Just like he is
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When Donald Trump ran for president in 2016, he boasted that he was so rich that he couldn’t be bought. Everything that’s followed proves that a lie, a delusion, or marketing. Because Trump is for sale, he assumes everyone else is. Perhaps you’ve noticed he’s attempting to buy off people worried about “affordability” and hard hit by the cost impacts of Trump tariffs.
Toluse Olorunnipa writes in The Atlantic:
In recent weeks, Trump has been pitching half a dozen schemes to, in the words of White House officials, put money “straight into the pockets of the American people.” After a year in which Americans’ pocketbooks have been walloped by Trump’s tariffs, cuts to the social safety net, and apparent nonchalance in the face of spiking health-care costs, the president is turning to the allure of sweepstakes-style checks from the government to help coax voters out of their financial malaise ahead of next year’s midterm elections. It likely won’t work, economists from across the political spectrum told me; one likened the payments to a bandage over a bullet wound.
Trump has floated a payment of $2,000 to most Americans in the form of a so-called tariff dividend, to be paid out from fees levied on foreign goods. He has offered $12 billion in relief to farmers reeling from the trade war he started. He has suggested paying subsidies “directly to the people” to pay for health insurance. And as my colleagues Ashley Parker and Nancy Youssef reported, Trump used a prime-time national address on December 17 to announce onetime bonus checks for troops in the amount of $1,776. “The checks are already on the way,” Trump said of the payments to 1.4 million service members. (The Pentagon says the money, which is being taken from a fund to improve housing for troops, landed in bank accounts before Christmas.)
By a cluster of economic measures, the lived economy of millions of Americans does not match the administration’s marketing. Where there is a disconnect, that’s Joe Biden’s fault. Just ask Trump.
About that $2,000 “tariff dividend.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said it would require legislation. It faces opposition in Congress. But wait, there are more cash payouts:
Speaking at the Treasury Department earlier this month, Bessent touted a program that will offer babies born from 2025 to 2028 an investment fund seeded with a $1,000 grant from the government. Although the money in the accounts cannot be withdrawn until the year a child turns 18, the president’s allies have tried to brand the program as another instance of Trump putting money directly into Americans’ pockets.
The IRS recently revealed the process for establishing the “Trump Accounts,” launching a new website and tax form for parents to claim the money and contribute their own funds beginning in July. “Trump accounts are the president’s gift to the American people,” Bessent said at the Treasury, calling IRS Form 4547, which is named after Trump’s two presidential terms, “the most aptly named tax document of all time.” Administration officials are also trying to pitch the tax law as a more immediate boon to voters struggling with the rising price of groceries, housing, child care, and other expenses. “Next spring is projected to be the largest tax-refund season of all time,” Trump said during his prime-time address.
Those who cannot afford to eat this holiday season can take solace (and thank Dear Leader) that they can spend their tax refunds on Christmas dinner in the spring. That is, if the Trump-backed loss of ACA subsidies on Jan. 1 hasn’t consumed the rest of the family budget to pay health insurance premiums projected to rise 2x, 3x, 4x, or more. Assuming they can even afford health insurance after Dec. 31.
On that, Trump has offered a vague promise to send money to families to directly purchase medical care.
The situation has frustrated voters like Stacy Rye, a 56-year-old real-estate agent in Missoula, Montana, who is staring at a massive increase in premiums next year. Rye told me that on top of the spiking costs for coffee, beef, and other groceries she already deals with, she will have to pay an extra $6,700 next year for health-care premiums. The plan by some Republican lawmakers to offer Americans up to $1,500 for health-savings accounts did not seem like it would help much, she said.
“What am I supposed to do with $1,500 when my premium is $1,300 a month?” she said, adding that Trump’s plan to have consumers haggle with insurance companies and hospitals seemed unworkable. “These are unserious people. I can’t negotiate against a giant company about what my health premiums are going to be.”
A friend who’s been in the outdoor sporting equipment business for 50 years reported before Christmas that business is off significantly. Trump’s tariffs have hit his suppliers hard. He’s struggling. He’s not alone.
Happy Hollandaise!