President Donald Trump’s latest idea to dampen the fallout from his controversial tariffs isn’t even popular with his own party.
The scheme is a tariff rebate check. It was floated last month by Trump, who told reporters, “We have so much money coming in, we’re thinking about a little rebate.”
The idea was seized on by Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, a MAGA sycophant, who quickly proposed a $600 tax credit for all Americans on their 2024 returns.
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A tariff rebate tax credit would mirror the highly popular stimulus checks issued by Trump and Joe Biden—and championed by Hawley—during the COVID-19 crisis.
However, there are good reasons to think that nothing will come of the idea this time. As MSNBC’s Ryan Teague Beckwith put it, “To be clear: This is not going to happen.”
“First, if the tariff rebates were similar to the coronavirus stimulus, they’d cost the federal government about $164 billion, which is most of the money generated by the tariffs in the first six months of the year,” Beckwith wrote.
He observed that many Republican senators were quick to make clear their disdain for the proposal, arguing that the money should be used to pay down the national debt—which Trump has also said is a priority.
Sen. Bernie Moreno, who has floated Trump’s name for the Nobel Peace Prize, has called Trump and Hawley’s idea “insane.”
“Oh God, no, insane. Two reasons. No. 1, we have a $37 trillion debt… No. 2, it’s extraordinarily inflationary. It’s fiscal stimulus,” he told Semafor.
“I just don’t know that they’re necessary,” said Sen. Roger Marshall, another vocal Trump cheerleader, according to The Washington Post. “The folks back home don’t feel like they’re being hurt by tariffs, just the opposite. Prices have stabilized.”
Sen. James Lankford’s take was even more blunt: “I think it’s a bad idea,” he said, according to the Post.
Asked for comment on the criticism, a White House spokesperson told the Daily Beast, “As the president has said, tariffs are bringing in historic revenue for the federal government that can be used for the benefit of the American people. The Administration is considering multiple options for this windfall revenue.”
The idea echoes another scheme that was touted but never came to fruition: “DOGE dividends.” Elon Musk and Trump both endorsed using 20 percent of the $2 trillion Musk initially vowed his team would achieve in savings to pay a $5,000 tax credit to all Americans.
In the end, DOGE saved—by its own questionable estimate—only $180 billion, Musk left the White House and fell out with Trump, and “DOGE dividends” are nowhere to be seen.
