The $5,000 DOGE stimulus that Elon Musk promised under President Donald Trump is slipping away from most Americans before a single dollar hits their bank accounts.
The plan, tied to the now-infamous government unit called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, was supposed to reward taxpayers with cash from federal cost-cutting. But the numbers have crashed, the rules have tightened, and more than half the country is now out of the running.
The idea was sold as simple: 20% of all government savings produced by DOGE would be returned to taxpayers. Elon said DOGE could save up to $2 trillion, which would mean $400 billion gets paid out, roughly $5,000 per person. That number is dead now.
In a meeting with Trump on April 10, Elon admitted savings for the year wouldn’t even hit 10% of that. DOGE is only on track to save $150 billion, dropping the possible payout to $375 per taxpayer. That figure didn’t last long either.
Elon lowers estimates again as checks shrink fast
The official DOGE website later updated the expected payout to just $1,000, using the same 161 million taxpayer base. That’s now the government’s public estimate. But even that’s only for those who qualify. And that number is shrinking fast.
The man who pushed the check idea into the DOGE plan is James Fishback, the CEO of investment firm Azoria. James pitched it as a reward for Americans who pay more into the system than they take out. “Checks would only be sent to tax-paying households,” James said.
Anyone making under $40,000 a year in adjusted gross income was out. He said most of them don’t pay much, if any, federal income tax. That knocks out about half of the country immediately.
James also explained why this wouldn’t be a regular stimulus. “Many low-income households saw transfer payments of between 25 and 30 percent of their annual income,” he said. That’s why DOGE checks are limited to what he called “net taxpayers” — people who owe nothing back and pay more than they get.
“They have a lower propensity to spend and a higher propensity to save a transfer payment like the DOGE Dividend,” James said.
Republicans push back while inflation concerns rise
Speaking in Wisconsin, Elon made it clear that the whole idea still needs political sign-off. “Whether the checks even get sent depends on Congress and maybe the president,” he told the crowd. That means even the $1,000 estimate is just floating in the air. Nothing has been signed. And every new conversation about it waters the plan down further.
Some Republicans want it gone altogether. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, said the country can’t afford it.
“We have a $36 trillion federal debt,” Mike said. “We have a giant deficit that we’re contending with. I think we need to pay down the credit card, right?”
Inflation warnings are also rolling in. Preston Brashers, a tax policy fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said sending out checks could light inflation up again. “It could come back with a vengeance,” he warned. But James doesn’t agree. He said that as long as the payments are “deficit-financed” and funded from savings already created by DOGE, there’s no reason for inflation to spike.
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