Bribes or payments?

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.