Trump says DOGE could return 20% of its savings directly to taxpayers.
CNN — President Donald Trump said he is considering a plan that would give 20% of savingsidentified by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)back to Americans, potentially complicating the country’s ongoing battle with elevated inflation.
“There’s even a — under consideration, a new concept where we give 20% of the DOGE savings to American citizens and 20% goes to paying down debt,” Trump said in remarks at the FII Priority Summit in Miami on Wednesday.
The idea of a so-called “DOGE Dividend,” a check sent to every taxpayer and funded with DOGE savings, was publicly floated on Tuesday by a user on Musk’s social media platform, X. Musk replied to the post that he would “check with the President.”
While Trump didn’t share specific details, the payout threatens to re-heat the US economy at a time when inflation has remained stubbornly above the Federal Reserve’s ideal target of 2% – it rose to 3% in January, the highest level since June 2024.
This wouldn’t be the first time that Americans received payments directly from the federal government. During the pandemic,more than 476 million payments totaling $814 billion went out to households.
During Trump’s first presidential term, qualifying Americans received $1,200 in March 2020 and $600 in December 2020. When former President Joe Biden assumed office in March 2021, another round of relief checks totaling $1,400 was sent out.
Just over one year after the final payments were sent, consumer prices in the US hit a 41-year high.
While multiple factors have led to America’s recent bout of inflation — including supply chain disruptions, pandemic-induced demand shifts and Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine — some economists blamed substantial government spending for overheating the economy.
Researchers at the St. Louis Fed estimated that government stimulus was responsible for 2.6 percentage points of the 7.9% annual inflation rate recorded in February 2022.
“Generous fiscal support contributed to an increase in the demand for consumption goods during the pandemic, but industrial production did not adjust quickly enough to meet the sharp increase in demand,” St. Louis Fed researchers wrote.
While the US economy is in a very different place than it was in the months after the pandemic when people stayed home and many businesses ground to a halt, the Fed is still battling post-pandemic inflation.
Consumer prices rose a half percentage point in January alone, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That was the largest monthly jump in prices since August 2023, a potentially troubling sign that inflation is going in the wrong direction.
In a Tuesday interview with Fox News, Trump blamed inflation on the Biden administration.
“Inflation is back,” Trump said. “I had nothing to do with it.”
Trump promised to tackle inflation on “Day One” of his presidency. But it’s not just “DOGE Dividend” checks that may derail that plan: Economists warn some of the Trump administration’s other economic priorities, such as tariffs and mass deportations, could stoke the price of everyday goods and services.
Still, some economists, say the battle against inflation can’t be won without bringing down the government’s debt.
The US national debt totaled $35.5 trillion in the 2024 fiscal year, a $1.4 trillion increase from 2023, according to the Treasury Department. Additionally, the US debt-to-GDP ratio rose by 2 percentage points in fiscal year 2024 from 2023, a sign the US debt burden is increasingly weighing on the economy.
Trump has claimed DOGE, which he created by executive order last month, was “saving taxpayers billions and billions of dollars every single day” by identifying instances of fraud and abuse in the government.
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CNN