The
Hill - President Trump is doing
everything he can to win favor with a dissatisfied electorate before the
midterms — including promising money. Speaking in San Antonio on Wednesday
evening, Trump repeated his pledge to send $5,000 to every adult American if
the GOP retains its narrow majorities in the House and the Senate.
Skeptics roll their eyes at the
proposal, noting that previous Trump promises about checks purportedly garnered
from tariff revenue and Department of Government Efficiency savings failed to
materialize.
Trump’s promise would also become
moot if Democrats merely win a majority in the House. The consensus among
political insiders in both parties is that they are highly likely to do so.
Nevertheless, voters can “count
on it” that the checks would arrive if the GOP pulled off a double-victory,
Trump promised the crowd in San Antonio.
Democrats don’t see the Trump
tactic as either serious or effective.
“In some places it might matter,
but in most places it won’t,” Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf told this
column. “In places where Republicans should do well, they’re being clobbered
right now. It would take a lot of checks for people to change their minds.”
…A plan is already in motion
sending $90 payments to more than 20 million people enrolled in Medicare Part
B. In a separate move, almost 1 million people are receiving $500 checks,
purportedly because they were overcharged under the terms of the Affordable
Care Act (ACA).
….Announcing the $90
Medicare-related payments in a social media post late last week, Trump wrote
that the money was intended “to help pay for [recipients’] Medicare Part B
premiums, which we have already reduced by significant amounts.”
He added that the money would
come from the Medicare Improvement Fund, which he derided as “a pointless
‘Slush Fund.’”
A separate fact sheet from the
White House said the fund “has been given $2 billion by Congress for the
purposes of making improvements to the Medicare fee-for-service program, but
has never before been utilized.”
….The White House has pushed back
against questions about the ethics of these actions, or whether they amount to
electioneering….Richard Painter, who served as the chief White House ethics
lawyer during former President George W. Bush’s administration, asserted that
the taxpayer-funded Trump-centric TV ads “definitely crossed the line. Those
were illegal. Those were propaganda.”
But Painter also characterized the pledge of the $5,000
checks in the event of a GOP midterm victory as “a stupid promise” rather than
an illegal one — even as he doubted that the president could get such a
windfall authorized by Congress.
And he seemed even more relaxed about the Medicare and
ACA-related payments.
