When he spoke Wednesday evening in Dallas, at the Republican Midterm Convention, the president told the crowd he plans to “issue a dividend to every adult citizen, in the United States of America, for $5,000.”
President Trump described that money as a “dividend,” like a payout to stockholders, because he tied it to his import-punishing tariffs policy and the revenue tariffs have generated during his second term.
Reacting to Trump’s announcement, the news media quickly found financial analysts who calculated a $5,000 payment to an estimated 270 million Americans would cost $1.3 trillion.
The current national debt has surpassed $40 trillion.
When government policy analyst Wayne Crews heard the president’s pitch for a $5,000 check, he said his immediate response was concern a Republican president is blurring the line between conservative principles and liberal entitlement spending.
"He's normalizing the idea of giving checks to able-bodied adults which, to tell you the truth, is a dream come true for progressives,” Crews, a fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told American Family News.
“Once you get the public hooked on getting checks for nothing, money for nothing, limited government is over,” Crews warned.
President Trump, however, has become known for embracing a populist-driven philosophy rather than traditional political conservatism. His promise this week to share tariff revenue is actually the second time he has done so after promising a $2,000 check in a November 2025 post on Truth Social. That plan came days after congressional elections last year.
President Trump also previously backed the idea of sharing the government-slashing DOGE cuts with taxpayers. That idea was first raised by Elon Musk but never happened under Trump.
Notable names who have criticized the $5,000 dividend include Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. He pointed to the current national debt, which stands at $40 trillion. Borrowing $1 trillion to follow through on the $5,000 giveaway will only raise inflation, DeSantis said.
"What I would say is, if you are getting surplus revenue, you should cut people's tax and return it to the people," DeSantis said Thursday. "What I don't think you wanna do is borrow another … trillion and a half dollars and then just try to flood that into the economy, because that will lead to more inflation."
The idea has been embraced by others, including some of President Trump's most loyal base. A story at the Gateway Pundit website said Trump had "outsmarted his toxic liberal foes" with the plan. That story quotes Barbara Boyd, of Promethean Action, who said Trump had "outflanked" Democrats with his idea.
White House criticizes 'naysayers'
Even though Trump likens the payout to a corporate dividend, Crews said the economic math simply doesn't add up for a federal government running multi-trillion-dollar deficits.
"There aren't gains, there aren't profits of the United States government, to be shared with the public this way," he said. "There are lots of ways that you can expand wealth by deregulation and cutting spending, but this is a transfer of wealth, which is anathema to limited government."
For this story, AFN reached out to the White House to respond to criticism about President Trump’s plan for $5,000 dividends if the GOP wins the midterms. In a lengthy reply, White House spokesman Davis Ingle said:
The doomers and naysayers have consistently doubted President Trump: when he pledged to create the historic Trump Accounts, lowered prescription prices with Most Favored Nations, secured the border with no crossings, cleaned up our streets, ended taxes on tips, grew real wages, renegotiated broken trade deals, and reshored key manufacturing back to the United States.
President Trump has consistently proven his doubters wrong, drawing a clear contrast with the Democrats' record of historic inflation, unfettered illegal immigration, skyrocketing crime, and weakness on the world stage. With the continued support of the American people, President Trump will keep delivering real results.
