In recent news, plans about a stimulus proposition from President Donald Trump are starting to surface. As relayed by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in a televised interview on Wednesday, President Trump has ideas about rolling out a stimulus check amounting to $2,000 for families whose annual income is $100,000 or below. Similar income qualifications were seen for the COVID stimulus checks, according to Erica York, the vice president of federal tax policy at the Tax Foundation.
Such a proposal could aid more than 123 million Americans financially. However, it needs careful consideration as the U.S. national debt is just shy of $38 trillion. Carrying out the stimulus payments without balancing the cost could exacerbate the nation's debt. "We have many options to consider," Bessent explained in the interview. "The president is contemplating a $2,000 rebate, specifically for families earning below, let's say, $100,000."
No final decision has been locked down regarding the stimulus proposal, as Bessent acknowledged in the interview. Prior to this, Trump declared via Truth Social over the weekend that a "dividend of minimum $2000 per person" would be disbursed to "everyone," excluding high-income earners. According to Trump, tariff revenues would fund these payments.
Contrasting Bessent's Wednesday remarks, his earlier comments in the week claimed that the "dividend" from tariffs might be indirect, offering tax relief instead of direct checks. He revealed, "The $2,000 dividend could manifest in various forms or ways, it might just be the tax reductions we are envisioning on the president's agenda," during an interview on This Week on ABC.
There's an ongoing debate among some economists about whether the federal government’s budget could support issuing stimulus checks to Americans. According to York, new tariffs are projected to generate approximately $217 billion in revenue in 2026. But the 2022 tax data suggests that the proposed $2,000 stimulus for the 123 million families earning under $100,000 each would incur almost $300 billion in costs.