{"id":374680,"date":"2025-11-13T00:05:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T00:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/374680\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T00:05:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T00:05:16","slug":"2000-tariff-rebate-checks-50-year-mortgages-making-sense-of-trumps-new-affordability-proposals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/374680\/","title":{"rendered":"$2,000 tariff rebate checks? 50-year mortgages? Making sense of Trump’s new ‘affordability’ proposals."},"content":{"rendered":"

On Nov. 4, Democrats swept the major races in this year\u2019s elections, delivering a check on President Trump\u2019s second term \u2014 and a negative verdict on his economic leadership so far<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ever since, Trump has been trying to figure out how to regain the upper hand on cost-of-living issues. Asked about voter perceptions of an “affordability crisis,\u201d he dismissed<\/a> them as \u201ca con job by the Democrats,\u201d insisting that polls showing otherwise<\/a> are \u201cfake\u201d and that America now has \u201cthe greatest economy we\u2019ve ever had.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to hear about the affordability,\u201d the president said.<\/p>\n

But at the same time, Trump\u2019s actions may be speaking louder than his words<\/a>. In recent days, he\u2019s announced a flurry of policies designed to ease the pressure on household budgets. Here\u2019s everything you need to know about the president\u2019s three biggest proposals.<\/p>\n

50-year mortgages<\/p>\n

What is Trump proposing? <\/strong>On Saturday, Trump took to his Truth Social network to post side-by-side portraits<\/a> of himself and Franklin D. Roosevelt beneath the banner \u201cGreat American Presidents.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under FDR were the words \u201c30-year mortgage.\u201d And under Trump? \u201c50-year mortgage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two days later, Fox News\u2019s Laura Ingraham asked<\/a> Trump whether a 50-year mortgage was \u201creally a good idea\u201d to lower housing costs that are \u201cstill out of reach\u201d for many Americans.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not even a big deal,\u201d Trump replied. \u201cYou go from 40 to 50 years\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c30 years,\u201d Ingraham interjected, correcting the president.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom 30 \u2014 some people had 40 \u2014 and now they have a 50,\u201d Trump continued. \u201cAll it means is you pay less per month. You pay it over a longer period of time. It\u2019s not, like, a big factor. It might help a little bit.”<\/p>\n

Where is this coming from? <\/strong>Politico reported<\/a> on Monday that it was Bill Pulte, Trump\u2019s Federal Housing Finance Agency director, who \u201ctalked the president\u201d into floating a 50-year mortgage plan \u2014 without consulting Trump\u2019s \u201cblindsided\u201d policy aides.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Pulte] just sold POTUS a bill of goods that wasn\u2019t necessarily accurate,\u201d one source familiar with the situation told Politico. \u201cHe said \u2018FDR did it, you can do it, it\u2019s gonna be a big thing.\u2019 But he didn\u2019t tell him about all the unintended consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Housing costs have indeed soared in recent years. Since 1991, the average age of first-time U.S. homebuyers has risen from 28 to 40, according to the latest data from the National Association of Realtors<\/a>; they now need to earn \u201c$112,131 per year to afford the median priced home \u2014 roughly $25,000 more than the typical household makes<\/a>.\u201d Meanwhile, mortgage rates have more than doubled since 2020<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A 50-year mortgage aims to address housing affordability by giving borrowers two extra decades to repay the bank. The longer you have to pay off your home loan, the lower each monthly payment can be.<\/p>\n

What do experts say? <\/strong>Experts point out two downsides of a 50-year mortgage. The first is that\u00a0 mortgage payments also include interest \u2014 so the more payments you have, the more interest you pay (especially in the early years of a loan, when almost the entire payment is interest).<\/p>\n

In fact, estimates<\/a> show<\/a> that a 50-year borrower would pay about twice as much interest as a 30-year borrower over the course of their loan. For most U.S. homebuyers, that equals a few hundred thousand extra dollars.<\/p>\n

