All of the cost-cutting measures implemented by the Trump administration to reduce government spending may end up in taxpayers’ pockets, according to President Donald Trump.
Multiple reports indicate that Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, led by Elon Musk, has saved the government enough money to return 20% to Americans, resulting in a $5,000 stimulus for taxpayers.
“‘We are thinking about giving 20% back to the American citizens and 20% back to pay down debt,'” Trump said at the FII Priority summit, reports CBS News. The FII Priority Summit is “an investment conference in Miami sponsored by Saudi government entities.” Trump did not provide additional information.”
The possibility of money returning to taxpayers was first raised by James Fishbeck, CEO of Azoria, an investment firm, and founder of Incubate Debate, a debate teaching program, in a post on Musk’s social media platform X.
“President Trump and Elon Musk should announce a ‘DOGE Dividend’—a tax refund check sent to every taxpayer, funded exclusively with a portion of the total savings delivered by DOGE,” tweeted Fishbeck.
Musk saw the post and replied, “Will check with the President.”
“DOGE’s total estimated savings are $55 billion, which is a combination of fraud detection/deletion, contract/lease cancellations, contract/lease renegotiations, asset sales, grant cancellations, workforce reductions, programmatic changes, and regulatory savings,” according to the organization’s website.
The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis discovered that stimulus money sent to Americans at the end of Trump’s first term and the start of former President Joe Biden’s term accounted for “2.6 percentage points of the 7.9% annual inflation rate recorded in February 2022,” according to CNN.
“Motivated by this observation, and based on the premise that a fiscally induced imbalance between demand and supply could lead to price tensions, we then move to examine the association between exposure to fiscal stimulus, both domestic and foreign, and excess inflation, defined as inflation in excess of the country-specific pre-pandemic average,” the St. Louis Fed stated in January 2023.
