$5,000 Sounds Good. That Is Why the Answer Is No.

 

$5,000 Sounds Good. That Is Why the Answer Is No.

By Curtis A. Neil
Bakersfield, California – September 11th., 2026

A $5,000 check to every adult citizen sounds good. Most of us would cash it. That is why the answer still has to be no.

President Trump said it at the convention. That makes it harder to wave off than an offhand remark. It was public. It will be quoted. People on the left are already using it to tell conservatives the whole project is a joke. That is politics. It is not an argument about the books.

This is not a withdrawal of support for the administration, and it is not a claim that its aims are bad. One man, even the President, is not the government. George Washington was a great President. What made that presidency hold was not one statue on a horse. It was a whole administration of people who argued — Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams — wrestling over what the country could afford and what kind of country it would be. A republic is supposed to do that. Loyalty to a government is not the same thing as applause for every sentence from the podium.

We need long-term stability and prosperity, not a short-term stimulus we cannot pay for. Pair any surplus or recovered waste with real cuts in bloat, a path to a balanced budget, and a concrete plan to pay down the national debt.

Do the unglamorous work:

Zero-based budgeting for the entire government. Every program starts at zero and has to justify itself.

The same accounting standards American companies already live under, including outside third-party audits.

Tax reform that moves us from taxing production to taxing consumption, in the open. Eliminate the income tax. Replace it with a national sales tax — not a VAT, which hides in the price. Congress should have to look the public in the eye if it ever tries to bring the old system back.

Trimming waste and fat is not only cheaper pencils. Each agency and department should face four questions: Is it constitutional? Is it needed? Can another department already do the work? Should the function go back to the states, or to the people?

A President cannot do that alone. He can speak plainly. The public has to stand behind it. Congress has to work toward it instead of the usual sausage-making — trading favors in the dark and calling the result reform. If those four questions are not asked in the open, “cutting waste” is only a slogan.

A check is easy to cheer and easy to mock. Paying for a country is harder. The first is a headline. The second is the job.

 

 

Curtis Anthony Neil/Grok / LibreOffice. September 11th. 2026 AD.

Bakersfield, California, USA, North America, Planet Earth (Terra), the third planet from the Sun (Sol), Solar System, Orion Arm, Milky Way Galaxy

Copyright © 2026 by Curtis Anthony Neil
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