Trump Repeats His $5,000 Promise in Kentucky. With a $1.8 Trillion Deficit, America Can't Buy Its Way Out.
At a Kentucky rally, President Trump again promised $5,000 to every adult citizen if Republicans keep Congress. It would cost about $1 trillion.
Standing in a Kentucky arena on Saturday, President Donald Trump repeated a promise he has made for more than a month: keep Republicans in charge of Congress, and every adult citizen gets $5,000.
"If Republicans win the House of Representatives and the Senate, I'm going to give all adults, citizens in the United States of America $5,000," Trump said at Northern Kentucky University's Truist Arena in Highland Heights, WLKY reported. He called it the "Trump Dividend," said it would be paid for by tariff revenue and economic growth and estimated it would cost about $1 trillion.
Conservatives who care about honest government and sound money should be uneasy.
What we know about the promise
Trump first made the pitch at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas in September. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said afterward that Congress would have to approve it. "I would assume, yes, he'd need Congress to act, and that's a creative idea," Johnson said, while pledging to try to pass it, the Associated Press reported. Trump had told CBS News Texas he did not think Congress needed to authorize it.
The plan would most likely cost more than $1 trillion and require congressional approval, while worsening a budget deficit of nearly $1.8 trillion a year, the AP reported from Saturday's rally. No bill has been passed to create it.
Trump also offered Kentucky a conditional promise of its own: if Republicans win, he said, the Department of Defense would invest in reviving a drug manufacturing facility in the state, according to the AP.
The rest of the rally
Trump came to boost Ed Gallrein, the former Navy SEAL who beat Rep. Thomas Massie in the Republican primary for Kentucky's 4th District after Trump backed him. Massie had angered Trump by pushing for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files and opposing the Iran war, the AP reported.
Trump called Massie "the worst" and "a loser." But the AP reported that the crowd's response was tepid, with about half the arena clapping at the attacks on Massie and the other half silent. Massie still has a following for standing on conservative principle, even against his own party.
The crowd itself was smaller than the room. Northern Kentucky University put the official headcount at 2,567 in an arena that holds nearly 10,000, WKRC reported. Trump urged supporters to "pretend I'm on the ballot, go out and vote."
Why conservatives should be wary
Families are hurting. Inflation rose to 3.7% in September as gas prices jumped 9.1%. A $5,000 check sounds like relief. But a government that runs a deficit near $1.8 trillion does not have $1 trillion lying around. It would borrow it, and our children would pay it back with interest.
Conservatives spent years warning that sending out money the country does not have fuels inflation. That warning does not become false when a Republican makes the offer.
There is a deeper problem. Tying a payment to how people vote turns citizens into customers and elections into auctions. Scripture warns rulers against exactly that. "The king by judgment establisheth the land: but he that receiveth gifts overthroweth it" (Proverbs 29:4). A promise of cash in exchange for keeping a party in power is not the kind of politics that builds a nation's character.
"The borrower is servant to the lender" (Proverbs 22:7). A nation drowning in debt is not free, no matter how large the checks.
Say what you can deliver
Voters can respect a candidate who says hard things plainly. Johnson was honest that Congress would have to act. Promises that depend on Congress should be described that way.
The better case for Republicans is the one their own candidates often make: lower energy costs, secure borders, less waste. Those are real goods that do not require borrowing a trillion dollars. "Let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay" (Matthew 5:37). Voters should hear promises that can be kept, and they should hold every party to that standard.
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