President Donald Trump reiterated on Tuesday during a Cabinet meeting that he is planning on sending out tariff-derived payments to Americans and stressed that income tax refunds will likely increase next year as White House officials pivoted to an affordability message.
“We are going to be making a dividend to the people,” the president said, projecting higher revenues from the tariffs. “As time goes by … those numbers are going to go up.”
About a month ago, Trump floated the idea of providing $2,000 tariff-derived payments to low- or middle-income people, although Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said that it would require Congress to act. Some Republican lawmakers have signaled that they may not support the tariff-derived payments and said that revenues from the administration’s import taxes should go toward paying down the national debt.
“The cost of those is going to be really astronomical,” Norman said in an interview with Fox News last week, responding to whether he supports the tariff dividends. “I think we need to worry about taking some of this money and actually paying down our debt.”
Johnson was more blunt in an interview with Fox Business, saying “we can’t afford it” in reference to the payments.
“We have to start focusing on that and doing something about” the national debt, he said.
The comment from Trump comes as he and other administration officials in recent weeks have pivoted to focusing on the U.S. economy and affordability issues, coming after Democrats posted wins in New Jersey, Virginia, and New York City during the off-year elections last month.
Several administration officials, including Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, deployed an affordability message during Tuesday’s White House meeting.
Also Tuesday, Vice President JD Vance said that the Democratic framing around affordability is overblown, and he pinned the blame on the previous administration. He said that it would be “preposterous” to expect the White House to fix all economic issues over “the past 10 months.”
“Why did homes get so unaffordable? Because he had 20 million illegal aliens” purchasing or taking those homes, Vance said at the meeting.
Since the November election, Trump has been speaking more about the economy and affordability. He also issued an order slashing tariffs on beef and other food commodities while saying that the economy is better and consumer prices are lower than reported by the media.
The tariffs broadly imposed by Trump this year are currently being considered by the Supreme Court after the administration appealed lower court rulings that found the administration was not empowered to impose the duties under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
At the same time on Tuesday, Trump said that his tariffs will mean that Americans won’t have to pay income taxes in the distant future.
“I believe in the distant future, you won’t have income tax. The tariff money is enormous. You get rid of it, or have it low. But you won’t be paying income tax,” he said.
