As Congressman Cline makes some pathetic and half-hearted efforts to distance himself from Donald Trump in the final weeks of the 2026 election, let’s revisit the September 14 hearing of the House Rules Committee, where Cline and Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin testified as members of the House Appropriations Committee.
As reported at Cline Watch, Congressman Joe Neguse took the opportunity to expose Cline’s and the Republicans’ hypocrisy for their support of “anti-fraud” legislation
At the same hearing Cline underwent another humiliating round of questioning from Congressman Jim McGovern about Trump’s ridiculous plan to send a $5,000 check to every American adult– if Republicans keep control of Congress in the election.
As PBS reported:
Asked about how the government would pay for the dividend checks, Vice President JD Vance told Fox News that some of the money would come from tariff revenue.
Here’s what to know about the legal and economic barriers facing Trump’s promise.
The U.S. Census Bureau estimates there are about 245 million U.S. citizen adults. Giving each of them a $5,000 check would cost about $1.2 trillion.
…..
Trump promised to give Americans $2,000 tariff dividend checks last November. Checks never went out.
The Tax Foundation, at the time, published a report saying U.S. tariff revenue would not be able to cover the $280- to $607 billion cost of the dividend checks. The foundation estimated that Trump’s tariffs would generate about $158 billion in revenue in 2025 and $208 billion in 2026.
The analysis was made before the Supreme Court struck down most of Trump’s tariffs in February.
After the Supreme Court ruling, Trump imposed a global 10% tariff.
The cost of the $5,000 checks would spend “almost all the revenue that the new tariffs are projected to bring in *over a decade*,” Erica York, senior economist at the Tax Foundation wrote Wednesday in a post on X after Trump’s latest announcement.
In other words, it’s not going to happen, even if the GOP somehow does manage to keep their majorities in the House and Senate.
Asked– yes or no– if he supported the plan, Cline dodged and weaved as we’ve seen him do whenever he is confronted with uncomfortable questions. And he managed to blame current inflation on the Biden administration, which left office almost two years ago.
It’s another reminder of why he continues to dodge genuine debates with his Democratic opponent Beth Macy.
The questioning is worth watching in its entirety, including the final words from Congressman McGovern:
And by the way, the, the cost of the tariffs on the consumers has basically wiped out any benefit that regular people get. But I wanna, I wanna say this. I, I just want, I wanna make this point. This new promise to hand out $5,000 checks to every American, I think we all know is never gonna happen, just like some of his other promises. And I think it’s cruel. I think it’s really cruel. People are struggling, and I bet some families may hear the president promise them $5,000 and then actually plan around that money because they’d like to think the president is actually speaking the truth. You know, maybe they’re now planning to get that medical procedure that they otherwise could not afford or, or, or believe they will finally be able to pay off their credit card and have enough, uh, food to feed their family next month. It is wrong to make promises like that, and when it’s conditioned on the outcome of an election, I think it is outrageous and I think it is corrupt.
