There's been a lot of enthusiasm for DOGE and their efforts to cut fraud, waste, and abuse in the government. People are loving it, feeling like there's finally action to get the house in order and not waste the money of the American taxpayers. That has great benefits for so many reasons. No longer spending on ridiculous things. Making everything more efficient. Truly using the money to serve the people, as it was meant to do. Take us back from the deficit/debt precipice, and pay that down.
Elon Musk on Hannity: “If the bureaucracy is fighting the will of the people. Then we live in a bureaucracy, not a democracy." pic.twitter.com/RS0PmArkxD
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) February 19, 2025
But now there's also talk of something else that people are going to like: a "DOGE Dividend."
The idea was outlined by entrepreneur James Fishback — that a portion of the money saved would go out to taxpayers as a refund.
President Trump and @ElonMusk should announce a ‘DOGE Dividend’—a tax refund check sent to every taxpayer, funded exclusively with a portion of the total savings delivered by DOGE. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/p5AZZj3Ttc
— James Fishback (@j_fishback) February 18, 2025
Fishback proposed that 80 percent of the savings go to paying down the debt, 20 percent of the savings, assuming that they were the $2 trillion that is the goal, would go back to the people.
The head of DOGE Elon Musk said he would talk to President Donald Trump about the idea, that it was up to him.
Will check with the President
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 18, 2025
Obviously, the President is the Commander-in-Chief, so this is entirely up to him
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 18, 2025
Jesse Watters loved it, he said if they did this, "If Trump were running for reelection, he'd win in a landslide.
Jesse Waters speaks truth on our DOGE Dividend Proposal for President Trump:
— James Fishback (@j_fishback) February 19, 2025
"DOGE Dividend checks aren't stimulus checks, like where we printed money and mailed them out.
These are savings. Costs us nothing. It's a dividend payment that Americans deserve. We'll take the… https://t.co/O7IkGrPpxF pic.twitter.com/1H1jzZqeP9
How could anybody be against that?How could Democrats fight that? Let's give hard-working families rebate checks from DOGE savings."
Now of course this would be a popular idea. It would also incentivize more people to report and want to work on ferreting out waste. The funniest thing would be to see Democrats try to attack this idea of the American people getting their misused money back. They would never win again.
But what was actually fascinating was how many people said some version of "Not until after we get the financial house in order." That of course is the most sensible response and the whole idea of the DOGE effort. It's great that Americans think that way.
Happy to do that once we balance the budget.
— Senator Ron Johnson (@SenRonJohnson) February 19, 2025
The waste, fraud, and abuse DOGE is uncovering should be used to reduce spending so we can balance the budget. https://t.co/VH7yS9rkMc
But all this has to be about reining in spending so it doesn't get out of control again as well.
DOGE has saved $55 billion so far according to the DOGE website and it's only likely to go up as they work their way through all the agencies. But if they are able to achieve the $2 trillion, that would certainly help to right the ship and that's the main goal.
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