{"id":78808,"date":"2026-09-17T10:55:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T15:55:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/17\/trumps-5k-checks-could-join-stack-of-past-unfulfilled-promises-former-congress-budget-chief-warns\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T10:55:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T15:55:18","slug":"trumps-5k-checks-could-join-stack-of-past-unfulfilled-promises-former-congress-budget-chief-warns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/17\/trumps-5k-checks-could-join-stack-of-past-unfulfilled-promises-former-congress-budget-chief-warns\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s $5K checks could join stack of past unfulfilled promises, former Congress budget chief warns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>President Donald Trump&#8217;s latest cash promise to Americans is unlikely to come to fruition, just like others before it, an economist and former congressional budget hawk told Fox News Digital.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So the president has promised a lot of checks, the most recent being $5,000 to every American if Republicans hold on to the House and Senate. We ever going to see these? Well, I don&#8217;t think so,&#8221; said Douglas Holz-Eakin, president of fiscal policy think tank American Action Forum.<\/p>\n<p>Holz-Eakin previously served as the director of the Congressional Budget Office and as the director of domestic and economic policy for late Republican Sen. John McCain&#8217;s 2008 presidential campaign.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/foxnews.com\/media\/trump-defends-waiting-5000-checks-praises-beautiful-tariffs-ingraham-angle\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>TRUMP DEFENDS $5,000 DIVIDEND PROPOSAL, PRAISES &#8216;BEAUTIFUL&#8217; TARIFFS ON &#8216;INGRAHAM ANGLE&#8217;<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The <a href=\"https:\/\/foxnews.com\/category\/politics\/doge\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">DOGE<\/a> checks were never realistic because DOGE was never going to save that much money,&#8221; said Holz-Eakin in reference to the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency&#8217;s sweeping layoffs and budget cuts to federal agencies.<\/p>\n<p>He continued: &#8220;And the tariff checks were never that realistic because [Trump] didn&#8217;t have the authority to issue the checks, and that&#8217;s actually true of all of these promises.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Holz-Eakin also mentioned the Trump administration&#8217;s recently proposed plan to give $9,000 checks to stay-at-home mothers likely won&#8217;t come through either.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Trying to get money to stay at home moms for childcare, there&#8217;s a route to that, but it&#8217;s gonna be tough &#8230; we&#8217;ll see if they actually pull it off,&#8221; he said. &#8220;So, I would be skeptical that any of these checks are gonna be in your mailbox very soon.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The internationally-known economist likened the Trump administration&#8217;s fiscal policy to that of former President Joe Biden&#8217;s Democratic administration.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think we&#8217;ve seen two successive administrations get themselves in the following position: inflation is too high and wages aren&#8217;t keeping up with it. Well, that&#8217;s failing at the American dream,&#8221; Holz-Eakin explained.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/fed-threw-wrench-trumps-midterm-economic-message\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>THE FED JUST THREW A WRENCH IN TRUMP&#8217;S MIDTERM ECONOMIC MESSAGE<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>He said that getting inflation under control was the first step in restoring order, as well as being &#8220;utterly supportive&#8221; of <a href=\"https:\/\/foxnews.com\/opinion\/alan-greenspan-built-unleashed-massive-modern-federal-reserve\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the Federal Reserve<\/a>, which Holz-Eakin says is working to achieve that goal.<\/p>\n<p>The Fed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/fed-threw-wrench-trumps-midterm-economic-message\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">hiked interest rates Wednesday<\/a> for the first time in three years, and signaled that more rate increases could be coming. This comes despite Trump&#8217;s push to have the world&#8217;s most powerful central bank lower interest rates to lessen the monthly burden on Americans seeking home and auto loans.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Inflation remains elevated,&#8221; the Federal Open Market Committee said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxbusiness.com\/economy\/federal-reserve-interest-rate-decision-september-16-2026\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">post-meeting statement<\/a>. &#8220;Today\u2019s policy action will support a timelier return to the Committee\u2019s 2 percent goal. The Committee will deliver price stability.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You need to have, I think, a more vibrant economy, and this economy is doing okay, but it&#8217;s putting up with a lot of headwinds,&#8221; said Holz-Eakin.<\/p>\n<p>He named specific Trump administration policy decisions he says are to blame for the lackluster economy, which has burdened the middle class as grocery prices continue to rise.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The first headwinds were tariffs, second headwinds were the oil prices and <a href=\"https:\/\/foxnews.com\/politics\/pelosi-dems-former-rep-mtg-dogpile-trump-inflation-iran-war\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">fight with Iran<\/a>, and we need to get past those battles, and let the economy just go, and &#8230; that would be a better environment for the families,&#8221; he told Fox News Digital.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/foxnews.com\/opinion\/congress-spends-7-trillion-heres-math-works-100\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>CONGRESS SPENDS $7 TRILLION. HERE\u2019S HOW THAT MATH WORKS OUT IF YOU THINK OF JUST $100<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>As for overall fiscal policy, Holz-Eakin says he&#8217;s worried that the country is going in the wrong direction when it comes to economic and fiscal policy.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m a former director of the Congressional Budget Office. I have to every day get up and look at the books and wonder, &#8216;how&#8217;s this going to add up?'&#8221; he said. &#8220;And right now it doesn&#8217;t add up.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re $41 trillion in debt. The deficit is $2 trillion every year and it&#8217;s getting larger. You can&#8217;t just keep putting people on the on government programs. It won&#8217;t add up.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He proposed a fix \u2014 reverting to &#8220;old-school conservative&#8221; politics.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;d like to see a bit of a U-turn that got the debt under control, didn&#8217;t spend quite so much money, and got through this without having to raise our taxes. So, that sounds like an old-school conservative plan to me, but that&#8217;s not what we&#8217;re seeing right now.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment on Trump&#8217;s economic promises, but did not hear back at time of publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Donald Trump&#8217;s latest cash promise to Americans is unlikely to come to fruition, just like others before it, an economist and former congressional budget hawk told Fox News Digital. &#8220;So the president has promised a lot of checks, the most recent being $5,000 to every American if Republicans hold on to the House and &#8230; <a title=\"Trump\u2019s $5K checks could join stack of past unfulfilled promises, former Congress budget chief warns\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/17\/trumps-5k-checks-could-join-stack-of-past-unfulfilled-promises-former-congress-budget-chief-warns\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Trump\u2019s $5K checks could join stack of past unfulfilled promises, former Congress budget chief warns\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78808\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}