CALIFORNIA — Is another stimulus check headed California taxpayers’ way? President Donald Trump said he likes the idea of giving some of the projected savings from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency back to U.S. taxpayers as a kind of dividend.
The president said his administration is considering a concept to send 20 percent of the savings produced by DOGE’s cost-cutting efforts back to Americans, and another 20 percent to paying down the national debt.
DOGE advisor and Azoria Investment Firm CEO James Fishback pitched the idea of a “DOGE Dividend” on X.com (formerly Twitter), based on the department’s anticipated $2 trillion in savings.
Musk wrote on his social media platform Tuesday that he “will check with the President.”
Despite what the president may want to do in terms of the money, Congressional approval is still required for any and all initiatives to redistribute federal savings. And as Forbes noted, there are “significant obstacles” related to a potential DOGE dividend, including understanding the economic impact it would have and legal challenges.
Speaking at an investment conference in Miami on Wednesday, Trump said the potential for dividend payments would incentivize people to report wasteful spending.
“They’ll be reporting it themselves,” Trump said. “They participate in the process of saving us money.”
These efforts to shrink the federal government and slash spending have lead to massive layoffs and budget cuts across a number of agencies.
Fishback later told NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo that the dividend program is “totally reasonable,” and checks would be dispersed in 2026 after DOGE hit its target.
“This isn’t a handout. This was taxpayers’ money that was sent to D.C. in the first place,” Fishback told Cuomo. “It wasn’t sent to D.C. to then be quickly sent to Myanmar for a DEI musical or Colombia for a transgender opera.”
Some financial experts criticized the idea, saying it would drive prices even higher. Preston Brashers, a research fellow for tax policy at the Heritage Foundation, said it was a “bad idea” to send dividend checks out.
“The dividend we get from slashing spending is that it brings inflation into check,” he said in a social media post. “But if the government sends out stimmy checks, inflation will come back with a vengeance.”
Fishback pushed back on inflation concerns, saying that tax-paying households would be more likely to save that payment.
The initiative would also require approval from Congress to redistribute the savings.
