Rep. Crockett Derides Idea of DOGE Dividend for Americans

Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, derided the idea of returning some of the money found by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to Americans in the form of dividend payments.

Thus far, the DOGE cost-cutting initiative claims it has discovered $55 billion in wasted tax dollars, and President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he is considering "giving 20% back to the American citizens" and putting "20% back to pay down debt."

Crockett told ABC News the president is "just telling a lie," adding that Trump was "not the one who had anything to do with the $1,200 refunds that people had during the midst of COVID."

The Texas congresswoman insisted "that was done by a Democratic House and Democratic Senate," despite the fact that the $1,200 stimulus checks were authorized by the CARES Act that Trump signed into law during his first term.

"Right now, what they're going to do is say, 'Hey, we want to give you a refund, but Congress won't let us,' because they already know that there's just no money for that," Crockett said. "The only reason that those refunds came before was because we were living in different times. This was a time in which, hopefully, we won't ever go through again. We had a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic."

"The bad part is that I don't know if it's once in a lifetime because we know that Ebola, unfortunately, was detected right here in New York recently, and if we continue down this road of getting rid of scientists or deciding that we don't want to rely on experts as it relates to what they're telling us to do, or we don't want to deal with vaccines and medicine in this country, then we may be facing not only our next pandemic, but our next, two, three or four pandemics because of their incompetence," she continued.

Ebola was initially suspected in two patients at a Manhattan urgent care facility on Sunday, but the disease was ultimately ruled out, with officials later saying it was likely norovirus.

"So, no, we are not in the business of giving out money, and honestly, I don't know what $5,000 will do for you if you are unable to find a job because I am telling people we are headed toward a recession because the United States government is the 15th largest employer in the world," Crockett said. "Firing those that work for the federal government isn't going to necessarily create new jobs in private industry."

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