Posted on 02/20/2025 9:48:02 AM PST by Signalman
A “DOGE Dividend” could be coming to a mailbox near you, President Donald Trump has announced.
Savings resulting from work by the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency should be, at least in part, returned back to taxpayers in the form of direct financial payments, Trump said aboard Air Force One on Wednesday. His answer came while responding to a similar proposal by Elon Musk, who said an equal part of the savings should go toward paying down the national debt.
“I love it,” President Trump said about Musk’s proposal. “A twenty percent dividend, so to speak, for the money that we’re saving by going after the waste, fraud, and abuse.”
Challenged about how much that might mean per taxpayer, Trump sounded an aggressive note.
“Could be a lot. I mean, if it’s twenty percent, we could give back a lot of money to the taxpayer,” he added, saying it would “give an incentive for the taxpayer to go out and report things to use where we can save money.”
To cap the one-month anniversary of the Trump administration, DOGE announced that it has already saved taxpayers a stunning $55 billion, according to The Hill. Much of those savings were achieved by canceling or renegotiating leases and contracts, selling assets, canceling grants, finding regulatory savings, making programmatic changes to the government, and reducing the workforce.
Shuttering the U.S. Agency for International Development saved about $6.5 billion alone, Musk stated, while layoffs at the U.S. Department of Education achieved $502 million in savings. As evidence, DOGE has posted a “wall of receipts” on its website where visitors may view all savings to date; the evidence has also been shown by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt during several press briefings.
President Trump established DOGE on his first day in office to realize savings through the reduction of waste, fraud, and abuse, a legitimate problem in the federal bureaucracy that both Democrats and Republicans agree can be improved. However, the speed and scope of DOGE’s cuts have caused many Democrats to protest what they claim are heavy-handed tactics that will ultimately backfire on the Trump administration as it seeks to carry out basic government functions.
However, without a lever of power in Washington, the opposition party is largely powerless to stop Trump and Musk from running roughshod over agencies which they allege haven’t been audited in years. On Thursday the White House confirmed that 6,000 new agents at the Internal Revenue Service would be laid off, building on GOP efforts to stifle its ability to harass Americans during tax season.
The last round of direct government payments to Americans was under President Trump’s first term when approximately $814 billion in pandemic assistance was doled out in the form of checks. Last week the IRS touted a program to make whole a small subset of Americans who did not receive their $1,400 lifeline nearly five years ago, saying that about one million Americans who did not claim the Recovery Rebate Credit on their 2021 taxes are eligible.
Why?
If there is million-mile-wide hole and your pour an ounce of concrete into it, what will you have accomplished relative to the size of the hole?
I agree. American taxpayers should get some of their stolen money back! Also, Why should I pay off the terrible debt that those same people that stole from me created?
So your advice is to ignore the black hole in the hope it will go away if we kick the can down the road long enough?
Imagine that people could get $5,000 DOGE dividend disbursements this year, but instead, it goes to the black hole of the national debt.
Next year, politicians increase spending by an amount that is greater than the DOGE dividends would have been.
The net result will be that the national debt will actually be bigger, and people who could have had $5,000 more to spend won’t have $5,000 more to spend.
It’s paid for from the SAVINGS of misspent funds Biden used. We are getting a 20% cut, the debt gets paid a 20% cut and we use the rest rightfully.
My advice, for the moment, is to not engage in futile actions.
Would you rather use financial prosperity as a way to encourage voting for the party that provided that financial prosperity, or would you rather Democrats control the Congress?
Keep digging, Deep State, keep digging...
Diana, we can multitask.
Option 1. DOGE saves a trillion dollars and that money is disbursed to citizens.
Option 2. DOGE saves a trillion dollars and that money is handed to the corrupt politicians of the Deep State because they swear on their grandmothers’ graves that they will “pay down the national debt” with it.
I sent my, ‘Uncle Sugar Covid Checks’ to FR. :)
Well, I guess we’re not serious about paying down the debt. Throw money back to the taxpayers and tack the cost back to the govt. Dumb.
Sorry. It’s in my nature to be debt free; wish America would do the same! We have this ONE OPPORTUNITY to FINALLY knuckle down and get this mess cleaned up. So, I’m stickin’ with that. No pandering to anyone with any ‘found’ Taxpayer Dollars, IMHO.
I COULD live with a tax break of some sort, once the DOGE dust settles. That would help people that are actually working for a living. That might turn some hearts and minds in our direction.
Certainly NOT tired of WINNING, so there’s that! :)
(Debt free and retired at 56; I highly recommend it!)
Given most citizens pay no tax, this is just another giveaway, and is completely irresponsible.
If it is is given to everyone who paid at least $5K in taxes during 2023-2024, it’s fine.
Although I’d prefer they balance the budget.
I could use a few grand, but I’d prefer to see the debt paid down.
IT really has to apply to all of us.
MILLIONS are not having to file returns now due to current structure of reporting & NOT having to DETAIL all deductions allowed.
WE are on SOC SEC-—which is not huge due to the fact that we worked-—but never made huge amounts of $$$$.
MY first full time job in a GOOD office setting paid me $1.30 an hour. The MOST I ever made was $20 an hour-—and I was self employed.
I had clients who needed their bookkeeping done & did’t need a full time bookkeeper. I never got paid OVERTIME & I did NOT charge travel time. Some clients I saw once a MONTH-—some a couple of times a WEEK-—some weekly-—some only quarterly. Worked out of my home OFFICE-—Never paid rent.
I was single & always paid a high rate of income taxes.
The income tax needs to be eliminated and replaced with a consumption tax.
“If it is is given to everyone who paid at least $5K in taxes during 2023-2024, it’s fine.”
They said it’s for net taxpayers, meaning only those who actually paid, excluding the EITC types.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.