During both his presidential terms, Donald Trump has longed to make Americans happy by mailing them checks from the government adorned with his own signature in case anyone wants to write him a thank-you note in the form of a vote. So it’s not surprising that his big idea for responding to the rise of “affordability” as a national political issue is to send out $2,000 checks , allegedly to be financed by his trade-war tariffs. Do people think tariffs boost consumer prices? Okay, then, here’s a rebate! Or a “tariff dividend,” as he calls it.

Now, that is very unlikely to come to pass for a variety of reasons. For one thing, Trump is vastly overestimating the tariff revenue that’s coming in. For another, his own administration and perhaps soon the Supreme Court are putting the b

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