GOP Economic Advisor Tells Fox Trump’s $5K Pledge Would Be ‘Disastrous’ For The Country

GOP economic advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin told Fox News on Saturday that President Donald Trump’s pledge to give $5,000 to every American adult would be “disastrous” for the U.S. economy.

Trump made the pledge at the GOP midterm convention in Texas this week, saying, he would send out the checks if Republicans win the midterms and keep control of Congress. The idea was immediately slammed by conservatives like National Review’s Charles C. W. Cooke, who said the giveaway would be “morally, practically, and politically catastrophic.”

On Fox News’s The Journal Editorial Report, host Paul Gigot closed out Saturday’s show by asking Holtz-Eakin — a well-respected economist who served President George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) — about Trump’s “so-called dividend.”

“Do you have to?” Holtz-Eakin quipped.

“I have to!” Gigot said. “Because I just — forget the politics — just about the pure economics of it. If every American adult got a $5,000 check would that help the economy?”

“That will be a disastrous economic misstep,” Holtz-Eakin answered. “That will be about $1.2, $1.3 trillion, a bit smaller than the ill-begotten American Rescue Plan that the Biden administration launched in 2021, which gave us the inflation we’re still fighting. That would be a terrible mistake. We’d have big inflation pressures, the fed, its hand would be forced, it would have to raise rates, and you’d run the risk of simultaneously having inflation and recession.”

“No thanks!” Holtz-Eakin added.

Despite the uproar from Republicans blindsided by Trump’s proposal, the president doubled-down on his pledge Friday, writing on Truth Social, “The $5,000 Trump Dividend, given to all Adults in the United States due to the fact that our Country is taking in Trillions of Dollars of Economic Development, Investment, and Pure SUCCESS, is being criticized by ‘Dumocrats’ who are hoping that it never happens — But it will!”

Trump continued:

As an example, the Dumocrats said THE GREAT BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL, one of the largest ever approved by Congress, or signed into Law by a President happened, despite the Dumocrats saying it would be impossible to get approved — Or the Gift of $1776 that I gave last year to our Military, was an almost guaranteed Non Starter, everyone said it could not be done, but it was, our Military Patriots got the money, and loved it. When I say something, I mean it! The $5,000 Dividend will happen because the People of our Country deserve it. VOTE REPUBLICAN — MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! President DONALD J. TRUMP

Watch the clip above via Fox News’s The Journal Editorial Report.

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