The second drawback is that many borrowers would never reach the point where they own their home outright. If you\u2019re 40 now, a 30-year mortgage would mean you stop making payments when you\u2019re 70 \u2014 with years of retirement ahead of you. A 50-year mortgage, however, would mean you continue making payments throughout retirement \u2014 and only stop when you\u2019re 90.<\/p>\n

For the record, many<\/a> prominent<\/a> MAGA<\/a> Republicans<\/a> have objected to Trump\u2019s proposal for these very reasons. “I don\u2019t like 50-year mortgages as the solution to the housing affordability crisis,\u201d Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote on X.<\/a> \u201cIt will ultimately reward the banks, mortgage lenders and home builders while people pay far more in interest over time and die before they ever pay off their home. In debt forever, in debt for life!”<\/p>\n

Could it actually happen? <\/strong>According to ABC News<\/a>, \u201cthe Qualified Mortgage rule within the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Consumer Protection Act<\/a>, passed to protect consumers after the 2008 financial crisis, currently does not allow the federal government to create a 40 or 50-year mortgage, so President Trump would have to find an innovative way to bring his mortgage plan to life.\u201d<\/p>\n

$2,000 tariff checks<\/p>\n

What is Trump proposing? <\/strong>For months, Trump has mused<\/a> about sending every American a \u201crebate\u201d from what he has described as the “trillions of dollars” in tariff revenue his administration has collected since imposing broad new import levies earlier this year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The president revived that idea in a Nov. 9 Truth Social post<\/a>, claiming that his tariffs are bringing in \u201cTrillions of Dollars\u201d that will \u201csoon\u201d be used to \u201cbegin paying down our ENORMOUS DEBT,\u201d adding that \u201ca dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone.”<\/p>\n

The following day, Trump vowed<\/a> that his administration would first pay $2,000 to “low and middle income USA Citizens” and then use the remaining tariff revenues to “substantially pay down national debt.”<\/p>\n

Where is this coming from? <\/strong>Trump has long considered tariffs a cure-all for the U.S. economy, vowing that they will stop foreign governments from \u201cripping us off<\/a>\u201d \u2014 and since taking office in January, he implemented them on a scale not seen in the U.S. in almost a century. According to the Yale Budget Lab<\/a>, America\u2019s current overall average tariff rate is 18%, the highest since 1934.<\/p>\n

The administration has proposed various other uses for this new tariff revenue, including reducing the country\u2019s deficit and offsetting the cost of the GOP tax and spending bill<\/a> Trump signed into law in July. But $2,000 rebate checks have taken center stage after the party\u2019s big 2025 Election Day losses<\/a>, with the administration now \u201cexploring all legal options to get that done,\u201d according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.<\/p>\n

“The White House is committed to making that happen,” Leavitt told reporters Wednesday<\/a>. \u201cI don\u2019t have a timeline for you or any further details, but I can confirm for you that the president made it clear he wants to make it happen, and so his team of economic advisers are looking into it, and when we have an update, we\u2019ll provide one.\u201d<\/p>\n

What do experts say? <\/strong>Experts note that Trump\u2019s current tariffs are already costing U.S. households anywhere from $1,600 to $2,600 per year in the form of higher prices, according<\/a> to independent<\/a> estimates<\/a>. So one way to put more money in people\u2019s pockets would be to remove them.<\/p>\n

Barring that unlikely scenario, Erica York, the Tax Foundation\u2019s vice president of federal tax policy, estimated in a Nov. 9 X post<\/a> that Trump\u2019s proposal \u2014 which she framed as a $2,000 tariff dividend for all 150 million U.S. adults earning under $100,000 per year \u2014 would cost nearly $300 billion.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s more than the $216 billion in net revenue that Trump\u2019s tariffs will generate in 2026, according to the Tax Foundation\u2019s projections, and more than the $120 billion they\u2019ve generated so far.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget<\/a> has calculated that Trump\u2019s tariff checks could cost $600 billion if they are \u201cdesigned like the COVID-era Economic Impact Payments<\/a>, which went to both adults and children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Could it actually happen? <\/strong>A $2,000 tariff dividend check would require congressional approval \u2014 and lawmakers have already passed on that idea, according to Joseph Rosenberg, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center.<\/p>\n

