Proposed US-only spending rule lacks a stated monitoring plan
Federal law prohibits payments intended to influence voting, creating legal questions around President Donald Trump’s promise of $5,000 (£3,700) for every adult American if Republicans win both chambers of Congress in November.
Some experts said the promise may be viewed as a pledge to cut taxes, which would be legal. An election-law expert who spoke to the New York Times said Trump’s promise would also be covered by the free-speech protection guaranteed under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Congress authorizes federal spending. Trump did not say during his speech at the Republican convention in Dallas, Texas, whether he planned to ask Congress to approve the payments, which he called “Trump Dividends.”
Trump also gave no details about how the plan would operate or where the money would come from. There are nearly 270 million American adults, meaning a $5,000 payment to each would cost the federal government some $1.3 trillion.
The president said the money would have to be spent in the United States. “We don’t want you going to Canada to spend the money,” Trump said. “We don’t want you going to China, to Germany. You got to spend the money in the United States of America.” It was not clear how the spending requirement would be monitored.
The pledge was conditioned on Republicans winning both the House and Senate in November. “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.”
Trump has proposed similar payments before, including $2,000 checks funded by tariff revenues.
Democrats quickly called the latest offer an “empty promise.” Other U.S. politicians have also promised economic rewards tied to electoral success. Democrats in Georgia promised $2,000 relief payments if their party took control of the Senate at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Trump made the offer during the Republican Party’s first convention held in the middle of a U.S. presidential term. His long speech addressed the effect of the Iran war on Americans’ standard of living, while the proposed payments drew applause in the hall.
Prices have risen in the United States partly because of consequences from the war the U.S. and Israel started with Iran in February. Iran’s retaliation has included attacks against U.S. bases and allies in the Gulf, and Iran has largely closed the Strait of Hormuz, where about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas used to transit.
The blockage has caused fluctuations in oil prices worldwide, and Trump has faced pressure from his party to end the war.
On Wednesday, Trump warned supporters that the war would not end until after the midterm elections and that oil prices would not come down until then. He made the comments before his speech in Texas and repeated them at the convention, where he argued that short-term economic pain was worth it to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons.