Roughly 245 million American adults at $5,000 each is a bit more than $1.2 trillion, and that is Larry Kudlow's arithmetic on the rebate President Trump promised in Dallas.
Most conservative commentary on the speech led with the jobs and manufacturing numbers in it. Kudlow gave his own show's opening monologue to the argument that one line about a $5,000 check had buried all of that, and his three panelists agreed with him.
"I don't think he quite made the sale he gets another shot and I think he needs it."
Doug Holtz-Eakin ran the Congressional Budget Office, the agency that scores proposals like this one, and now runs the American Action Forum. Steve Moore co-founded Unleash Prosperity, advised Trump, and was on the convention floor in Dallas as he spoke.
I listened to the full segment so you can skip it.
Here are the 8 arguments that matter.
👤 Guests: Steve Moore, co-founder of Unleash Prosperity and a former Trump adviser, on the convention floor in Dallas; Doug Holtz-Eakin, President of the American Action Forum and a former Director of the Congressional Budget Office; and Liz Peek, a Fox News contributor
🎙️ Host: Larry Kudlow, who anchors Kudlow on Fox Business weekdays at 4 p.m.
👥 Also on: Edward Lawrence, reporting live from the White House
📰 Published: 10 September 2026 on Fox Business, and on the Kudlow podcast feed
🟣 Apple Podcasts | 🔗 Episode page | ⏱️ 46 min
Key Takeaways
The $5,000 rebate would cost more than $1.2 trillion and buys no work or investment incentive, which is why Kudlow calls it a nonstarter
His arithmetic: about 245 million adults on 2024 census data, at $5,000 each
He says the same idea was floated before the 2018 midterms and went nowhere
Holtz-Eakin, who used to score proposals like this for a living, says Trump did not quite make the economic sale
What was missing, he says, is a Reaganesque explanation of why low marginal rates matter
Real median income rose $6,000 in Trump's first term and is up another $2,000 in this one, on Moore's numbers
Moore's fix: promise a growth dividend, not a check
Cato puts a Medicare-for-all and state-takeover platform at $200 trillion over 10 years
Moore says paying for that needs an 80% or 90% tax rate, not a 20% or 30% one
A 10-20-30 rate structure would be a business tax cut as much as a personal one
Holtz-Eakin: more than half of business income is taxed on individual returns, as pass-throughs
Moore wants capital gains indexed for inflation, and argues it would make housing more affordable
Moore took 25 calls from reporters about the speech, and every one was about the $5,000 check
1. The White House Carrots
Kudlow opened with Edward Lawrence at the White House, who laid out what the administration is offering voters before November.
The administration is returning about $500 per person to a million people — money the President says the Biden administration overcharged in Obamacare user fees
On top of that, Lawrence said, the President has suggested a $5,000 dividend for Americans if Republicans win both the House and the Senate in the midterms, alongside making the Trump tax cuts permanent
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget put the plan's cost at about $1.2 trillion, and Lawrence noted the President did not lay out how he would pay for it
Lawrence also flagged new messaging on gas prices — that they will fall after the 3 November election, and that the war will be over shortly afterwards
Democrats moved on the same ground the same day. Hakeem Jeffries released an ad on rising grocery, gas and health-insurance costs, which Lawrence played
On the counter-argument, Lawrence said real wages adjusted for inflation are up 0.6% under Trump, against a 1.4% fall across the four years of the Biden administration, and that the White House reads its own job as digging Americans out of a hole
2. Kudlow's Rebate Verdict
Kudlow spent his monologue separating the speech he liked from the proposal he did not. He praised the line "America belongs to those who love it" at length, then said the rebate had overshadowed the coverage of everything else.
His objection is structural rather than fiscal: a one-time demand-side rebate carries no incentive to work or to invest, and he argues it rewards not working, which cuts against the rest of the administration's policy
"And then you have to spend it in the United States which is unenforceable."
His cost arithmetic is the 245 million number. "But roughly 245 million adults, according to the 2024 census data." At $5,000 each that is a bit more than $1.2 trillion, with no pay-fors, no dynamic scoring and no Laffer-curve effect behind it
He said the same rebate idea surfaced just before the 2018 midterm elections and went nowhere. "I think this too will go nowhere."
He called it a shame, because in his reading Trump had otherwise made a strong case on the economy that the rebate line drowned out
The one piece of the speech he singled out for approval besides the patriotism line: telling the country that gas prices are temporarily high because Iran must never be permitted to have nuclear weapons, which he called straightforward and logical
3. The Cato $200T Number
Kudlow brought in a think-tank estimate to set against the affordability argument Democrats are running on, and Moore took it further.
Kudlow cited a recent Cato Institute piece putting Medicare for all and a state takeover of the economy at a $200 trillion price tag, and said he had not seen the underlying work himself
"200 trillion, not billion, trillion. That is over 10 years." — Moore, who said the number implies a tax rate of 80% or 90% rather than 10%, 20% or 30%
Kudlow's framing of why it matters: the affordability complaint is being made by the same people whose own platform carries that price, and "History proves that socialism goes hand-in-hand with bigotry."
He said he would like the President and the candidates to talk more about the number, and expected other research organizations to arrive at something similar
4. The 10-20-30 Tax Plan
The alternative Kudlow wanted in the speech was a middle-class rate cut, and he pressed each panelist on it by name.
His plan is three rates — 10, 20 and 30 — plus overall simplification. His worked example was a police officer married to a teacher whose combined income now runs to something like $150,000, and who he says should be paying 15% or 20% rather than 30% or 35%
Moore's counter-proposal is to sell the growth instead of the check. On his numbers real median income — the household in the exact middle of the distribution — rose by $6,000 in Trump's first term and is up another $2,000 so far in this one
"So why not say my economic growth policies will give you a growth dividend for $5000?"
