needed "further study," which in Senate terms means it will be assigned to a subcommittee that meets quarterly in a room with no windows and will report back sometime after the check would have already cleared. Senator Mitch McConnell described it as "an interesting idea" in the same tone a man uses when his wife suggests a vacation he has already decided not to take.
The White House, for its part, clarified that the $5,000 was not technically a check but rather a "patriot dividend," which is the same as a check except it comes with a name that makes it harder to criticize without sounding like you are against patriotism and also dividends.
Elon Musk, who has spent the last several months explaining to Americans that the federal government cannot afford things, appeared on X to describe the proposal as "interesting in principle," which is one word away from his standard phrasing for things he is about to oppose. He then posted a chart about the national debt and a poll asking whether people prefer "fiscal discipline" or "short-term thinking," which got 2.3 million votes and zero dollars.
The Republican objections fell into three categories. The first was timing: now is not the right moment. The second was mechanism: this is not the right vehicle. The third was principle: we believe in limited government, which means the government should do fewer things, and one of the things it should do fewer of is give you money directly, because that creates dependency, whereas giving money to defense contractors creates jobs and is completely different.
Democratic leadership issued a statement calling the pledge "a desperate electoral stunt" and demanding instead a series of targeted programs, tax credits, and expanded eligibility frameworks that would, if fully implemented over the next four to seven years, result in some Americans receiving modest assistance through an application process requiring documentation the poorest Americans are statistically least likely to have.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the money should be real and should come from taxing the wealthy, which is the same conclusion she would have reached if Trump had proposed giving people $50 or $50,000 or a complimentary tote bag, and is not wrong, and also is not the point anyone was making.
The bipartisan consensus, as of Thursday, is that $5,000 is either too much money or the wrong kind of money or money delivered in the wrong way for the wrong reasons at the wrong time, and that the American people deserve better than a crude cash payment, specifically in the sense that they deserve to not receive it.
Trump, asked by reporters whether he had a plan to pay for the dividend, said it would be covered by tariff revenue, which is currently being described by the same administration as both a permanent source of federal income and a temporary negotiating tool that will disappear once countries agree to stop being unfair, and which cannot be both, but which is currently being asked to do both, and which is doing neither.
The check has not been written. The subcommittee has not met. The reasons are coming.
The story we are making fun of: https://thehill.com/newsletters/business-economy/6083240-trump-sees-backlash-over-5k-dividend-pledge/