Trump’s $5,000 Down Payment On The Entitlement State

Donald Trump’s $5,000 “dividend” proposal to every U.S. adult should be taken seriously, not because the arithmetic has been worked out, since there isn’t any, but because of what the idea represents.

Trump equates the payout with a corporate distribution of profits in a cash dividend, even as the year’s federal deficit surpasses $2 trillion. Plenty have pointed out that the Trump dividend is unaffordable, but that’s not the issue. Much of what the federal government does is unaffordable, yet we do it anyway, so exorbitance is no deterrent.