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DOGE is considering sending all Americans $5,000 as a dividend on all the savings that have been achieved by firing, slashing and burning various government agencies. My question is what will you do with your $5,000?
If it sounds too good to be true, see:https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-mulls-giving-americans-165329483.html
Personally, do not care whether it happens or not, but the great-grand kids are going to need help down the road and my problem is dividing $5,000 equally by 6 (at the moment).
It’s the great-grand kids we should worry about if we don’t deal with the deficit and debt first .
Anyone who is opposed to this can write a check to the US Treasury and return the money. If fact, one can do this at any time and for any reason. As an opinion, I would prefer any “rebate” money be applied to the deficit. But it is a real button pusher and if that was the intention by DOGE then it worked.
The initial comment was not political, but some of the overheated replies denouncing its “political” nature were themselves very political.
I will worry about what to do with a $5K DOGE dividend if and when one is ever paid.
Remember any money that is distributed isn’t actually from savings. The money has to be borrowed, thus adding to the deficit.
I don’t usually plan for things based on political posturing.
Personally would prefer if they used all of that money to improve the SS system, it would pretty much help everyone, maybe reducing program changes so that they could move that off of the list of to-do items.
SS does not use general revenue. It was set up to be self funded via a designated tax. It would be a big mistake to get away from that and mix it with the general budget process.
I was thinking of it as a one time infusion of cash, not a recurring commitment. But on re-thinking, that could just push out the “fix by date” and be a bad thing. DC is deadline oriented.
Bad idea! The purpose of all the budget cuts was to reduce the US deficit.
I would donate it to the US wealth fund.
Both this post and too many comments like it lately, put it in the political category. This type of conjecture only serves to bait those who have a political axe to grind. At the very least, it has become biased, and maybe more emboldened.
Is Humble Dollar becoming an expanded version of “The View”?
In researching information for an article I wrote about early tv shows, the writer of many of the episodes of The Goldberg’s tv show, Gertrude Berg, attributed its success to the fact that the show’s episodes revolved around topics that “didn’t upset people”.
I usually ignore negativity and cynicism but there are a few commenters who name call and seem obsessed. Even when the topic is not political, they turn it around to get their digs in. It’s just not becoming, it could be they are just depressed.
the reason I posted this and asked the question was to have a conversation like we are having about whether the folks in Washington know what they are doing. I’m worried about the effects of all these decisions on our retirement.
Nick, you may not have meant it in a negative way, but you invited negativity. what will be, will be. You worrying about it has no bearing on anything. Write your congressman or congresswoman.
Our own Jonathan Clements has offered his opinion on articles and comments of this nature. His take is that we should all take a deep breath. In four years there will another administration that will make other decisions. I’d venture to say that most readers don’t know enough about what’s going on, or what is more worrying, the
repercussions that might follow certain decisions being made. If you only listen to CNN and MSNBC you see a very slanted view.
A prominent panelist on The View said they won’t even talk to Trump supporters. How in the world will we ever reach compromise if we refuse to talk to each other and just whine and complain about the other side, and worse – attempt to take another’s life.
If that is the case then I don’t see the relevance of asking us what we would do with the money.
You are right, I guess I wanted to hear what people thought about the idea.
If this should happen i would take it and add 45% to our FI bucket and 55% to our equity bucket less $100 for a nice dinner for two.
I’ll use it to buy food for my Meals on Wheels clients after DOGE cuts our funding.
Seems like a fun exercise…
Not the DOGE fantasy, but this month we really did have an extra $5k. It was from a generous gift from a relative at Christmas. Spouse had worked part time last year after retiring and had continued contributing to their 401k, so we decided to put this gift into my Roth IRA since I didn’t work last year. Chris
I may have misunderstood your comment, and if so I apologize. You need to have earned income in the year you make a IRA contribution, Roth or traditional. You could do a Roth conversion and use that $5000 to pay the income tax.
The current IRS Pub 590-A is my quick reference to questions such as are you eligible to make a contribution to a traditional or Roth IRA. Those of us that are regularity using quality tax software can get lazy as the software will test all the criteria to see if a taxpayer is eligible to make a IRA contribution and give preparers a diagnostic if we input claiming a IRA when not eligible.
For Roth’s see the eligibility information starting on page 37 of the attached.
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p590a.pdf
With taxes a favorite old saying of mine is “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. “ – Mark Twain keeps me humble. Back when I was working full time I kept the Twain quote taped to my calculator.
For clarity, the $5000 is considered income so I can use it to pay the tax on a Roth conversion
Spouse did have earned income. Thanks, Rick.
In before the lock!!
I would hand it out to the homeless on the streets in Atlanta or give it directly to a homeless shelter.
I Really didn’t want to get political and I don’t believe this will ever happen but I put this out there to see what the HD community thought of the illogical messages coming out of Washington these days.
This is 100% typical political maneuvering, which politician hasn’t floated ideas thru surrogates to measure how popular they may be and if they can help accomplish things. They all do it. You’re not describing the moment, you’re describing what’s always been.
This is too political. Do the math though. There are around 160,000,000 tax filers X $5,000.
We are $36 trillion in debt, $2 trillion annual deficit and growing.
How anyone can expect a dividend or a tax cut and future tax-free any kind of income is beyond my comprehension.
I hope I don’t get it, but if I did I’d donate to a charity.
Am I doing the math right? Would that amount to $800 billion? Almost a trillion dollars? You know, a trillion here, a trillion there….. Pretty soon your talking serious money.
Your math is correct. Maybe Quinn is adding interest?
I figure half to the local food bank and half for the 2026 senate race in NC. Although I would be tempted to send it back in protest.
Won’t happen. Musk is trolling you.
me and the American people.
It’s a bribe to make you think that what he’s doing is not so bad as long as you see some personal financial benefit. It is bad
Everything he does is transactional, and based on money, just like “the boss”.
Musk is the richest man in the world. He doesn’t need any money.