Cruz on $5K dividend: ‘I don’t think we should be paying people that are not working’

Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas), a prominent conservative voice in the Senate GOP conference, says he’s willing to support President Trump’s proposal to give $5,000 dividend payments to U.S. adults provided that they are structured as tax refunds and go to people who work and pay taxes.

Asked about Trump’s proposal, Cruz told Fox News’s Jesse Watters that his support “depends on how it’s structured.”

“I would like to see it structured as a tax refund,” he said. “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,” he argued.

Trump unveiled the proposal at the GOP midterm convention in Dallas and has drawn pushback from both Republican moderates and conservatives.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) warned the idea would be “extraordinarily costly.”

“From the few details we have, it seems that the proposed $5,000 dividend would not have an income cap and would be extraordinarily costly,” she said in a statement.

Paying out a $5,000 dividend to nearly 270 million American adults would cost more than $1 trillion and add to the national debt, which recently passed the $40 trillion mark.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has defended the idea of putting money back in Americans’ pockets, but he hasn’t committed to voting on the proposal on the Senate floor.

Asked during a recent Fox News interview whether Senate Republicans would pass Trump’s proposal, Thune replied: “Well, that’s a good question.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” he said.