The promise landed with the force of a campaign-trail thunderclap, packaged in the kind of simplicity that always makes people pause: a $2,000 dividend for every working family, paid straight from the revenue of aggressive new tariffs. The idea sounded clean, sharp, and almost elegant—money flowing back to the people, a closed loop where America taxed foreign goods and handed the spoils to its own citizens. At least, that was the pitch.
But beneath the applause lines and viral clips, the reality was already buckling under its own weight.
In the weeks following the announcement, analysts across the political spectrum did the math publicly, loudly, and with increasingly sharp tones. Tariffs had generated money, yes, but nowhere near enough to sustain the sweeping promise being televised across the country. Billions had come in—less than half of what the proposal needed—but most of that revenue was already locked in legal disputes, frozen behind injunctions and tied up in a bureaucratic maze that even seasoned policymakers struggled to explain.
And the courts were circling.
