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KEY TAKEAWAYS
- A senator proposed legislation this week that would use tariff profits to send American households a stimulus check of at least $600 per family member.
- Rumors and proposals for a stimulus check have circulated this year, some stoked by President Donald Trump.
- The Senate proposal would have to be approved by both chambers of Congress, which may prove difficult.
After months of rumors and proposals, there’s been some movement toward getting a new stimulus check; however, it’s likely to be an uphill battle.
Senator Josh Hawley, R-Mo., introduced legislation to provide Americans with rebate checks using the profits from tariffs. The bill would use similar frameworks to the stimulus checks sent to Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic and would provide at least $600 for every family member in a household.
Rumors have circulated for months online that a new stimulus check was in the works. President Donald Trump and his former advisor, Elon Musk, eventually proposed sending a check of as much as $5,000 to Americans based on federal spending cuts initiated by the Department of Government Efficiency. However, that plan hasn’t come to fruition.
The federal government’s tariff revenue would fund Hawley’s proposed checks. Trump has supported this idea and said the revenue would be used to send a rebate to “people of a certain income level.”
However, this proposal has a long way to go before it becomes a reality, and the chances of both chambers of Congress passing the bill are uncertain.
Earlier this year, House Speaker Mike Johnson spoke negatively about the possibility of a DOGE stimulus check, saying the government needs to focus on the national debt. When talking about the tariff-related check proposal, Trump seemed to agree, saying, “The big thing we want to do is pay down debt.”
Tariffs at their current levels would raise about $2.2 trillion for the federal government over the next ten years, according to the estimates from the Yale Budget Lab. That’s only 6% of the current national debt of $36.7 trillion.
