Donald Trump pledged Wednesday to send every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections, an extraordinary gambit to reverse his party’s sagging fortunes in November.

The dubious promise would likely cost more than $1 trillion and require congressional approval, and would further exacerbate the country’s nearly $1.8 trillion annual budget deficit and concerns about inflation.

  • Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca
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    7 days ago

    Sorry, I’m apparently unfamiliar with how democracy works. You are allowed to pay people to vote for you?

    • Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      7 days ago

      I guess technically he’s just running on a “give every American adult 5k” platform ? Of course I wouldn’t put it past him to try to only give them to GOP voters

    • Snowies@lemmy.zip
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      7 days ago

      If you convince enough wealthy people apparently “democracy” means you can just do whatever you feel like.

    • humanspiral@lemmy.ca
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      7 days ago

      You are allowed to pay people to vote for you?

      No, and this is a violation. Either paying $5k dividend is a good or bad idea. Congress will vote on it. You can’t say that it is only a good idea if Nazis keep control of congress.

    • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
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      7 days ago

      Yep. This is how Doug Ford is Premiere of Ontario. He literally went into low income housing and gave out $20 bills.

    • the_armchair_potato@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Yeah, democracy, according to the Americans . They also allow their “leader” to make “executive” decisions like a dictator 😆.

    • Bytemeister@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      Short answer : no.

      Long answer : legal doesn’t really matter when Congress and the SC are in your pocket and refuse to hold you accountable for explicitly breaking the rules over and over again.

    • InputZero@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      Yes, but it depends on how you do it. For the USA, if it were following its own laws, which it’s not, Trump can not give every person $5000 if the Republican party holds a majority in the House and Senate. That’s because following the laws the House would need to appropriate the funds first, pass that, send it through the Senate, have it pass there, then be signed by the president. In a normal America, the President can say they will pressure Congress to appropriate the funds and pass it but it can’t be a unilateral decision.

  • Wilco@lemmy.zip
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    7 days ago

    This asshat raised my taxes $8500 a year and wants to give me $5000 one time? Yea, sure. Sadly MAGAts will fall for it again.

  • StrutTower@discuss.online
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    6 days ago

    Just making the offer of money for votes is a federal crime. You don’t even have to actual do it. But of course no one in power has the balls to do anything.

  • hoppeduponcoffee@lemmy.zip
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    7 days ago

    How’s the national debt and stagflation, Don?

    Take your $5k and shove it up your ass. Tossing us crumbs to distract us from your total disaster of a presidency.

    What an economic moron.

    • CADmonkey@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      The real economic morons are the ones who are excited that they are getting $5k if the repubs stay in congress.

      • hoppeduponcoffee@lemmy.zip
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        7 days ago

        And this. $5k means nothing with stagflation and worsening conditions for workers, no plan to address climate change, massive economic inequality, out of control healthcare costs, ballooning deficit due to insane, needless military spending, disgusting fascism, blatant corruption. etc.

        $5k is like two months rent for some people. Okay, what then? Back to the same old usual shit.

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Yeah $5k for every American with no new taxes is just a massive burst in inflation. It can be done strategically in a situation like covid where the economy needs to be maintained from collapse due to a temporary situation of no work, but that’s about it.

      In a depression you spend money, but you do it by making jobs to get nice to haves.

  • Thebeardedsinglemalt@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    They bought his cheap made in China maga clothes

    They bought his $500 dollar gold sneakers which turned out to be trash

    They bought his expensive ecd knife which turned out to be gas-station-knife quality

    They bought his crypto which turned out to be pump&dump and lost money

    They bought gold phone which turned out to be plastic and 2 years out of date

    They’re buying the minted coin which they lose money on

    Something tells me they’ll still fall for this one thinking it will be the one that’s genuine.

  • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    7 days ago

    I mean, Trump’s entire life could be described as writing checks with his mouth that he can’t actually cash.

    He literally loves going bankrupt.

    https://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/trump-king-of-debt-224642

    “I’m the king of debt. I’m great with debt. Nobody knows debt better than me,” Trump told Norah O’Donnell in an interview that aired on “CBS This Morning.” “I’ve made a fortune by using debt, and if things don’t work out I renegotiate the debt. I mean, that’s a smart thing, not a stupid thing.”

    “How do you renegotiate the debt?” O’Donnell followed up.

    “You go back and you say, hey guess what, the economy crashed,” Trump replied. “I’m going to give you back half.”

    Clinton blasted Trump’s economic views in a speech on Tuesday, accusing him of gambling with the full faith and credit of the United States by flirting with a default on the debt.

    “That could cause an economic catastrophe, and it would break 225 years of ironclad trust that the American economy has with Americans and with the rest of the world,” Clinton said. “Alexander Hamilton would be rolling in his grave. You see, we pay our debts.”

    I mean, rare Hillary W, but uh yeah, we’ve known for 10 years what his plan here was… it’s been really obvious the whole time, actually.

    Anytime a Republian mentions fiscal responsibilty, you have my permission to do debt collection for the tooth fairy, from their face.

  • humanspiral@lemmy.ca
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    7 days ago

    He also said the war would end right after the mid terms. Unclear if that is also “conditional” on GOP holding senate.

    The big problem with the promises is why not do these now? Does he expect democrats to be the ones blocking ending the war, or “radical lunatic left” $5000 dividend cheques? There are no Republican stooge voices supporting either plan.

    It’s not as crazy as destroying global and US economy IF Federal reserve (fresh stooge appointed) doesn’t decrease rates, but rates are going up mostly because of Trump senility and credibility problems. Yesterday’s promises are just more threats to Americans if they don’t behave.

    Media GOP stooges, all of them, failing to press Trump and other stooges, on why make any of these policies conditional on election results is part of their corruption.

    While relief for Americans will never happen, ending the war timing is extremely puzzling. To actually get gas on a path back down to $2/gallon, it needs to be a victory declaration that permits Iran to toll the free flow of oil from the region. That would help GOP in mid terms if done now. A much more violent end of the war, involves US military losses, and long term destruction of regional infrastructure, and ultra high oil prices for years, that would cause voter disapproval if done before elections.

    • lonefighter@sh.itjust.works
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      6 days ago

      The bribery is awful. The “ending the war” is beyond words evil.

      “If you vote for my people, I will stop murdering citizens of another country that have no say over what happens in this country”

      How do you even begin to articulate the depths of cruelty in that statement? How can a human be so evil?

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Note that he never promised those dollars to be US dollars. Re-watch it if you don’t believe me. It could be e.g. 5000 Guyanese Dollar. They even have a nice 5000 dollar note, which would buy you a McDonalds “meal”.

    • gigaqps@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      Finding some “well actually” loophole is a 2000s kind of lie. In today’s post truth society you just make false statements and ignore people who call you out on it

    • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      Re-watch it if you don’t believe me.

      Why on earth would I not believe you? Nobody legitimately makes the distinction unless it’s ambiguous, and to Trump’s tapioca pudding brain, it’s far from ambiguous because the US dollar is the only dollar that exists.

      This is a weird attempt at a gotcha, when the reality is that he has no intention of fulfilling this promise and no intention of justifying his failure to do so. If the GOP retains control of the legislative branch, the checks will never be mentioned again.