President Donald Trump told reporters Tuesday that sending $5,000 to every adult if Republicans keep Congress would “work out very easily,” but he did not say how, and tariff revenue alone won’t cover the cost.
A single round of payments would cost over $1.2 trillion, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Customs duties, the revenue Trump has pointed to, brought in $194.9 billion after refunds in fiscal 2025 and $167.3 billion in the first 11 months of fiscal 2026, according to Treasury’s Monthly Treasury Statement. The Tax Foundation estimates Trump’s new tariffs will net about $125 billion in 2027, about a tenth of the dividend’s cost.
U.S. national debt is $40.26 trillion as of Wednesday.
“It would take almost a decade of collections from the tariffs to cover the cost,” Tax Foundation senior economist Erica York wrote in a Sept. 10 analysis of the new tariffs.
Collections rose under Trump’s worldwide trade overhaul. On a calendar-year basis, customs duties went from $79 billion in 2024 to $264 billion in 2025, according to the Tax Foundation. Then the refunds started.
The government began returning duties to importers after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in February, in Learning Resources v. Trump, that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize the president to impose tariffs. Through August, the government collected $292.5 billion in customs duties in fiscal 2026 before refunds and returned $125.2 billion of it, compared with $6.7 billion returned over the same period a year earlier, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement. Net receipts went negative in June and July, meaning the government paid back more than it took in those months.
Tariffs imposed under other authorities were not affected by the ruling, including Section 232 duties on autos and metals and Section 301 and Section 338 duties imposed this summer. But the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates the Section 301 and 338 tariffs together replace less than 60% of the revenue lost.
Trump has said he may not need Congress. House Speaker Mike Johnson says otherwise. Asked on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sept. 13 whether the president needed lawmakers to act, Johnson said, “I would assume, yes, he’d need Congress to act, and that’s a creative idea.” The same day, on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Johnson declined three times to commit to the payments, saying only, “I commit that Congress will work through it and find consensus.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told Fox News Digital the proposal “smells very much like a reconciliation issue,” and said Republicans had not heard of it before Trump announced it. House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md., told the same outlet any such plan “would have to go through Congress.”
No bill has advanced beyond committee. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., introduced the American Worker Rebate Act in July 2025 to authorize tariff rebates; it has sat in the Finance Committee since, with no co-sponsors and no action. A competing measure from Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., introduced in March, remains in the same committee with eight Democratic co-sponsors. Neither chamber returns until Nov. 9, and government funding expires Dec. 11.
Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, said in a Sept. 10 post on X that he would have a bill ready to pass immediately after the Nov. 3 election. He told Fox News Digital the payments would be funded by what he called a market access fee on foreign goods, a structural tariff companies would pay to sell in the United States, and that the money could be spent only in this country. His office told The Center Square the bill will not be public until after the election and declined to say whether draft text exists.
The Center Square asked the four congressional leaders and both tax-writing committees whether the administration has sent Congress a proposal, what revenue would cover the cost, and whether the executive branch could issue the payments without an appropriation. The offices of Johnson, Thune, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Senate Finance Chairman Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and House Ways and Means ranking member Richard Neal, D-Mass., did not respond to those questions.
The Center Square called the Ways and Means majority press office and the office of House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and left contact information; neither responded. The White House, asked for a timeline on when funding details would be released, sent a statement that did not address the question. Treasury did not answer whether it has the legal authority to pay dividends from tariff revenue without an appropriation when asked in September and again this week.
Trump has pointed to an earlier payment as proof the dividend will work. Asked Tuesday how he would deliver the checks, he cited “1776 for our military,” a reference to the $1,776 “Warrior Dividend” he announced Dec. 18 for more than 1.45 million service members. Trump said at the time the payments were funded in part by tariff revenue and the One Big Beautiful Bill.
A Pentagon official later confirmed to The Center Square that about $2.6 billion came from a $2.9 billion housing allowance appropriation in that bill, leaving roughly $300 million for the housing needs Congress had funded.
“It was wrong to take the $2.9 billion from the Housing Allowance to pay the bonuses and then claim it came from tariffs,” Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., told The Center Square in April.
Trump has sent direct payments to Americans before, but not on this scale. The $1,776 military payment came from a housing allowance Congress had already appropriated. The $500 Obamacare refunds going out to nearly 1 million people draw on a surplus of exchange user fees the administration says accumulated under Biden, according to a Sept. 10 White House fact sheet. The $90 Medicare rebate reaching 20.8 million beneficiaries this month comes from the Medicare Improvement Fund, created by Congress in 2008, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Each of those payments drew on money Congress had already appropriated or collected. A $5,000 payment to every adult would cost far more than all three combined, and no funding source has been identified. Trump’s earlier proposals for rebates funded by Department of Government Efficiency savings and for a $2,000 tariff dividend were never paid.
