If you think Donald Trump is really going to write you a $5,000 check for electing Republicans to the Congress this November, you aren’t paying attention to Trump’s long history of reneging on promises to pay people who do work for him. John Tsitrian says you’re also ignoring Trump’s history of broken policy payoffs:
More to the civilized point is the fact that Trump has already promised dividends that he has yet to pay out. The guy’s a welsher.
- Tariff dividends that he promised last year have yet to be paid.
- DOGE dividends from cash saved by the budget cutting frenzy early on in his administration haven’t materialized.
- Dividends are supposed to accrue from expiring ACA subsidies. Though still in its larval stage, I’m dubious about this promise, considering his track record [John Tsitrian, “Trump’s $1.2 Trillion Election Dividend Is Desperate and Dangerous,” South Dakota Standard, 2026.09.11].
Breaking this promise still wouldn’t be as bad as keeping it:
The fiscal damage that the payout would cause is hard to overstate. I haven’t found a supportive economist to weigh in on this looney-tunes proposal. All I’ve found are harsh critiques.
Those critiques focus on the fiscal madness of further increasing our national debt and the inflation that would result from $1.2 trillion that would suddenly be injected into our economy.
Trump’s promise isn’t just dangerous demagoguery. It’s irrational and illusional [Tsitrian, 2026.09.11].
To flesh out Tsitrian’s debt point, if Trump ever did pay up, taxpayers would end up owing 60% more than they got from the election bribe:
Bond markets surely realize what Trump does not, which is that sending $5,000 to every adult citizen will likely end up costing the U.S. taxpayers far more than $5,000 per person, given the U.S. government will have to fund these payments by issuing new debt at currently elevated interest rates. Consider the back of the envelope math.
If there are roughly 245 million adult citizens, each of whom will receive $5,000 – then the U.S. government will have to issue $1.2 trillion of debt to fund those payments. If the government issues 10-year bonds at the current interest rate of 4.92%, then over 10 years, the interest plus principal will come out to approximately $8,000 – far more than $5,000 a person. Thus, not only does the “Trump Dividend” substantively amount to a payday loan in which the taxpayer is both borrower and lender; but the U.S. is plainly getting a raw deal [Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Steven Tian, “Trump’s $5,000 Pledge and the Bond Market Revolt Show It’s a Voter Bribe—Costing Every American $8,000,” Fortune via Yahoo, 2026.09.10].
But we shouldn’t even have to reach the practical fiscal discussion to look at Trump’s blatant bribe and say “Oh my goodness no! Never!” A person who thinks he can buy your vote doesn’t deserve your vote. Save the country from more empty promises and reckless policy: take back Congress by voting for anyone but the Republicans Trump says he’d pay you to elect.