On July 28, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, announced legislation that would provide Americans with $600 “rebate checks,” supposedly due to the vast swathes of money being collected from President Donald Trump’s tariff policy.

Hawley’s proposal comes just days after Trump suggested the idea himself. 

I shouldn’t have to remind a sitting senator, much less the president, of basic economics, but here goes. You can’t just hand out money; doing so is either inflationary or adds to the deficit. 

MAGA is hurting Americans’ wallets through tariff policy, and pretending as if the results have been so beneficial that we can afford to pay Americans a share of the benefit. All of this is an economically illiterate scheme to bribe voters, nothing more. It's not conservative fiscal policy. None of it.

Hawley’s proposal doesn’t function as a rebate because the government doesn’t have money to rebate. It's not as if Americans have paid too much in taxes, and the government is now returning those funds to their rightful owners. 

"Americans deserve a tax rebate after four years of Biden policies that have devastated families’ savings and livelihoods,"

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