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Donald Trump is endorsing an idea from Elon Musk and his supporters to cut Americans a check for “savings” identified by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
Speaking at a Saudi-backed investment conference in Miami on Wednesday, the president endorsed an idea to give 20 percent of those alleged savings back to American taxpayers, with another 20 percent to “pay down debt,” Trump said. It is unclear where that remaining 60 percent would go.
“The numbers are incredible, Elon. So many billions, it’s billions, hundreds of billions. We’re thinking of giving 20 percent back to the American citizens and 20 percent to pay back debt, pay down debt,” Trump said Wednesday.
“By doing this, Americans will be telling us where there’s waste, they’ll be reporting it themselves,” he added.
Musk, who has been empowered by Trump to exert unprecedented and legally dubious authority to gut federal programs and block congressionally approved funding, has spent the last several weeks charging through government agencies with a mandate from the president, though the White House has said in court documents Musk does not wield any decision-making authority whatsoever.
His debunked allegations of rampant abuse and fraud within the federal government and overblown claims that his DOGE team has identified massive reductions still put DOGE far below his $2 trillion ideal.
DOGE has found reductions in government spending — largely through canceling contracts and mass firings, while facing an avalanche of lawsuits and constitutional tests — that total roughly $4 billion, according to Jessica Riedl, a senior fellow at right-leaning think tank Manhattan Institute, according to The Washington Post.
“Given the very small share of federal spending that has been reduced, the American people could possibly take their dividend to Starbucks for half off of one coffee,” Riedl told the newspaper. “When the budget deficit is $2 trillion and Congress is going to add hundreds of billions of dollars more, any savings should go to deficit reduction, rather than another tax rebate.”
The idea was floated by James Fishback, CEO of investment firm Azoria. Roughly 48 hours later, it was coming out of the president’s mouth.
To get to Musk’s $2 trillion figure, any meaningful reduction of government spending would require some combination of drastic, dangerous cuts to expensive but critical government programs like Medicare and Medicaid — as well as the Department of Defense — and tax increases.
The national debt is expected to increase by roughly $20 trillion within the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Trump, meanwhile, is commanding lawmakers to make massive tax cuts for the nation’s wealthiest households. House Republicans are proposing a massive budget blueprint that would add $4.5 trillion in new deficits through tax cuts, with an additional $2 trillion in cuts to “mandatory” spending that covers programs like Medicare, Medicaid and food assistance.
Fishback said 78 million households that pay federal income taxes would receive $5,000 under a DOGE “dividend” plan, if Musk somehow guts $2 trillion in spending.
“Our proposal for the president is simple: Taxpaying households should receive $1 for every $5 of total savings that DOGE delivers,” Fishback said on X this week.
Musk replied to Fishback’s post on X: “will check with the president.”
Trump offered up the idea in Miami the next day.
Those rebates would also likely have to be approved by a Republican-controlled Congress, which would be put into a position to hand out checks — bearing Trump’s Sharpie-inked signature — while lawmakers scramble to come up with money for massive tax cuts and to pay down the debt.
