Personal Finance

Will GA Residents See DOGE Stimulus Payments? What To Know

President Trump favors the notion of giving $5,000 back to taxpayers as a "DOGE Dividend" from Elon Musk's government efficiency department.

GEORGIA — Is a stimulus check headed to Georgia taxpayers? President Donald Trump said he favors the idea of giving some of the projected savings from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency back to U.S. taxpayers as a dividend.

The president said his administration is considering a concept to return 20 percent of the savings produced by DOGE’s cost-cutting efforts to Americans and another 20 percent to compensate the national debt.

DOGE advisor and Azoria Investment Firm CEO James Fishback pitched the idea of a "DOGE Dividend" on X, formerly Twitter, based on the department's anticipated $2 trillion in savings.

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Musk wrote on his social media platform Tuesday that he “will check with the President."

Speaking at an investment conference Wednesday in Miami, Trump said the potential for dividend payments would incentivize people to report wasteful spending.

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“They’ll be reporting it themselves,” he said. “They participate in the process of saving us money.”

These efforts to shrink the federal government and slash spending have lead to massive layoffs and budget cuts across a number of agencies.

Fishback later told NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo that the dividend program is "totally reasonable," and checks would be dispersed in 2026 after DOGE hits its target.

“This isn’t a handout," Fishback told Cuomo. "This was taxpayers’ money that was sent to D.C. in the first place. It wasn’t sent to D.C. to then be quickly sent to Myanmar for a DEI musical or Colombia for a transgender opera.”

Some financial experts criticized the idea, saying it would drive prices even higher. Preston Brashers, a research fellow for tax policy at the Heritage Foundation, said it was a "bad idea" to send out dividend checks.

"The dividend we get from slashing spending is that it brings inflation into check," he said in a social media post. "But if the government sends out stimmy checks, inflation will come back with a vengeance.”

Fishback pushed back on inflation concerns, saying that tax-paying households would be more likely to save that payment.

The initiative would require approval from Congress to redistribute the savings.

This article contains reporting from the Associated Press.

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