Since his second term began in 2025, President Donald Trump has exhibited a pattern of pledging to address a problem by sending stimulus checks to all Americans. But as one analyst documented, he has yet to actually deliver on that promise.
In a Thursday essay for the Bulwark, columnist Catherine Rampell recounted all the times Trump has dangled the prospect of free money only to yank it away and never mention it again. The Bulwark writer noted that affordability of basic needs like food and housing has dominated the political conversation, and that Trump has been struggling to justify his tariffs — 95 percent of which are paid by consumers, per the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) — while costs of goods continue to climb. Rampell found that promising stimulus checks is a frequent solution Trump defaults to whenever high costs dominate the news cycle.
1. The "DOGE dividend"
In early 2025, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency quasi-agency rampaged through federal agencies and fired thousands of workers, ostensibly for the purpose of saving taxpayer money. Trump at one point promised a "DOGE dividend" of $5,000 for each American household coming from the supposed savings Musk's effort created. However, the professed savings were much smaller than initially claimed, and Rampell reminded readers that federal spending actually went up in 2025 in spite of DOGE. The checks never went out.
2. $2,000 tariff rebate checks
The president's tariffs have resulted in the average American household paying $1,000 more for goods in 2025 compared to 2024. And if they stay in place, Americans can expect to pay roughly $1,300 more for consumer goods. Trump has toyed with the idea of sending $2,000 checks to every American using the revenue generated from tariffs. But Yale University's Budget Lab found that even when making exceptions for high-income earners, such a proposal would cost roughly $450 billion — more than double the revenue from Trump's tariffs.
3. Replacing the Affordable Care Act with stimulus checks
Toward the end of 2025, when Democrats in Congress were attempting to secure an extension of Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits, Trump proposed an alternative. Instead of tax credits to help offset the cost of health insurance premiums — which were expected to rise by more than 300 percent in some states — Trump proposed "SENDING THE MONEY DIRECTLY BACK TO THE PEOPLE." The proposal was never fully fleshed out, and aside from a one-time stimulus wouldn't help Americans afford significantly higher monthly health insurance premiums, any stimulus program would need to be approved by Congress. Rampell wrote that while stimulus is sometimes necessary during austere times when spending needs to be encouraged, it would also prove to be expensive for taxpayers, and could lead to a significant bump in inflation.
"[Stimulus is] not exactly something Congress should pull the trigger on simply because the president’s polls are flagging. Especially not when the problem with the economy is that it might still be running too hot," she wrote. "Inflation has been persistently above target for five years now. And as the Wall Street Journal’s Greg Ip recently pointed out, fiscal, monetary, and credit policy are each already dialed toward stimulus this year. Under these conditions, giving the entire American populace more cash to chase the same amount of goods is likely to bid prices up higher—that is, to make inflation worse."
