00:00 Speaker A
I wanted to ask you about, um, President Trump’s comment on social media over the weekend that everybody’s going to get two grand, um, because of the tariffs. And it seems like then there was some commentary from Treasury Secretary Bessen who said, Oh, he just means the the tax savings you got from the from the one big beautiful bill. He doesn’t mean an actual check. I I mean, what are we to make of that comment?
00:32 Speaker B
Uh, I don’t think it’s any secret that the president really liked the rebate checks that went out during his first term. And to put this into some context for you, back then at the height of COVID, when we passed a $1,500 tax rebate and $500 for children, that cost $292 billion. If you want to do two tho- $2,000 for everybody now, it’s going to cost upwards of $450 billion. And it’s a rebate check because we’re all paying the tariffs. And just for reference, the tariffs have brought in $89 billion under the IEEPA statute this year. So, neither the tariffs will pay for this nor will anything else unless you want to raise taxes elsewhere. So, it’s a non-starter of an idea. I think we should expect the president to include it in his fiscal year 26 budget, which will come in February, but we should not be counting on $2,000 checks from the president next year.