Everything Trump Wants to Do Causes Inflation

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Just call it the Five-Grand Old Party.

This week, at the Republican Party’s midterm faux-convention , President Trump announced something called (inevitably) the “Trump Dividend.” The premise is simple.

“If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them,” Trump said, “I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000.” Problems abound.

First, this is wildly inappropriate, for obvious reasons: It’s an attempt at using taxpayer money to bribe voters into supporting the president’s party.

Because Trump is not premising the supposed payout on individuals’ votes, it might be legal, though the White House would presumably require congressional approval for the estimated $1.3 trillion cost.

A Republican Congress might sign off; a Democratic one might be more inclined to start impeachment proceedings.

Second, the payments almost certainly won’t happen. (If you disagree, I’d be happy to sell you a nice bridge in Brooklyn if you sign your Trump Dividend over to me.) Trump has promised to cut checks to Americans before and not followed through, and this proposal appeared to catch many of Trump’s advisers , as well as Republican lawmakers, by surprise.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Trump’s rival for the 2024 GOP nomination, quickly criticized the pledge .

Third, injecting more than $1 trillion into the economy wouldn’t just blow up the deficit and national debt —it would also drive up prices.

Giving every American $5,000 to spend would create demand that couldn’t immediately be met, encouraging sellers to raise prices.

I could quote lots of economists from left, right, and center who have already said that the payouts would be inflationary, but you could also just take it from Trump himself, who has repeatedly blamed inflation on high spending during the Biden administration—including in the same speech where he floated the dividend.

A paradox of this moment is that inflation is a big reason for Trump’s cratering approval and his party’s sinking odds in the midterm elections, but nearly every one of his signature policy ideas is inflationary.