On Nov. 9 and 10, 2025, President Donald Trump made social media posts on Truth Social about a plan to pay each U.S. citizen $2,000, mainly to help with the rising costs of healthcare. The money would be given to people through tariff stimulus checks, and would come from the revenue collected from tariffs, which are taxes on imported goods coming into the US.
Tariffs were first imposed by Trump starting in January 2025. Businesses pay some of these costs, and consumers pay the rest through raised prices on items, according to CNBC. Additionally, rising healthcare and health insurance costs are an issue for many Americans, and the tariff stimulus idea proposed by Trump would use money received from these taxes to pay people, similar to the stimulus payments sent to people during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We could use it to pay for necessities, which is why I feel distribution to lower to middle income families is a good idea, [though] not essentially with tariff money,” FHS sophomore Kathleen Lei said.
In July 2025, Trump had previously discussed the idea of paying citizens with money from the tariffs, and the administration was thinking about rebates for Americans, according to CNBC. Trump has said that his administration would first pay the money to low and middle income U.S. citizens, and use the rest of the tariff revenue to pay down the national debt, according to PBS. However, with tariff stimulus checks, it would cost a lot more than the projected amount of money received from tariffs Around $660 billion would be needed to pay the over 300 million citizens in the country, and the tariff revenue would only be able to cover part of this cost, according to Northeastern Global News.
However, these tariff stimulus checks could end up negatively affecting the economy. They could result in an increase in inflation, according to Northeastern Global News. Tariffs have already affected inflation, and these checks could possibly add to these effects. Some of the money from the payments would be spent, and that could result in prices going up and could result in an increase in inflation, according to CNBC.
“It might lead to slower or stagnant economic growth, people say, like stagflation,” Lei said.
Overall, tariff stimulus checks are unlikely to happen, but if they do, they would have many effects on people in the US.
Jewish Student Union:
“Some have asserted that the decision to postpone was to silence a pro-Israel perspective; others are claiming victory for keeping what they describe as an anti-Palestinian speaker out of our schools,” Alameda school district superintendent said in an official statement.
“I think that it’s disrespectful,” Katz said. “I believe that his story was meant to bring everyone closer together. He was only here to talk about his personal story, nothing to do with any kind of politics.”
According to the email sent by Superintendent Graham Clark, the district received around 2,000 emails regarding allowing Ahmed to be a guest speaker, many in favor of him speaking and many against. The district is exploring measures to prevent similar conflicts surrounding guest speakers from happening.
“Are all [guest speakers] the same? Are they all going to have the same level of interest, anger, antipathy?” FHS principal Brian Emmert said. “What [the district is] starting to work on is [deciding how] we make decisions around whether we let any speaker a club wants to bring come so that going forward we have a better idea of how we determine what’s safe and what’s not.”
The Jewish Community Advocacy Council is now suing FUHSD, claiming that the district is engaging in unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.
