Three Card Monte. Photo by ZioDave. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

“Only I can make this promise to you,” US president Donald Trump told America from the stage of his party’s weird midterm “convention” event on September 9: “If the Republicans win the House and Senate, I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000.”

Most coverage of Trump’s offer to bribe voters to vote Republican focuses on two things — that yes, it was an offer to bribe voters to vote Republican, and that actually doing it would be a $1.2 trillion+ budget-buster of a bribe, the biggest direct “universal” US government payment in history.

Those elements are obviously worth discussing, but they’re not really unusual. Every politician tries to bribe the voters in every election, even if most don’t do it QUITE so plainly. As for the size, well, Trump has always put great importance on being the first to do this, the one who does that the YUGEest, etc. The next time he just goes “normal, business as usual” will be the first.

I’m more interested in the indisputable fact that the “Trump dividend,” if it happened, wouldn’t be a “dividend” at all. In fact, it would be yet another new tax on the recipients.

A dividend is a share of earnings paid out to a company’s shareholders, generally from a profitable cycle. The United States isn’t a business, you and I aren’t shareholders, and the enterprise isn’t turning a profit — as a matter of fact, it runs continuous deficits and is drowning in accrued debt.

This “Trump dividend” is incredibly unlikely to happen — it would have to be  approved by Congress, and there’s no incentive for Congress, or Trump, to follow through on their end of the bargain once they have what they want — but if it happened, it would be paid for by taxing you at least as much, if not more than, that $5,000.

The taxation probably wouldn’t be direct, since that would be a transparently stupid “give me $5,000 … OK, here’s your $5,000!” transaction.

The taxation would take place through borrowing, which is still a tax on you, only with payment deferred and interest due on a continuing basis until the principal is repaid.

In addition to interest, that added borrowing by the federal government would drive up interest rates on your own borrowing, and the injection of the $1.2 trillion into the economy would inflate the price of everything you buy.

So: Trump is offering to pay you $5,000 and jack your cost of living up, in return for which he’s  demanding your vote and $5,000 plus interest.

If that sounds like a good deal to you, you suck at math and youre probably a member of the rapidly shrinking “MAGA” base.

I’m not suggesting that you vote Democrat this November. There’s plenty of bribery in that party’s pitch, too, even if the delivery is less brazen. The difference is in demeanor, not content.

None of these politicians can give you anything they aren’t taking, or planning to take, from you. Politics is a scam.

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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