Source : Perth Now news
President Donald Trump is promising more payments to voters just ahead of the US midterm elections — this time, to give more than 20 million seniors $US90 each to help pay for Medicare premiums.
The announcement comes after the president last month said about 1 million people would get rebate cheques of $500 for Affordable Care Act premiums. He also made a promise on the campaign trail to send every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections.
That pledge — which would require approval from Congress — would likely cost more than $1 trillion, adding to the deficit and worsening inflation.
Trump highlighted his $5,000 promise at a rally in Vandalia, Ohio, on Saturday night, and told supporters that 70,000 families in the state would receive the ACA rebates “within the next couple of days.” He also reminded voters about the $1,776 payments to military members, announced in December — though he mused that they should have been timed better.
“Maybe I should have waited a year,” he said. “To be honest, I said that. Should I wait for before the election?”
The White House said the $90 payments for seniors will come from the Medicare Improvement Fund, established by Congress in 2008 as flexible funding to improve program operations and payments to health care providers.
Polls show Americans increasingly blame Trump for the high cost of petrol and groceries with just 17 per cent approving of his handling of inflation. Trump has sought to shrug off concerns about affordability, saying the economy is booming.
Trump didn’t talk about grocery prices or gas prices or layoffs at his Saturday night rally in Vandalia, part of what he says will be a 32-day marathon of rallies to try to convince the public that the economy is better than they think.
His claims weren’t helped by the retrenchment of nearly 1400 people from what had been the Navistar truck factory in southwestern Ohio – just three days before Trump’s rally.
The layoffs were large enough to erase an entire year of job growth in the greater Dayton, Ohio area.
