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President Donald Trump and DOGE head Elon Musk have supported a proposal to use a proportion of these savings to issue $5,000 checks to American taxpayers.
While the plan aims to return a portion of the savings to taxpayers, it has not yet been finalized and would require approval by Congress.
What To Know
"We think DOGE can save $2 trillion over the next couple of years. If you take 20 percent of that as the DOGE dividend calls for and send it back to taxpayers, 20 percent of $2 trillion is $400 billion," Fishback said on The David Lin Report.
"And there are roughly 80 million taxpaying households in America. So if you then go $400 billion divided by 80 million, you end up with a check of roughly $5,000 to each taxpaying household. That's what we think we can get to."
However, Fishback emphasized that the payout could vary depending on actual savings.
"But again, this plan is not predestined to the $5,000 number," he said. "If the savings come in above or below that, the check will be reflected accordingly. So again, if the savings are only $1 trillion, which I think is awfully low, the check goes from $5,000 to $2,500,"
"If the savings are only $500 billion, which, again, is really, really low, then the savings are only $1,250.
Fishback also argued that the proposal encourages public engagement by giving Americans a financial incentive to report government waste.
"It incentivizes millions of Americans to report waste in government spending that they themselves see. Why would they do that? Because they have every incentive to do it," he said.
Under the proposal, 20 percent of the savings generated by DOGE would be distributed to taxpayers as stimulus checks. According to the DOGE website, with current savings of $115 billion, each taxpayer would receive approximately $142 if payments were issued today.
The DOGE payment initiative faces renewed challenges, as recent fiscal reports indicate that Musk's department's anticipated savings have yet to materialize.
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