Tariff 'Dividends' Today, UBI Tomorrow

At Forbes, Clyde Wayne Crews warns that Donald Trump's latest proposed wealth redistribution scheme -- his so-called tariff "dividend" checks -- are quite likely to usher in a new wave of entitlements at a time that the federal debt already poses a looming catastrophe:

We might like to see this as a one-off from Trump, but it wasn't the first time the idea surfaced; a similar notion appeared earlier as a DOGE dividend. And just as the left offered only muted criticism of Trump's partial nationalizations of private firms, they will not fundamentally object here either, even as they may engage in certain ritualistic performative pushback.

...

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reinforced the idea over the weekend, telling Fox News November 16,"We will see, we need legislation for that," while adding that "everything is on the table." His emphasis that the stipend is reserved for "working families" and subject to an "income limit" may sound restrictive, but it is music to the ears of any progressive eager to uplift those they claim Washington leaves behind -- even if it's Trump doing the singing. [links omitted, bold added]

Crews then elaborates a bit on the economic chicanery inherent in this proposal and the way Trump is claiming to pay for it -- things conservatives seemed to understand until about three minutes ago -- before continuing in the above vein:

As sketchy as the basic mechanics appear, worse still are the Tariff Dividend's dismal synergies with progressives' accumulated successes in discretionary and entitlement welfare payments that span nearly a century from the New Deal to several pilot projects during COVID. The biggest unspoken lesson of the 40-day shutdown was that even the GOP affirmed that SNAP payments are, to them, fully an entitlement -- not just in the technical budgetary sense, but politically. As with every other missed opportunity to use funding cliffs to shrink government, Republicans reopened a $7 trillion government while pleading the necessity of a welfare program they were supposedly resisting. "Millions ... missed their SNAP benefits," Leavitt said -- blaming Democrats rather than reflecting on why such a large portion of the public is dependent on the welfare state. [bold added]

And mark Crews's words: "... Trump's tariff dividend does more than nod in their direction; it fuses trade regulation and mass cash transfers into one 'entrepreneurial' package that future progressives will eagerly inherit."

Truth be told, conservatives have long routinely failed to reduce entitlement programs because they share the same moral premise, altruism, that animates the left.

The difference we see today is that since their leader is, for all practical purposes, a leftist. This means that instead of even token resistance to expansions of the welfare state, the Republicans are now even more eagerly expanding it.

Whatever predictable disaster this hastens, the Republicans will share the blame with the Democrats, to put it generously.

I recommend reading the whole lurid thing.

-- CAV