We aren't getting $2,000 checks
Numbersense for tariffs
The $2,000 per person checks "funded by tariffs" do not make sense.
The math doesn't work. For simpler math, I'd take the U.S. population to be 300 million. Multiply 300 million x $2,000, and we get $600,000 million, or $600 billion.
Are there $600 billion of tariff money to spend? Of course not.
The U.S. government collected about $200 billion in 2025 (link) but wait, a chunk of that number comes from tariffs that existed before. The incremental Trump tariffs amounted to ~$120 billion.
After four years, they will still be more than $100 billion short.
This is assuming every dollar of "revenue" can be spent: there is no cost of setting up and administering the tariff system.
(Note: If they distributed the whole $200 billion, instead of the incremental $120 billion, they must somehow raise $80 billion from somewhere, because that money would have been spent, since the U.S. government runs a gigantic deficit.)
Sure, they already said they will exclude "high earners". We can turn this around. Let's say they get $500 billion to spend. That works out to $500,000 million / $2,000 = 250 million checks. Around 20% of the population will not get them.
This calculation assumes they send checks out on the last day of Trump's term. Otherwise, if they issued checks in 2026, they would be spending money they didn't have.
They can also bait and switch, and ultimately give $2,000 checks only to the poorest Americans. Kind of like retailers who say "sale up to 50%" except you can find only one item at half price.
Even if we buy snakeoil from these people, the whole tariff business still makes no sense.
Because Americans will then spend the $2,000 "windfall" on groceries, and everything else with rapidly inflating prices - primarily caused by these tariffs!
Imagine this scenario: Uncle Sam forces McDonald's to pay additional taxes (i.e. tariffs) amounting to 20% of revenues. McDonald's immediately passes the additional cost to consumers, raising the Big Mac price by 20%. Uncle Sam takes the incremental taxes, and sends Big Mac coupons to Americans, who then go to McDonald's to buy the iconic burgers at the new higher price with the coupons covering the 20% tax-related price hike.
Nothing of value has happened. McDonald's profits stay the same since the incremental revenues from the price hike counteracts the additional taxes paid to Uncle Sam. The fiscal situation with the U.S. government do not change, since all incremental tax receipts are immediately paid out. The consumers effectively do not feel the tariff-related price hike. So, what's the point?
Interestingly, McDonald's may like this arrangement because its revenue line gets inflated. I suppose the U.S. government can call this nominal GDP growth.
(Note: For reasons explained in this prior post, if McDonald's raised prices by the tariff rate, Uncle Sam's collected tariffs would in fact not be sufficient to cover the entire price hike.)
