Conservatives would scream ‘bloody murder’ if Democratic president offered dividend to maintain power: Guy Benson

Washington Examiner columnist Guy Benson called President Donald Trump’s proposed $5,000 dividend a “disastrous idea.”“I am skeptical we’re ever going to see that, and I don’t think we should, frankly,” Benson said on Fox News’s Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy. Trump announced during the Republican National Committee midterm convention in Dallas that he would give out $5,000 dividends if Republicans kept control of both chambers in Congress. A growing number of Republicans have already voiced skepticism or outright opposition to the more than $1 trillion idea, which would increase the national debt. “I was very supportive of President Trump’s agenda on tax reform and deregulation in the first term and again earlier this term,” Benson said. “The $5,000 so-called dividend, I think, is a disastrous idea. It seems very desperate.” Trump told CBS News that he didn’t believe congressional approval was required to hand out the dividends, which Benson said was “unconstitutional.” Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said he would assume the president would need Congress to pass his proposal, calling it a “creative idea.”“It’s inflationary,” Benson said. “I think if a Democratic president said, ‘I’m going to mail checks of five grand to every American if you guys keep my team in charge,’ conservatives would be screaming bloody murder, and there’s no reason to defend this, in my mind.”‘TRUMP DIVIDEND’ CHECKS MEET MOUNTING GOP RESISTANCEBenson said the key things he’s looking at is enthusiasm in turnout and which direction independents seem to be heading, neither of which looks optimistic for Republicans. What Republicans do have in their favor to “keep the party in the game” is the divide within the Democratic Party with the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America, Benson said.“I mean, they are way, way out of the mainstream in so many of these races, there’s this hostile takeover effort from the DSA-types,” Benson said. “They don’t know what to do about it. It’s a scary bunch with ruinous ideas.”