Could Americans be in for a payday?
Elon Musk expressed interest in a proposal to use savings from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to give taxpayers a “DOGE dividend” payment.
X user James Fishback wrote a post that tagged Musk and outlined his plan to take 20% of the savings found by DOGE to send it back “to hard-working Americans as a tax refund check. It was their money in the first place!”
Fishback noted that if DOGE achieves its goal of cutting $2 trillion in federal spending, that would provide the 78 million taxpaying households in the U.S. with about a $5,000 refund or “DOGE dividend” per household, with the remainder used to pay down the national debt.
“Will check with the President,” Musk replied in response to Fishback’s post.
Although DOGE has set a high-end goal of $2 trillion in savings, Musk has suggested that $1 trillion in savings would be a success and explained that goal in an appearance with President Donald Trump on Fox News’ “Hannity” on Tuesday night.
“The overall goal is to try to get a trillion dollars out of the deficit,” Musk said. “If the deficit is not brought under control, America will go bankrupt.”
“This is a very important thing for people to understand. A country is no different from an individual, in that if an individual overspends, an individual can go bankrupt. And so can a country,” he said. “And the massive waste, fraud and abuse that has been going on, which is leading to a $2 trillion a year deficit.”
DOGE claims an estimated $55 billion in savings achieved to date from canceling certain federal leases and contracts, asset sales, fraud deletion, regulatory savings and workforce reductions.
Musk wrote in a post on Wednesday, “We need to balance the budget as first priority,” in a response to a post by Scott Adams that raised concerns the DOGE dividend could result in the government using the DOGE savings as a “piggy bank.”
By my calculations, 5 grand going to each of 78 million tax paying households would amount to 390 Billion dollars. That doesn’t seem feasible at this point. Even if DOGE manages to recover a Trillion, giving back 39% of it seems severe. How about we use it all to reduce the debt & help save the country from financial ruin.
Absolutely agree, Happy Warrior! Yes, the fraud and abuse STOLE American’s hard earned, hard paid taxes, but we have to get this country back on track, and have time to figure out where the savings should go. Some ideas my husband and I have considered are paying down our national debt, especially if we owe any countries, ESPECIALLY if said country is Russia, China or Iran. I don’t want to be beholden to countries that hate us. Another place money should be spent is on our military infrastructure, recruitment, arsenal, equipment, etc. to make sure we can defend ourselves and also other peoples whose freedoms are at risk. I’m sure there’s other great places we (America) could redirect these monies, but there’s a start. I mean, I’d LOVE to get an extra payment. We’re on fixed income and basically are annihilated and frequently have to sacrifice needed items so we can eat or put gas in the car to make it to the doctor. It’s very hard to make ends meet. But I’d rather spend the found monies to help save America, help defend America, and help make America great again! Go DOGE, Trump, Vance and Common Sense American Patriots.
ditto