KHN – James Fishback, CEO of investment firm Azoria, came up with the notion of sending US taxpayers a $5,000 stimulus payment using the money that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) saves by demolishing elements of the federal government.
Donald Trump, the former President of the United States, praised Fishback’s initiative from the platform of the FII Priorities Summit in Miami Beach. Of the entire savings, 20% will go to US citizens, and the remaining 20% will go toward debt repayment. “The numbers are incredible,” Trump declared.
Who will be exempt from the DOGE payment?
If Donald Trump, James Fishback, and Elon Musk implement the proposal, low-income Americans may suffer.
Fishback told NBC News that the rebate will only be given to net-income US taxpayer households, who are those who pay more in taxes than they receive in returns.
As a result, lower-income Americans are not eligible for the return. According to the Pew Research Center, the majority of Americans with adjusted gross incomes of less than $40,000 do not pay federal income taxes.
How was this savings figure calculated?
DOGE will achieve $2 trillion in government savings. 20% of total savings is $400 billion and splits it among 79 million taxpayer households, each of which will receive $5,000 agreed.
Fishback said the fact that the payout is exclusively provided to households with incomes above a specific threshold should ease concerns about any inflationary pressures caused by the refunds, noting that the pandemic-era checks were delivered without an economic plan to back them up.
The DOGE Dividend is not altogether atypical for Donald Trump’s administration, as it is modeled after a pandemic-era program from his first term. At the time, the government delivered direct payments to Americans in the president’s name.
Obstacles to Sending DOGE Dividend
However, even Republicans are divided on sending checks to Americans with the money DOGE can save.
The proposal needs to be sent to Congress for approval.