Trump promises to distribute money to Americans if his party wins!
Author, Rafid Jabouri
Role, BBC correspondent in Washington
Published 4 minutes ago
Reading time: 4 minutes
Trump's announcement to grant every adult American citizen $5,000 if his party wins the elections came to represent a new surprising initiative by the US President.
Trump's Republican Party faces a difficult electoral situation in the congressional elections that will be held on November 3.
Opinion polls suggest that the rival Democratic Party will win the elections. These elections are known as midterm elections because they take place in the middle of the presidential term and there is competition for all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and a third of the 100 seats in the Senate.
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The party to which the president belongs usually loses in the midterm elections if the other party's voters tend to turn out more heavily.
The midterm elections are also a great opportunity for voters to judge the general situation in the country and the responsibility of the president and his party for that situation.
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Many Americans today consider that the situation is not good, especially from an economic standpoint. Therefore, many opinion polls suggest that the Democratic Party will seize the majority in the House of Representatives. He may even win a majority in the Senate. The Republican Party, Trump's party, currently has a slim majority in both chambers.
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The issue of the high cost of living has become the main issue in the elections. Although this issue was present two years ago when Trump won the presidency, and was even one of the most important reasons for his victory, the situation has not improved much since Trump returned to the White House.
The Iran war came to place a clear burden on the American economy, especially with regard to its impact on the rise in global oil prices due to Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and thus the rise in fuel prices in the United States.
All of these factors have led to rising expectations that voters will vote to strip the Republican Party of the majority and push it into the minority seats. If this happens, it will mean a strategic blow to Trump. Iran itself is counting on this to record that it has influenced the choices of American voters and achieved a political victory over Trump in his own backyard.
The rise of the Democrats to a majority, even if it includes only the House of Representatives, may also raise the issue of presidential impeachment of Trump for many reasons, most notably the way he conducted the war.
Based on all of this, Trump's move was an attempt to establish a direct financial link between him and the American citizen by announcing the grant of five thousand dollars to every adult American citizen, but there are political reservations and a legal dilemma facing Trump's promise. In general terms, it raises accusations that Trump is using his position to illegally financially entice voters to vote for his party.
However, Trump's position, despite being the most powerful position in the world, does not give its holder the authority to distribute American state funds in this way. The US Constitution limits government spending powers to Congress alone. When the president wants to spend anything, he must go to Congress to issue a resolution that will be an effective law specifying the amounts.
Only in this way will the president and his administration receive the money. Trump did not clarify whether he would go to Congress to request approval for his promise, but Republicans may agree, if they retain the majority, to facilitate Trump’s fulfillment of his promise, if they retain the majority.
Internal opposition in Trump's party
It was noteworthy that the objection to Trump's financial promise was not limited to his Democratic opponents, but that some Republicans also registered their objection. Some of them wondered where Trump would cover the amount needed to fulfill the $5,000 promise. The number of American adults is approaching two hundred and fifty million, and this means that the total cost of granting each of them five thousand dollars will exceed one trillion dollars.
This comes as the American public debt exceeds forty trillion dollars accumulates. The item on paying debt interest has become one of the largest items of public spending in the United States, and there is no clear horizon for amending that situation with the continuing deficit, meaning that the value of spending exceeds the value of income. In the midst of this, Trump made his promise to be added, if fulfilled, to the mountain of rising public debt.
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Trump's promise also raises the risk of stoking monetary inflation, in light of an atmosphere anticipating a rise in inflation due to the war and the rise in oil prices, which have affected Western economies in general, and they have not yet recovered from the crisis of the Ukraine war. Trump's speech coincided with the European Bank's decision to raise interest rates in anticipation of, or in response to, rising inflation, increasing tension over dealing with inflation in America itself.
Trump has long been pressuring the US monetary authorities, represented by the Federal Reserve, to lower interest rates. Trump wants this in order to accelerate and boost growth. But concerns about inflation and the reality of war seem stronger, making current expectations that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates. Giving every American five thousand dollars in these circumstances will likely raise inflation rates directly, and perhaps quickly.
