Howard Lutnick says Trump’s $5K payments to US adults won’t rely on taxpayer money

WASHINGTON, DC: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said recently in an interview that the $5,000 dividends President Trump has proposed to all US adults would not come from taxpayers' funds, offering a few insights into how the president's budget plans to pay for his idea, a proposal that faces opposition from within his own party.

Trump announced the dividends at the GOP’s midterm convention but said the money would only be given if Republicans maintained control of both chambers in Congress after November’s elections.

Howard Lutnick points to a proposed immigration program and past Intel investment

Lutnick said the administration could “earn the money that Donald Trump wants to pay out, not from the deficit and not from taxpayers.”

When asked where the money would come from, Lutnick cited the Trump Platinum Card, which is not launched yet, that would require immigration applicants to join a waitlist and allow future applicants to live in the US for 270 days per year without being subject to tax on non-US income.

Applicants would have to pay a $15,000 processing fee, undergo Department of Homeland Security vetting, and pay an additional $5 million contribution to the US government to be guaranteed citizenship.

“We have a waitlist of more than 100,000 people who want to come,” Lutnick said. “That’s $500 billion dollars.”

Lutnick also cited the federal government's stake in Intel, which he said has generated more than $30 billion in gains over the past several months.

“Everybody knows we got just about 500 million shares, and the stock was $20, and now it’s $100, so we’re up $50 billion,” Lutnick stated. 

“Together we’re going to deliver that plan, and we’re going to pay that money to the Americans, and not from taxpayer money,” Lutnick continued.

White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett also suggested Friday the funds could come from a reconciliation package.

Not every Republican is on board

The proposal has divided figures within the GOP: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) was critical of the proposal, noting the rising national debt as a major drawback of the idea.

“What I don’t think you want to do is borrow another trillion-and-a-half dollars and then just try to flood that into the economy, because that will lead to more inflation,” DeSantis said. 

The counter-argument highlights a rift within the party about how to pay for a proposal that would create one of the largest direct-payment programs in US history and whose funding sources (a citizenship program and stock gains) are still unproven or not yet implemented.

The dividend plan itself

Trump unveiled the dividends at the GOP’s midterm convention in Dallas, saying that the payments are a reward for the outcome of the November midterms, which will have to keep the House and the Senate under Republican control for the money to be paid out.

He outlined his plan for a total of $1.2 trillion in payments spread across roughly 270 million US adults, working out to $5,000 per person, but he has positioned it as a way for everyday Americans to benefit from the economic gains in the Trump era, and he has not offered a timeline for payments, linking the plan’s fate to the outcome of the elections first.