On February 18, investor/entrepreneur James Fishback posted a suggestion to X: “President Trump and @ElonMusk should announce a ‘DOGE Dividend’ — a tax refund check sent to every taxpayer, funded exclusively with a portion of the total savings delivered by DOGE.”

Musk responded: “Will check with the President.”

The following day, speaking at the FII PRIORITY Summit in Miami, the president (Donald Trump) mused about “a new concept where we give 20% of the DOGE savings to American citizens and 20% goes to paying down debt.”

It’s an easy idea to like. I mean, who DOESN’T want to receive a previously unexpected check in the mail?

And the way it’s rolling out feels rather fresh and spontaneous, doesn’t it?  X user has idea! X owner suggests it to the president! The president likes it! Boom!

I suppose Fishback might have just had a “lightbulb over head” moment and decided to throw it out there, but the Trump White House was probably planning something like this long before that tweet.

Why do I suspect that? Because the same president has done the same thing before, under similar circumstances.

When Americans’ finances took a big hit from COVID-19, Trump leapt into action with two rounds of “stimulus checks” — one for $1,200 and a second for $600 — for most Americans.

Naturally, the checks bore the signature “Donald J. Trump,” so that everyone would know who to praise and thank, and hopefully never notice that the money was borrowed in their names with principal and interest to be taken out of their hides later.

This time around, the sucker punch will come in a more diffuse form for most Americans. Trump’s tariffs and other trade war moves will cost the average household somewhere between $1,000 and $5,000 per year (estimates vary, but few other than Trump himself pretend his plans will drive your cost of living DOWN).

You’ll pay more for food. You’ll pay more for clothes.  You’ll pay more for consumer electronics. Unless you’re buying a car or a home the hurt will come in little bits — no single one especially traumatic, but the overall impact very unpleasant.

That “DOGE Dividend” check, if it comes, will just be Trump trying to buy back your love with your own money, to partially and insufficiently make up for the damage he’s doing to you.

Like an abusive husband who shows up with flowers and an ice pack the day after he works his wife over with a baseball bat, Trump desperately wants you to believe he loves you very much, that he didn’t really mean it, honey.

Cash the check, but don’t fool yourself into believing you’re getting something for nothing. Like the wife in the analogy, you’ll be seeing that bat again.

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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Whenever the insanely high level of federal government spending comes up — which is every time federal government spending comes up — federal government spenders immediately trot out a fake solution.

Eliminating “fraud, waste, and abuse” in their spending, they tell us, will magically bring their spending into line with their revenues. No more deficits! Decreasing accrued debt! Lower taxes!

It never “works,” of course. It’s not even really meant to “work.” It’s just meant to distract the American public with some convenient scapegoats while the politicians debate whether to spend a little more or a lot more than previously.

I do have to say, though, that I’ve been mildly positively impressed with the latest iteration of that old trick, Donald Trump’s “Department of Government Efficiency.”

Even for those who believe there’s such a thing as “legitimate” government spending and don’t want the baby thrown out with the bathwater (I’m with the late Harry Browne, who noted “we have to remember — it’s Rosemary’s Baby“), it seems like the Trump administration is accomplishing at least some positive public service with government employment buyouts, reining in USAID, etc.

Maybe we WILL actually see a more “efficient” executive branch out of all this, an organization with fewer extraneous employees and with less inclination to pay (an old example) $435 for a $15 hammer.

But without congressional action to cut spending, it will all end up costing us at least as much, and probably more, than it did before.

Congress, not the president, decides how much money gets appropriated (that is, taxed or borrowed) and what kinds of things it gets spent on.

The only powers the president possesses on that subject are the power to suggest budgets, the power to veto budgets including appropriation amounts he disagrees with — Congress can override him on that — and the power to execute (hence the executive branch’s name) Congress’s instructions.

If a particular government unit receives a budget of $1 billion, then DOGE detects and Trump excises $100 million worth of “fraud, waste, and abuse” from its operations — but Congress keeps that unit’s budget at $1 billion, we MIGHT see “better” or “more efficient” use of that $1 billion, but we’re not seeing any actual reduction in the cost of government.

The House Budget Committee claims that its budget resolution for 2025 through 2034 will “reduce deficits by $14 trillion over the next decade.” Last year’s deficit was $1.9 trillion. Stretched out over a decade, the proposed reduction would still leave an average deficit (borrowed and added to the national debt) of $500 billion per year.

Any ten-year plan is suspect (subsequent Congresses can, and always do, abandon it).

A ten-year plan that forecasts $8.7 trillion in cuts to “mandatory” programs like Medicare is likely dead on arrival.

If Congress isn’t serious about substantial cuts to “discretionary” spending, especially on “defense” (the proposal “preserves critical defense spending”), Congress isn’t serious about cutting spending, period.

Enjoy the DOGE and DOGE-adjacent activities if you like them, but don’t expect them to accomplish much where the cost of government is concerned.

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.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

“One of the first meetings I want to have is with President Xi of China, President Putin of Russia,” US president Donald Trump said on February 13. “And I want to say, ‘let’s cut our military budget in half.’ And we can do that. And I think we’ll be able to.”

Trump deserves our thanks and support in taking aim at US military spending in general, and at the insanely large, outrageously expensive, and mostly useless US nuclear arsenal in particular.

Making sure he feels lots of public love on the matter is a matter of major importance, because the only thing more rare than such talk from an American president since World War 2 has been real action on the idea.

Dwight Eisenhower made a strong rhetorical lunge against the “military-industrial complex,” but only on his way out of office in his 1960 farewell address.

Eisenhower’s successor, John F. Kennedy, seemed somewhat inclined to agree with Eisenhower on the subject, and likely paid the price for that agreement in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963.

Since that time, American presidents have considered themselves on notice to tread lightly where the US war machine is concerned.

So, does he really mean it?

I suspect he does.

Even a man with Trump’s tendencies toward saying whatever pops into his head knows that this kind of talk is politically, maybe even personally, dangerous. There’s no upside to saying it if he doesn’t mean it.

And if he’s really interested, as he claims, in reducing the federal government’s drunken-sailor spending, some of the reduction will have to come out of the Pentagon’s hide.

“Defense” (a euphemism for military spending, most of which has little or nothing to do with actually defending the US) is the single biggest category of “discretionary” government spending.

What that means is that every dime of “defense” spending has to be appropriated by Congress and those appropriations have to be signed into law by the president (or, if he refuses, Congress has to override his veto).

The other biggest budget categories — “entitlements” like Social Security and Medicare, as well as service on the government’s debt — are “non-discretionary.” That money gets spent unless Congress and the president actively agree to NOT spend it … a difficult deal to reach.

In other words, if you are not serious about cutting “defense” spending, you’re not serious about cutting spending, period.

Fortunately, the US could probably cut “defense” spending by 90% without sacrifice or danger where actual “national defense” is concerned.

Unfortunately, the military-industrial complex has been the single biggest beneficiary of government largesse at your expense for more than 80 years now. The beneficiaries of “defense” spending will not go gently into that good night.

How strong is the “defense” lobby? Strong enough that congressional debate is always about how much to increase, never about whether to decrease, the size of its welfare checks.

If Trump’s serious about this, he’ll need your support to make it happen. Let “your representatives” in Congress know that their political futures depend on this.

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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