When members of Congress approved the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in July, “they had the ability to include a tariff dividend, but they didn\u2019t,” Rosenberg told Politifact<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has speculated about a possible workaround: issuing the tariff dividend in the form of tax credits rather than direct payments.<\/p>\n

“It could be just the tax decreases that we are seeing on the president\u2019s agenda: no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, deductibility of auto loans,” Bessent told ABC News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Direct health care payments<\/p>\n

What is Trump proposing?<\/strong> In another Truth Social post<\/a>, this one from Nov. 8, Trump wrote that he was “recommending to Senate Republicans that the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars currently being sent to money sucking Insurance Companies in order to save the bad Healthcare provided by ObamaCare, BE SENT DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE SO THAT THEY CAN PURCHASE THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER, HEALTHCARE, and have money left over.”<\/p>\n

Trump elaborated a few days later, telling Ingraham that “instead of going to the insurance companies, I want the money to go into an account for people where the people buy their own health insurance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s so good,\u201d he promised. \u201cThe insurance will be better. It’ll cost less.”<\/p>\n

Where is this coming from? <\/strong>The recent government shutdown centered, in part, on health insurance.<\/p>\n

Subsidies that have long lowered the cost of health care plans purchased through the Affordable Care Act are set to expire in January, which would cause premiums to spike dramatically for millions of Americans.<\/p>\n

Democrats wanted those subsidies extended as part of any bill to end the shutdown. Republicans said they were willing to discuss the subsidies, but only after the government reopened. A group of Senate Democrats eventually agreed to end the shutdown after Republicans promised a December floor vote on legislation that would extend the subsidies.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s proposal for direct health insurance payments is seen as a signal of support for the emerging GOP alternative: redirecting ACA subsidy funds into flexible spending accounts (FSAs) or health spending accounts (HSAs) that let people set aside money before taxes to pay for out-of-pocket medical expenses, such as deductibles and copayments.<\/p>\n

What do experts say? <\/strong>Experts tell Politico<\/a> that such accounts would give consumers more choices \u2014 while also sending the ACA into a potential \u201cdeath spiral.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHealthy people could get much cheaper insurance that has medical underwriting and doesn\u2019t cover preexisting conditions, but that would leave much sicker people in the ACA pool, and likely send it into a death spiral,\u201d said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF, a nonpartisan research organization.<\/p>\n

The argument here is that if \u201cyounger, healthier consumers choose such so-called junk health plans \u2014 with lower costs and less robust coverage \u2014 or don\u2019t use the money for health insurance, it could throw off the balance of risk and prompt insurers to exit the market entirely,\u201d according to Politico.<\/p>\n

Experts are also skeptical that giving cash directly to Americans to purchase health care \u2014 rather than giving it to health insurers in the form of subsidies, like the ACA \u2014 will \u201cbend\u201d the overall cost curve. Typically, consumers don\u2019t have all the price data they need to shop around and find the most cost-effective plans.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea that consumers will be more cost-sensitive and make good choices is really overblown,\u201d Robert Kaestner, a research professor at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, told Politico.<\/p>\n

Could it actually happen? <\/strong>Senate Majority Leader John Thune has promised Democrats a vote on subsidies by the second week of December. It\u2019s unclear whether that means multiple votes on competing Democratic and Republican proposals or a bipartisan approach.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana says he\u2019s crafting FSA legislation, while his colleague Rick Scott of Florida says he\u2019s working on HSAs. The big difference between the two types of accounts is that unused HSA funds roll over from year to year; FSA funds expire. HSA funds can also pay for a broader range of services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Nov. 4, Democrats swept the major races in this year\u2019s elections, delivering a check on President Trump\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":374681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[112157,93837,64,18978,180358,14606,1807,5200,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-374680","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-affordability-crisis","9":"tag-bill-pulte","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-laura-ingraham","12":"tag-mortgage-plan","13":"tag-mortgage-rates","14":"tag-president-trump","15":"tag-truth-social","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115539471431722267","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}