President Trump on Friday once again promised each American adult a $5,000 check if Republicans keep control of Congress after the midterm elections.
"When I say something, I mean it! The $5,000 Dividend will happen because the People of our Country deserve it. VOTE REPUBLICAN," he wrote on social media.
But the pledge is receiving bipartisan criticism from politicians, and economists are sounding the alarm. The proposal would cost the U.S. government over a trillion dollars, while the country is already carrying a $40 trillion debt.
Scripps News spoke with Veronique de Rugy, an economist at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, about the effects if the checks do go through.
"It's not much different than the checks that we cut people during the COVID epidemic. The COVID relief sent a lot of checks," de Rugy said. "What's very different is that we're not in an emergency at all."
RELATED STORY | Trump announces $500 refunds for nearly 1 million 'Obamacare' enrollees
"What is also different is that in general, when you put relief efforts during an emergency, there's this kind of understanding that actually the money will be repaid. In this case, the president is actually claiming we're going to have this paid with tariff revenue. But tariff revenues are not nearly enough to pay for this. So it will be borrowing and no one knows how it will be repaid for," de Rugy said.
Watch the full interview with de Rugy in the video above.