"I do not like the $5000 checks being sent out either."
Moore also reported the room: he put the Dallas crowd at about 10,000 people, and said they began chanting for the USA during Kudlow's own monologue
Peek read the $5,000 line as improvised. Her account is that it popped into the President's head, that he does that, and that what he may have meant is that his policies taken together would leave a household about $5,000 better off — whether through rising median income or new tax incentives
Kudlow's own verdict on the idea was blunt, and he returned to the same complaint: that the coverage was now about the rebate rather than about anything else in the speech
5. Pass-Throughs Are The Prize
Asked to produce a tax reform package on air, Holtz-Eakin gave the standard supply-side formula and then made the point he said gets missed.
The mantra, he said, has always been to "lower the rates, broaden the base", and that at any one time the tax code can be made better
More than half of business income in the United States is reported on individual returns, as pass-throughs. So a 10-20-30 individual rate structure is a large business tax reform as well as a personal one
"It's a small businesses but that is the right place to look in this economy to strengthen the growth rate."
Kudlow agreed and restated it as small business being taxed through the individual income tax, which is what makes the individual brackets the lever
6. Index Capital Gains
Moore used his second turn to put a different measure on the table, one he noted Kudlow has raised on the show before.
He wants capital gains indexed for inflation, and argued it polls well with voters
His case for it is that it would be good for the economy, bring prices down and make housing more affordable, which is the ground the affordability argument is being fought on
The fairness argument is the one he led with: taxing a gain that is only the result of inflation is not a real gain
Kudlow's version of the same point: "That's right it's not fair for people to pay tax on Joe Biden's inflation."
7. The Boom He Wants Sold
Kudlow's own case for the economy ran through the second half of the segment, and it is the message he wants Republicans to campaign on instead.
He described it as an economic boom, a manufacturing boom and a construction boom that is becoming a jobs boom, and said the Atlanta Fed has the economy growing at better than 4%
"The President did say many, many times and so did Scott Bessent more people are working but it's over 162 million people."
The data-center build-out is the part he says the two parties split on. In his account the fastest-growing part of the economy is artificial intelligence and the data centers behind it, much of the manufacturing activity is tied to it, and Democrats want to suppress it
He pointed at labor unions as the tell: the electrical workers' union, he said, is telling Democrats to stop, because its members want the jobs. His framing is that Republicans are now the party working for blue-collar union labor
He asked Holtz-Eakin to look at the manufacturing numbers directly and noted the show did not have the trade representative's figures ready to put on screen
8. Did Trump Make The Sale?
Kudlow put the same question to each panelist, and none of them gave him an unqualified yes.
Holtz-Eakin said no, twice over. "I don't think he quite made the sale he gets another shot and I think he needs it." His two reasons were that the speech got muddied by the so-called dividend, and that something else was missing
"I think what is missing is a Reaganesque explanation to those who are somehow unfamiliar with how markets work" — why keeping marginal tax rates low matters, why letting people and markets make decisions matters, and a little teaching rather than only results
Kudlow accepted the point: "Reagan was a very good teacher."
Moore's answer was 80% yes. "I loved 80% of the speech but I must have had 25 calls from reporters today" — and all of them, he said, were about the $5,000 dividend, which he called off message
"Donald Trump is the blue-collar President with construction and manufacturing boom going on in this country" is the line he wants used instead
Peek agreed the rebate got in the way, called the patriotism line great and completely true, and said voters do not like the comments from the other side that blame America
Kudlow's read on the "pretend I am on the ballot" strategy is that it works — that putting the President into 35 races brings out the base and the low-propensity voters who are his fans, and that he has more chances to make the economic case in the six or seven weeks left
Bonus Insights
Kudlow's historical comparison for the rebate was Gerald Ford in the 1970s: he said he thought the country had got rid of the idea then, and that it keeps rearing its ugly head
He singled out Dave McCormick's convention speech for bringing people from the mining industry and construction workers on stage, and said the Democrats have abandoned those voters
The convention moment Kudlow kept returning to was John Fetterman's decision to introduce McCormick, a Republican colleague, which Kudlow called terrific and very positive
Moore's closing formula was three words: "Growth, tax cuts and patriotism." He added a patriotism gap to it, saying polls show three-quarters of Americans love America and a smaller share of Democrats say the same
Holtz-Eakin declined Kudlow's offer to put him on the campaign trail alongside the President — "I'm not sure you do, Larry" — and said he may be needed to score the proposals before it is all said and done
Kudlow closed the segment by saying what the phrase he likes actually means to him: God, patriotism, families and work
Kudlow's bottom line is that the Republican economic case for November is growth, permanent individual tax cuts on tips and overtime, and patriotism — and that the one line about a $5,000 check is costing them the argument they were winning.
Products, Companies & Tools Mentioned
Cato Institute (Source of the $200 trillion estimate for Medicare for all and a state takeover of the economy, which Kudlow cited and said he had not seen the underlying work for)
Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (Put the cost of the rebate and tax-permanence plan at about $1.2 trillion, per Lawrence)
Unleash Prosperity (Moore's organization; he co-founded it)
American Action Forum (Holtz-Eakin's organization; he is its president)
Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta (Its tracking estimate is the source Kudlow cited for growth running better than 4%)
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (The electrical workers' union Kudlow says is telling Democrats to stop obstructing data-center construction because its members want the jobs)
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