“We are taking in Trillions of Dollars and will soon begin paying down our ENORMOUS DEBT, $37 Trillion,” US president Donald Trump “truthed” on his personal social media network on November 9. And, he promised, “a dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone.”
I’m surely far from the first to let you know that the math doesn’t check out.
The US government took in $195 billion, not “trillions,” in tariff revenues for the fiscal year ending on September 30. Even given Trump’s constant temperament-driven tweaks to the rates, it would be surprising if next year’s tariff take comes to $500 billion.
A $2,000 check to 90% of Americans (with 10% as the excluded “high income people”) would run about $540 billion. For the government to send out more than it’s raking in AND “begin paying down our ENORMOUS DEBT” is mathematically impossible.
In order for Trump to deliver on those checks, he’ll have to either dramatically cut the US government’s operating budget — which he’s not going to do — or run even higher operating deficits, increasing the “national debt” further and faster.
But more than the fiscal infeasibility of the proposal, I’m interested in Trump’s claim that those checks would constitute a “dividend.”
A dividend on what, precisely?
Dividends are payments to shareholders in a business enterprise, distributed as a share of profits.
As a “business enterprise,” the last time the US government turned a “profit” by spending less than it received in tax payments was 2001.
More importantly, none of us are shareholders in the US government. We don’t own it, or own any part of it. We can neither buy additional “shares,” nor sell any “shares” … because we hold none.
On the absolutely, positively most generous view of the relationship between US citizens and the US government, we’re “customers” who pay taxes in return for various goods and services (defense, roads, etc.), and are occasionally polled as to our preferences on who gets to run parts of the enterprise.
A more realistic view of that relationship: The government is a rancher and we’re the sheep it shears regularly. Any supposed benefits we receive in return for our wool are dispensed to maximize the wool haul while keeping the sheep docile and penned.
If you get that $2,000 check, keep in mind that it comes out of $2,000 you’ve either paid to the government in taxes (yes, tariffs are taxes — taxes on YOU), or will be expected to pay back. with interest, to the government’s creditors.
At best, you’ll be getting a little of your own money back. Hooray! But more likely, you’ll be treated as co-signer on a loan for the amount, obligated to pay it back, with interest, in the future.
Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.
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