Thursday, during Fox News Channel’s coverage of the Republican National Convention in Dallas, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) weighed in on President Donald Trump’s proposed $5,000 dividend payment to Americans.
Cruz said he preferred the proposal be structured like a tax refund during an interview with FNC host Jesse Watters.
“Would you vote for a $5,000.00 check?” Watters asked.
Cruz replied, “Well, look, it depends how it’s structured. You know, I would like to see it structured as a tax refund. A tax refund. There are about 270 million adult citizens across the country. Most of them are working. If you’re working, you’re paying income taxes. You’re paying Social Security taxes. I would be all for structuring it as a tax refund, but I think we should be incentivizing work. I don’t think we should be paying people that are not working, particularly those that are physically able to work, but choosing not to. We’ve got close to full employment, and so I think as Republicans, we want to be doing everything we can to encouraging people to work to provide for their families, and I could easily see something like that passing.”
Watters interjected, “So, for working Americans, you’d vote yes for a $5,000.00 check because they’re saying this is bribery. Isn’t this their money?”
“Well, if it’s a tax refund, it most definitely is their money, and that’s the power of it,” Cruz responded. “And by the way, the opposite. If the Democrats win, number one in terms of spending, they will spend much, much more than this tax refund would be. They would spend trillions if you had Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries in charge of the spending, but number two, they want to jack up taxes. I mean, it’s the opposite. They want to rob the taxpayers and you look at — we passed the biggest tax cut in American history last year. No tax on tips. I authored that bill. You want to talk about making a difference for millions of waiters and waitresses and taxi cab drivers and barbers and bartenders and women at nail salons and it is impacting people who matter. I tell you, when my barber found out I had written that bill, he literally ran across the shop and gave me a high five.”
“You put on top of that no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security,” he added. “Millions and millions of Americans are benefiting from that. And what is the Democrats’ position? They want to jack up your taxes on all three.”
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