THE WASHINGTON POST: Republicans say they didn’t know about Donald Trump’s $5K pledge until he announced it

Some Republicans are saying they are worried about the cost and inflationary impacts of President Donald Trump’s pledge to give American adults a $US5000 ($7000) dividend if the GOP maintains control of Congress after the midterm election.

While a few Republicans expressed enthusiasm - Senator Bernie Moreno said on X he will “get a bill ready” to get the dividend “passed immediately” after the election - a number of them expressed scepticism about Mr Trump’s promise.

Several lawmakers, including Texas Republican Monica De La Cruz, who is facing a competitive re-election bid, said Mr Trump’s speech was the first “we all heard about” the dividend proposal.

“We’re going to see what, actually, (and) how this plays out,” said Scott Singer (R-Florida), who also first heard about the dividends during Mr Trump’s speech and is running in a swing district.

“We’ll actually see the specifics, but I believe tax cuts are going to provide the benefits that we need.”

The White House failed to reach out to some House Republican leaders about Mr Trump’s pledge prior to the announcement, according to a GOP source familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private details.

Republican senators were also not substantively involved in preparing the dividends proposal and aren’t likely to campaign on the idea this fall, according to a strategist involved in Senate races who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorised to discuss internal deliberations.

When asked if Senate Republicans would have enough votes to pass a $5000 dividend, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (South Dakota) said “that’s a good question, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there” in an interview with Fox News on Thursday.

Mr Trump made the economic pledge in a Wednesday speech at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas.

“I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000,” if Republicans hold both chambers of Congress. He added that the dividend “must be spent in the United States of America.”

Such a proposal could add more than $1 trillion to the nation’s outsize debt, which recently surpassed $40 trillion. A cash infusion of that size for households could also exacerbate inflation, just as Federal Reserve officials are weighing whether to raise interest rates in an effort to bring down inflation, which has been rising due to the war in Iran.

“It’s an enormous proposal. … Congress would have to appropriate it to send those checks out, and then they would have to either borrow $1.5 trillion or raise $1.5 trillion in taxes, or some combination of that,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the conservative-leaning American Action Forum. “So none of that strikes me as particularly realistic, politically or legislatively.”

Texas Republican Chip Rom a fiscal conservative, wrote about the cost of the proposal in a post on X on Wednesday night.

“$5000 dividend for every adult citizen - it’s (back envelope) an FY27 cost of $1.2T,” Roy wrote. “Dear certain friends… deficits aside - you could almost ZERO out taxes for married parents of dependents up to $200,000 over 10 years!”

Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie, a fiscal conservative who lost his re-election bid to a Mr Trump-backed opponent in the primary, said in a post on X he was “insulted” by the notion his vote could be bought for $5000. “Not to mention the inflation this would cause. All things considered, I cannot in good conscience accept a penny less than 10k,” he joked.

Former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, once a Mr Trump ally, also criticised the plan in a post on Thursday morning, comparing it to “socialism.”

Soon after Mr Trump’s announcement at the convention, Vice President JD Vance appeared on Fox News seemingly reining in the pledge. He said Mr Trump was talking about a “dividend for American workers,” which could be a smaller group of Americans eligible compared with all American adults.

The Republican Party has long called for cutting federal spending and shrinking deficits. However, under Mr Trump’s second term, GOP lawmakers have passed legislative packages projected to add some $4 trillion to federal deficits over the next decade.

The proposal would probably face an uphill battle in Congress as fiscally conservative Republicans, including Roy, have been increasingly vocal about the need for the party to offset any new spending to avoid exacerbating deficits.

A spokesman for House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Mr Trump’s proposal or whether the president had discussed it with House leadership.

The White House did not respond to questions about where the money will come from or whether officials consulted Congress before introducing this proposal.

“President Trump has consistently proven his doubters wrong, drawing a clear contrast with the Democrats’ record of historic inflation, unfettered illegal immigration, skyrocketing crime, and weakness on the world stage,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in a statement to The Post. “With the continued support of the American people, President Trump will keep delivering real results.”

Some Republicans were more than eager to tout the president’s dividend.

Rep. Andy Harris (R-Maryland), the current chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, told The Post in a statement that he supports the proposal and suggested that Mr Trump’s $5,000 payment be delivered through legislation.

“This new effort by the President should be coupled with ongoing Republican efforts to fight huge amounts of waste, fraud, and abuse in federal programs - and returning a large part of those savings back to the taxpayers as a ‘waste, fraud, and abuse dividend,” he said.

Thompson reported from Washington. Isaac Arnsdorf in Washington contributed to this report.