President Donald Trump this weekend floated directly paying Americans for their health care costs and giving out $2,000 dividends from tariff revenue, ideas that administration officials later said were not formal proposals being sent to the Senate.<\/p>\n
In one Truth Social post on Saturday, the president wrote<\/a>, \u201cI am recommending to Senate Republicans that the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars currently being sent to money sucking Insurance Companies in order to save the bad Healthcare provided by ObamaCare, BE SENT DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE SO THAT THEY CAN PURCHASE THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER, HEALTHCARE.\u201d<\/p>\n The following day, he again posted<\/a> that Republicans should give money directly to people\u2019s health savings accounts, which allow people to save pretax money that can be used for certain medical expenses.<\/p>\n Referring to his tariff agenda, Trump wrote<\/a>, \u201cWe are taking in Trillions of Dollars and will soon begin paying down our ENORMOUS DEBT, $37 Trillion. Record Investment in the USA, plants and factories going up all over the place. A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that the president\u2019s recommendation to Senate Republicans on health care was not yet fully worked out.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t have a formal proposal,\u201d Bessent told ABC\u2019s \u201cThis Week,\u201d adding, \u201cWe\u2019re not proposing it to the Senate right now, no.\u201d<\/p>\n Bessent said any such proposal was contingent on ending the government shutdown, which on Monday will stretch into its 40th day.<\/p>\n \u201cThe president is posting about it, but again, we have got to get the government reopened before we do this. We are not going to negotiate with the Democrats until they reopen the government. It\u2019s very simple,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Kevin Hassett, the director of the National Economic Council, similarly downplayed the idea on CBS News\u2019 \u201cFace the Nation\u201d Sunday morning.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s brainstorming and trying to help the Senate come up with a deal that can get the government open,\u201d Hassett said.<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody believes that people should have health care, and so why not take the people who have higher health care premiums and just mail them a check and let them decide,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Hassett said the idea hasn\u2019t been widely discussed within the Senate or the Trump administration.<\/p>\n \u201cThe president started this idea yesterday. I don\u2019t think that it\u2019s been discussed widely in the Senate yet. It\u2019s the weekend,\u201d Hassett added. The Senate remained in Washington over the weekend, gaveling into rare Saturday and Sunday sessions to continue discussions about how to end the shutdown.<\/p>\n Bessent was also asked on ABC about Trump\u2019s proposal to give people a $2,000 tariff \u201cdividend.\u201d He said he hadn\u2019t yet spoken to the president about it, but that it \u201ccould come in lots of forms.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt could be just the tax decreases that we are seeing on the president\u2019s agenda: no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, deductibility of auto loans,\u201d he said. \u201cSo those are substantial deductions that are being financed in the tax bill.\u201d<\/p>\n The idea of sending tariff rebate checks came up earlier this year as well.<\/p>\n After Trump in July said he would favor<\/a> sending tariff rebate checks to Americans, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., introduced<\/a> a bill that would provide $600 checks to American adults and children using tariff revenue. The Senate has not yet taken up that bill for a vote.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s posts came as Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill remained in a stalemate<\/a> over the ongoing government shutdown, with no clear path to a deal.<\/p>\n An NBC News poll released earlier this month found that Americans blame<\/a> Republicans more for the shutdown than they do Democrats.<\/p>\n Democrats swept Tuesday\u2019s elections, winning by larger-than-expected margins in key races in New Jersey and Virginia. Exit polls found that voters in those states generally disapproved of Trump\u2019s job<\/a> in office so far and were sour on the state of the U.S. economy.<\/p>\n Since then, Trump has doubled down on his insistence that the economy is strong. In one of the Truth Social posts on Sunday, the president wrote, \u201cPeople that are against Tariffs are FOOLS! We are now the Richest, Most Respected Country In the World, With Almost No Inflation, and A Record Stock Market Price. 401k\u2019s are Highest EVER.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, the posts this weekend seemed to be an acknowledgment that Republicans may need to do more.<\/p>\n