$2,000 Tariff Stimulus Checks: The Math Problem Economists Say Doesn’t Work
In recent months, Donald Trump has been promising to return revenue from his tariffs to American taxpayers in the form of $2,000 stimulus checks. He appears to have first brought up the idea last July.
Stimulus Check still possible? Image Credit: Creative Commons.
“A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high-income people!) will be paid to everyone,” Trump said on Truth Social last November, one of several versions of the promise. While in his recent long interview with the New York Times, Trump appeared to have forgotten he had ever made that promise, he returned to talking it up not long after.
“That’s coming in, that I’ll be able to do $2,000 sometime,” Trump told the newspaper. “I would say toward the end of the year.”
Doubts from Economists on Stimulus Checks
This proposal has been met with skepticism for several reasons. Such a proposal would be expensive and likely inflationary, while likely causing a significant increase in the deficit.
A Northeastern Global News report in November cited economists who were skeptical of the idea.
Bob Triest, a professor of economics at Northeastern University, told the publication that there is not “a sound macroeconomic case” for fiscal stimulus right now.
“Although the economy appears to be weakening,” Triest said, “the Fed has plenty of room to cut interest rates if that is warranted.”
Economists who have run the numbers have found, virtually unanimously, that the math doesn’t add up, and the revenue from tariffs could not possibly pay for $2,000 checks for all or most Americans.
“A one-time $2,000 per-person rebate with an income limit of $100,000 would cost $450 billion. That is about twice as large as the total revenue that will be raised by the administration’s tariff hikes in 2026, per Budget Lab estimates,” Yale’s Budget Lab found.
Stimulus Check. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
And there’s one other often-cited reason for skepticism about the tariff rebate check idea: It would require an act of Congress, and there’s far from a guarantee that Trump would have the votes, especially in the narrowly divided House, to get such a proposal through.
This week, however, the president promised to go ahead with the tariff check idea without Congress.
“I Don’t Think We Would Have to Go to Congress”
The president said on Tuesday that he plans to pursue the checks, with or without Congressional approval.
“I don’t think we would have to go to the Congress, but you know, we’ll find out. The reason we’re even talking about it is that we have so much money coming in from tariffs that we’ll be able to issue at least a $2,000 dividend and also pay down debt for the country,” Trump said during a briefing at the White House this week, when asked by a reporter about the proposal.
The reporter asked Trump about comments by White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett, who said the tariff dividend proposal would “depend on what happens with Congress” and that he expected a proposal to be brought to Congress.
“I believe we can do that without Congress,” Trump told reporters, per Forbes.
Stimulus Money. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
But He Can’t
Constitutionally, Congress controls the purse strings. Therefore, a massive expenditure like sending $2,000 checks to the majority of Americans would, in fact, require an act of Congress.
On the three occasions that stimulus checks were sent out during the COVID era, they came as a result of an act of Congress signed by the president: Trump twice and Biden once.
Per Forbes, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent seemed to agree, stating last year that “we need legislation for that.”
There isn’t really any mechanism that Trump could use to get checks that would likely cost billions of dollars out the door without legislative passage.
Should he try to assert powers that he does not have, which Trump has repeatedly done in his second presidency, he would likely be in for a court fight. And the Supreme Court, in the next few weeks, may very well find that his rationale for the tariffs has been ruled unconstitutional.
Scams Everywhere on Stimulus Checks
While we wait to see whether Trump tries to make the checks a reality, many Americans are already receiving emails or texts promising rebate checks, or asking for information or even donations before they can receive their checks.
These are scams, one state attorney general is warning citizens.
In a message just before the new year, Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador warned about a text scam, in which marks are asked to “act urgently to receive $2,000 tariff rebate checks.”
The texts, Labrador wrote, are not from a government agency and should not be considered real.
“Scams like this are all too familiar, especially around the holiday season,” Attorney General Labrador, a former Republican member of Congress, wrote in the letter.
“It costs very little for scammers to send billions of these scam texts out across our telecom networks every month in the cynical calculation that some people will get fooled. The best way to prevent scams is to learn how to spot them in advance and flag any potential scams for my Consumer Protection Division, which a vigilant Idahoan did in this case, helping bring it to our attention.”
The scammy texts and emails have come from all sorts of sources, and certainly not only in Idaho. Some of them are connected to Trump-associated political entities, the liberal media outlet Meidas Touch reported earlier this month. Some are even addressed to the recipient by Donald Trump himself.
“The message is part of a growing pattern in which Trump dangles the fictional financial windfalls to drive engagement and donations, even as he has publicly acknowledged that his tariff scheme relies on emergency powers that could collapse under Supreme Court review,” the report said. “On Monday morning, Trump posted about the ‘upcoming Tariff decision’ at the Supreme Court, a decision that could trigger tariff refunds and shut down his rebate check idea.”
About the Author: Stephen Silver
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist, and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review, and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, national security, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
