President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that he would pay $5,000 to every American if Republicans retained control of the US House and Senate in the midterm elections, seemingly in an effort to incentivize votes for his party.
“Here is my promise: If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate,” Trump said, “I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000.”
“That alone should win the midterms,” he added.
The outlandish remarks came midway through Trump’s at times freewheeling speech at the Republican midterm convention the GOP is holding in Texas, as part of an effort to drive turnout among Trump’s base this November, and were quickly shot down as unaffordable.
It’s unclear whether the “Trump Dividend”, as he’s calling it, was a serious proposal or an attempt to galvanize the president’s base to turn out on election day, after he also previously promised payouts like a $5,000 “DOGE dividend” or a $2,000-per-person tariff check—neither of which has happened. Any attempt to make real on the offer would need congressional approval.
Vice president JD Vance appeared to walk back Trump’s offer in an interview following the speech, saying it wouldn’t go to wealthy Americans, but also suggested it could be paid for by US tariff revenues. “A one-time payment of this size would wipe out about a decade’s tariff revenue at current tariff levels,” wrote Erica York, senior economist at the Tax Foundation’s Center for Federal Tax Policy, on X.
Responding to a Fox News question that “critics will say the president is bribing voters and he's bankrupting the country”, Vance said: “Tariffs have generated a lot of revenues. The president is saying, if you keep us in power, then you will share in some of the benefit of this incredible wealth that we are creating.”
The rough total cost of paying out $5,000 to about 240 million adults in the US would amount to $1.2 trillion, a price tag that exceeds the roughly $284 billion in gross customs revenue collected between January 2025 and June 2026, according to the University of Pennsylvania.
The shortfall would be even greater after accounting for tariff refunds the Trump administration is compelled to pay after the US Supreme Court ruled in February that Trump had unlawfully imposed tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977.
Following orders from the Court of International Trade, the administration has started to refund some of the $160 billion collected from tariffs, plus interest, which is accruing at an estimated rate of about $650 million per month.
After accounting for refunds, the administration’s net revenue from tariffs will come out to roughly $118 billion, meaning Trump would need to have Congress approve an additional $1.08 trillion, on top of the president’s proposed $1.86 trillion discretionary budget request for fiscal year 2027.
The principal concern for the Republican National Committee has been that the midterm elections will be decided in large part by voter turnout, which could be depressed for Republicans because Trump will not be on the ballot.
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