President Trump suggested he won’t need to wait on Congress to send $2,000 rebate checks to Americans.
“I don’t think we would have to go to the Congress, but you know, we’ll find out. The reason we’re even talking about it is that we have so much money coming in from tariffs that we’ll be able to issue at least a $2,000 dividend and also pay down debt for the country,” he said.
When similar checks were distributed in 2020 and 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress needed to approve the distributions.
The legislative branch controls the federal purse. And several Republican lawmakers have expressed skepticism about the checks, and instead suggested Trump should be focusing on slashing the federal budget deficit.
Looming over the tariff dividends are concerns that the Supreme Court could strike down Trump’s “trafficking” and “reciprocal” tariffs.
Trump imposed tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act but the high court is considering the legality of that action.
The ruling could come any day now.
If the court rules against the president, it’s unclear where he would get the funds for the checks.
Trump has been pushing for checks to Americans for months, originally proposing the idea late last year, saying the money would come from the tariffs he imposed on other nations.
Checks didn’t appear in time for Christmas shopping but may serve Republicans better in this year’s midterm election as they fight to keep control of Congress.
Trump administration officials have given few specifics about how tariff rebate checks would work.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested the administration was still figuring out an income limit.
“Well, there are a lot of options here that the president’s talking about a $2,000 rebate and those — that would be for families making less than, say, $100,000,” Bessent told “Fox & Friends” late last year.
Then he quickly clarified that “it’s in discussion” and “we haven’t” decided on that limit.
When the president proposed the idea in November, he warned that the plan is to exclude “high income people,” without specifying an income threshold.
If the $2,000 dividend payments were narrowed to individuals earning under $100,000, it would cost about $300 billion, according to an estimate from Erica York, the Tax Foundation’s vice president of federal tax policy.
The $2,000 checks sent to families during COVID was estimated to cost some $464 billion, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
