() President Donald Trump on Friday suggested his administration might consider issuing rebate checks to some Americans from the tariff revenue collected this year.
“We have so much money coming in, we’re thinking about a little rebate,” Trump told reporters outside the White House.
“A little rebate for people of a certain income level might be very nice,” he added.
The idea for a form of rebate was suggested earlier this year as a “DOGE dividend” check. James Fishback, behind Trump’s proposed $5,000 “DOGE dividend” checks, said told ‘s “CUOMO” that the initiative would deputize Americans to help root out government waste and fraud.
“Every American can step up, report fraud and abuse to DOGE directly via X, and we’ll see the savings go up, hit $2 trillion, and we’ll see the checks dispersed next summer,” Fishback said.
Under the proposal, 20% of identified savings would fund $5,000 checks to American households, while 80% would go toward reducing the national debt. Fishback defended the payment plan as “restitution” rather than a handout.
However, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., threw cold water on the idea of using savings from the Trump administration to send checks to Americans.
On the Conservative Political Action Conference stage in February, Johnson said, “Politically that would be great, (but) if you think about our core principles, right, fiscal responsibility is what we do as conservatives. That’s our brand. And we have a $36 trillion federal debt, we have a giant deficit that we’re contending with. I think we need to pay down the credit card, right?”
“Well, look. I mean, politically that would be great for us, you know, it gives everybody a check,” Johnson said.
“But if you think about our core principles, right, fiscal responsibility is what we do as conservatives. That’s our brand. And we have a $36 trillion federal debt, we have a giant deficit that we’re contending with. I think we need to pay down the credit card, right?” Johnson said.
‘s Damita Menezes and The Hill contributed to this report.
