{"id":467399,"date":"2026-09-18T01:42:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T01:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/467399\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T01:42:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T01:42:15","slug":"trumps-5000-dividend-resembles-the-playbook-of-leftist-argentine-politicians-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/467399\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s $5,000 dividend resembles the playbook of leftist Argentine politicians \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, President Trump announced<\/a> his intention to pay every American adult $5,000 if his party wins the House and the Senate in the upcoming midterm elections. \u201cIf the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000,\u201d Trump said, calling the move the \u201cTrump Dividend.\u201d<\/p>\n

The announcement was widely criticized, with some calling it<\/a> \u201cincome redistribution\u201d and \u201csocialism<\/a>.\u201d But Americans weren\u2019t the only ones condemning the proposal. In Argentina, many<\/a> realized<\/a> they had seen a similar move in 2023 when Sergio Massa, then economy minister and Peronist presidential candidate, unveiled a plan that essentially sought to buy votes before the presidential election. Trump is using a similar strategy to one that helped push Argentina to the brink of economic catastrophe, risking America\u2019s economic future.<\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve argued<\/a> before, many of Trump\u2019s policies resemble those of the Kirchnerist government that held power in Argentina for almost two decades. The Kirchnerist government\u2019s tenure culminated in 2023 under President Alberto Fernandez and Vice President Cristina Kirchner, with 211%<\/a> annual inflation largely due to their obscene fiscal irresponsibility.<\/p>\n

Some of that fiscal irresponsibility rested with Massa. Among other inflationary measures, Massa unveiled a plan to bribe voters two months before the 2023 election: his \u201cPlan Platita\u201d (\u201dLittle Money Plan\u201d). It essentially consisted<\/a> of handing out money to voters via one-time payments to most workers, bonuses for retirees and the unemployed, tax cuts and exemptions for some, expanded food card benefits, and price caps on tens of thousands of products, among other measures.<\/p>\n

Some estimates claim<\/a> that the plan came to over 1% of Argentina\u2019s GDP. With no access to credit markets, the government financed the plan by printing pesos\u2014 flooding the economy with new currency, driving down the peso\u2019s value and driving up prices. Economists at the time warned<\/a> that the plan was a \u201csign of desperation\u201d and a short-sighted attempt to sustain buying power temporarily amid high inflation. They predicted that it would worsen economic problems, and they were right.<\/p>\n

Massa\u2019s plan was perceived at the time as an attempt to buy votes and keep Kirchnerism in power. Critics similarly called Trump\u2019s plan a \u201cbribe<\/a>\u201d intended to keep Republicans in Congress. Massa\u2019s plan differed from Trump\u2019s in that it wasn\u2019t contingent on winning the election; Trump\u2019s approach is more brazen. Massa\u2019s plan was also broader, not a one-time check but a set of costly measures.<\/p>\n

But like Massa\u2019s plan, Trump\u2019s proposal is irresponsible and divorced from reality, as even some conservatives have noted<\/a>. The \u201cdividends\u201d would cost $1.2 trillion, according to a Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget report<\/a>. \u201cDeficits would rise from a projected 5.8% of GDP this year to 9.4% in 2027,\u201d it suggests.<\/p>\n

Massa ended up financing his plan with monetary emission<\/a>. Where is the money for Trump\u2019s plan coming from? Vice President JD Vance said<\/a> it would come from tariff revenue. \u201cAll of these tariffs \u2026 those penalties have generated a lot of revenue.\u201d But Vance\u2019s vague explanations don\u2019t add up.<\/p>\n

\u201cRevenue from tariffs, which are really just taxes on Americans, will not come close<\/a> to covering this proposed expenditure,\u201d explains<\/a> journalist Eric Boehm. \u201cTariff revenue has been in negative territory<\/a> in recent months as the Trump administration issues refunds for the illegal tariffs it levied last year.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vance also appears to acknowledge that the proposal would redistribute wealth: He says the administration wants to ensure that \u201cwealth is going to go back to the American people,\u201d echoing Kirchnerist rhetoric<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Massa\u2019s expensive plan to buy votes failed; it was one of the reasons why he lost the presidential runoff to Javier Milei, a fiscally conservative, pro-free-market, self-described libertarian candidate. Argentines did not avoid catastrophe\u2014inflation was astronomically high at the end of 2023\u2014but they voted the Kirchnerists out of office and narrowly escaped total collapse.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The U.S. economy is not nearly as bad as Argentina\u2019s was in 2023, but proposals like Trump\u2019s inch it closer to trouble. And America now faces a problem: What\u2019s the alternative to fiscal recklessness when the so-called \u201csmall-government\u201d party is escalating that recklessness and the Democratic Party is just as irresponsible<\/a> and short-sighted?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no meaningful difference between \u201cleft\u201d and \u201cright\u201d on fiscal discipline. Even if Trump\u2019s plan never materializes, it shows that his administration is willing to use public money for campaigning and gamble the country\u2019s fiscal future, just as the leftists in Argentina did. Americans should heed the warning before their country goes further down that path.<\/p>\n

Agustina Vergara Cid is a columnist for the Southern California News Group.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week, President Trump announced his intention to pay every American adult $5,000 if his party wins the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[975,2082,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-467399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-opinion","tag-opinion-columnists","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}