The president’s proposal, unveiled in his nearly two-hour speech Wednesday night in Dallas, would carry a price tag exceeding $1.3 trillion if Congress were to authorize $5,000 payments to the nation’s 270 million adults.

The Treasury already is running a current annual deficit approaching $1.8 trillion, and the total national debt topped $40 trillion this year. According to Treasury Department data, that interest expense for fiscal year 2026 will come to about $1.27 trillion, similar to the projected cost of Trump’s idea.

The price tag prompts concerns about debt and inflation

Economists raised concerns about inflationary effects from such a large infusion of cash into the economy.

Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a center-right think tank, said Trump would be repeating the same policy mistake as his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden.

As part of his 2021 pandemic relief package, Biden provided $1,400 payments to most Americans, which Strain had warned at the time would spark inflation.

“But Mr. Trump’s proposal would be worse than the Biden stimulus in the sense that in 2026 the economy already has an inflation problem,” Strain said, while Biden’s policy was intended to shore up an economy disrupted by COVID-19.

“Trump would be pouring gasoline on lit inflationary embers and hoping it wouldn’t ignite,” Strain said.

At the center-left Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, senior policy director Marc Goldwein agreed with the comparison to Biden’s policy and emphasized the potential impact on the deficit.

“The idea that we’ve had fiscal success is backwards and bordering on laughable,” he said. “We don’t have surpluses to give away.”

The financial markets appeared to be unimpressed by Trump’s promise. Interest rates on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note climbed above 4.9% in Thursday afternoon trading, meaning that the cost of mortgages and auto loans will likely rise in ways that hurt the middle class.

Trump allies are faced with their own arguments

Many Republicans, including from Trump’s inner circle, are in a difficult spot after they’ve spent years blasting Biden and other Democrats for their spending.

As recently as last week, Vice President JD Vance and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent blamed Trump’s predecessor when asked about current price levels and consumer concern.

In the White House briefing room, Vance said at once that he was not interested in assigning blame while in the same answer noting “how endemic inflation became during the Biden administration.”

Bessent told CNBC that Biden and his allies “torched the American people” with their approach. “Almost 50 percent of the great inflation came from the out-of-control spending that went on then,” he argued.

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, one of Trump’s press secretaries during his first presidency, ran into the same conundrum Thursday — after the president’s speech — when she shared on social media her appearance on Fox Business Channel.

“You do not build a strong economy by giving things away,” Sanders said.

“At the end of the day, though, somebody has to pick up the check,” she continued, “and it’s the taxpayers that will ultimately pay the price.”

Goldwein said ultimately that political and constitutional realities could spare the president.

“You never want to say it’s impossible,” he said. “But within the confines of the law, at least the law as everybody understands it, the president does not have legal authority to send people $5,000 per adult, and he needs Congress to pass a law.”

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Barrow reported from Atlanta.

Bill Barrow, Lisa Mascaro And Josh Boak, The Associated Press