As the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) exposes alleged federal spending “shenanigans,” support is growing for DOGE dividends to “pay restitution to the taxpayer.”
Azoria CEO James Fishback detailed the “overwhelming positive support for this bold plan to really pay restitution to the taxpayer” while on “Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street” Friday.
“I’m honored to have the president’s support, but the plan is very simple. DOGE is going to save X amount of money over the next couple of years. Let’s take 20% of that and send it right back to the hard-working taxpayers who sent it to DC in the first place,” Fishback told FOX Business anchor Maria Bartiromo.
In addition to restitution, Fishback told Bartiromo the plan would help “incentivize American taxpayers to report wasteful spending that they are seeing. That’s how we build on this fiscal responsibility movement under President Trump’s leadership.”
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Earlier this month, Fishback wrote a post on X that tagged DOGE head Elon Musk and outlined his plan to take 20% of the savings found by DOGE to send it back “to hard-working Americans as a tax refund check. It was their money in the first place!”
Fishback noted that if DOGE achieves its goal of cutting $2 trillion in federal spending, that would provide the 78 million taxpaying households in the U.S. with about a $5,000 refund or “DOGE dividend” per household, with the remainder used to pay down the national debt.
“Will check with the President,” Musk replied in response to Fishback’s post.
Since it was first proposed, the idea has gained more traction from lawmakers and the president, but some critics are still concerned DOGE savings should go to addressing the national debt and deficit.
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“I care about the $36 trillion in debt, too, and I think that’s why under our proposal – and the president suggested this as well – that 80% of it would go to narrowing the deficit and paying down the debt,” Fishback said. “But remember, the number one holder of our national debt is the American taxpayer. They sent their money to D.C. to be spent responsibly and wisely. It turns out, as DOGE has exposed, it wasn’t. They are overdue for a refund.”
When asked how DOGE dividends compare to stimulus checks during the COVID-19 pandemic, Fishback explained how the “macro backdrop” is different and argued the refunds would be “deflationary.”
“If you pay down debt with a check like this, that’s not inflationary,” he said. “That’s actually deflationary. And so, I trust the American people. They sent this money to D.C. just a couple of years ago. They’re getting it back as a refund. The macro backdrop has changed. And so I don’t have the inflationary concerns which I did have, by the way, back in 2021. And I called out the Biden-Harris administration then. That was reckless policy. This is sound policy.”
While Musk appeared open to the idea of a DOGE dividend earlier this month, he clarified that balancing the budget should be the focus given DOGE’s efforts.
Musk wrote in a post last week, “We need to balance the budget as first priority,” in a response to a post by Scott Adams that raised concerns the DOGE dividend could result in the government using the DOGE savings as a “piggy bank.”
“We are giving every American the incentive to call out waste, fraud and abuse. And the outcome is less waste, fraud and abuse, a smaller budget, a narrower deficit and a much more manageable national debt picture,” Fishback said.
FOX Business’ Eric Revell contributed to this report.
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