By Joe Holleman
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
(TNS)
It’s been said that cash always makes a nice gift and, apparently, U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley agrees.
Hawley, Missouri’s senior GOP senator, has introduced a plan to spread some money to middle-class Americans in the form of tax credits.
“It would be $600 per person, and that includes kids. So a family of four (gets) $2,400,” Hawley said in an interview with the Post-Dispatch.
Hawley said the payments would be for “working people. Elon Musk, God bless him, doesn’t need a rebate check.”
Hawley proposes refundable tax credits of at least $600 per adult and dependent child. The credits would phase out for incomes exceeding $75,000 for singles and $150,000 for joint filers.
Hawley said the cost of the program would be covered by money raised from the new tariffs put in place by President Donald Trump.
The tax rebate idea was first suggested by Trump earlier this year as part of the Elon Musk-led cost-cutting effort. Also, taxpayers got three rebate checks—two under Trump during his first term and a third from the Biden administration—aimed at softening the economic hit of the COVID pandemic.
Hawley concedes his proposal faces an uphill battle in Congress, especially from his GOP colleagues.
“It probably would be the most popular thing that this Congress would do. Which means, of course, Republicans would be against it,” Hawley told Semafor, a political newsletter.
While Republican leaders argue that Hawley’s plan would hurt efforts to balance the national budget, he counters that it also could save their jobs.
Republicans “are gonna go get their butts kicked in this midterm (2026) election pretty soon, because the stuff they’ve been doing is unpopular,” Hawley said.
Hawley told the Post-Dispatch that if the GOP wants to be the majority party, “they’re going to be a party of working people. Or we’ll be a minority party forever.”
Photo caption: Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, takes questions from reporters in the basement of the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 18, 2024. (Daniel Desrochers/TNS)
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© 2025 the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Visit www.stltoday.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency LLC.
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Tags: Congress, Sen. Josh Hawley, tax credits, tax rebates, Taxes
