The Trump Dividend?

Critics are voicing fears of “vote-buying or voter bribery,” per the Times, over President Trump’s vow to give $5,000 to every adult American if the GOP holds the Congress in the midterms. There are plenty of questions about the feasibility, and even legality, of the proposal, even setting aside the caveat that the proposed payments wouldn’t go only to GOP voters. Yet is Mr. Trump’s idea all that different from, say, Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s vow to freeze rents? The president mooted the so-called Trump Dividend at the GOP’s midterm convention at Dallas. The money would be issued, he said, “very much like a successful company will do a cash distribution to its shareholders.” The “only condition,” he added, was a requirement to spend the money in America. Vice President Vance later appeared to dial back the scope of the envisioned payout, describing it as a “dividend for American workers.”A Republican, Senator Bernie Moreno of Ohio, is already vowing to “get a bill ready” for the dividend, anticipating it would be “passed immediately” following the November 3 midterms. That serves as a reminder of the Constitution’s separated powers, under which Congress holds the federal purse-strings. “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law,” is the language in Article I, section 9. Yet if the solons end up weighing legislation on this head, they would be wise to consider the inflationary danger. During the Covid pandemic, after all, Congress enacted some $5 trillion in stimulus spending, of which $1.8 trillion was paid to families and individuals. The tsunami of federal overspending was meant to foster growth, but the downside was to fuel price increases. Inflation surged some 20 percent between 2020 and 2025.Those higher prices, thanks to our fiat money regime, have yet to revert to their pre-pandemic levels, fomenting consumer frustration and talk of an “affordability crisis.” There are concerns, too, that the cost of the Trump dividend checks could further bloat the national debt, which has already exceeded $40 trillion. Spare us, though, the moralizing from Democrats like Governor Gavin Newsom, who grouses that “Donald Trump now wants to buy your vote.”The Democrats, after all, have long made government largesse a hallmark of their electoral strategy. This tactic dates back to the Tammany Hall era, when the party rose to power in big cities in part by doling out to voters benefits like government jobs and public works along with perks like, say, holiday turkeys and wintertime coal. It reflects a socialist ideal of “cradle-to-grave” government aid for the citizenry, who are seen as wards of the state.The Tammany model, under which high taxes and corruption were endemic, was later expanded nationwide under the New Deal, which ramped up the federal welfare state, and the Great Society of the 1960s. These Democratic initiatives swelled the federal leviathan at the cost of individual liberty. Mr. Mamdani’s campaign vows to freeze rents and offer free bus rides are of a piece with this leftist tradition, as was President Biden’s attempt to forgive student debt.By contrast the GOP, these columns have said, is “the party of low taxes, fiscal rigor, sound money, personal responsibility, and limited government.” No doubt, the new wave of populism on the right tests fidelity to that tradition. Wouldn’t a tax cut be a better way to reach the goals of Mr. Trump’s dividend? After all, America thrives, as our Larry Kudlow puts it, when we “let everybody keep more of what they earn, and then let them decide how to spend their own money.”

The Trump Dividend?

The Trump Dividend?

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