by Ben Whedon
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick this week insisted that President Donald Trump’s promised $5,000 dividend checks to U.S. citizens would not use taxpayer money.
Trump made the promise during the Republican midterm convention, saying that U.S. citizens would receive the payments only if Republicans won both chambers of Congress in the midterms. Lutnick, for his part, suggested that the government would raise the money through administrative fees.
“If the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000,” Trump said. “It will be called the Trump dividend, congratulations.”
“Hand America’s future to the radical-left Democrats, and our nation will spend the next decade just getting back on its feet. It will be a tragedy,” he added. “Vote Republican, and we will leave the world in our dust for generations to come.”
Lutnick told NBC News,“Together we’re going to deliver that plan and we’re going to pay that money to the Americans, and not from taxpayer money.”
He went on to point to the Trump Platinum Card, a planned system that would implement $15,000 processing fees on would-be immigrants who also would pay $5 million to the U.S. government.
But Lutnick may not need to follow through on Trump’s promises, given currently polling suggests the Democrats are favored to at least take the House of Representatives.
Vice President JD Vance said one funding source would come from tariff revenue.
“We’re taking in an extraordinary amount of revenue because the president of the United States is actually standing up to both foreign companies but also foreign countries who’ve been taking advantage of America’s workers for pretty much my entire life,” Vance told Fox News.
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Ben Whedon is a reporter for Just the News. Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of The Star News Network and contributed to this story.
Photo “Donald Trump” by Republican Party.
