"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"
President Donald Trump disparages the word affordability yet is proposing multiple direct-payment schemes aimed at easing voter financial pain. Proposals include a $2,000 tariff dividend funded by fees on foreign goods, $12 billion in farm relief, subsidies paid directly to people for health insurance, and one-time bonus checks for service members. The payments are presented as immediate pocketbook relief after tariffs, safety-net cuts, and rising health costs. Economists across the political spectrum warn the measures are unlikely to solve underlying problems and may serve only as temporary political relief.
Read at The Atlantic
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