Treasury is examining whether the $5,000 checks can be issued without authorization from Congress, days after the president promised them at "100 percent" if Republicans keep Congress.

…(cont) Then there's the number, and the number is what spoils the page for me. Hold on — it's in here behind the registration. Here. One point two trillion. Not mine. That's the moderator's, at the Kansas State Fair, in the item The Hill ran Saturday the twelfth: the moderator asks Sen. Roger Marshall and his Democratic opponent Adam Hamilton if they support the payments, citing the cost amid the growing national debt. The Hill has Marshall appearing to shift his opinion. The quote they print begins "I'm going to" and the item stops there. I have looked for the rest of that sentence four times.

The order is what I'm stuck on. Wednesday night in Dallas, at the Republican National Committee's midterm convention, the president pledges $5,000 to every adult citizen if the party holds the House and the Senate in November. That same Wednesday, Vice President Vance answers the debt worry by saying tariff revenue offsets it: "Wealth will go back to the people." Saturday, the fair, the one point two trillion, and the senator not saying yes. Sunday, on ABC's "This Week," Rep. Mike Lawler is asked the same question and answers, "I support putting money back in the pockets of hard-working," and The Hill's headline on him is "How do you pay for it?" Also Sunday, outside Air Force One, the president tells reporters the checks "happen 100 percent" if the GOP keeps its majority, and The Hill runs that Monday the fourteenth.

Monday the fourteenth, the Examiner prints Guy Benson, its own columnist, calling it a "disastrous idea" on Fox News's "Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy," and saying conservatives would scream "bloody murder" if a Democratic president offered this to maintain power. National Review, the same Monday, says the checks would make inflation worse and echo the sort of "socialism" the president decries. Also that Monday, MAGA Inc. expands its spending and sends Vance to Kansas for Marshall — a race the Cook Political Report considers likely Republican, upended last week by a New York Times report that Marshall's old medical practice sued 700 patients over unpaid bills, had 81 of them arrested, and routinely charged 18 percent interest.

Tuesday the fifteenth, The Hill reports Republican lawmakers panning the proposal, warning they will not support giving away money to people who don't work or pay taxes. Tuesday the fifteenth, the Examiner has Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner calling the payment a "bribe" in a video. And Tuesday the fifteenth, Secretary Bessent tells the House Financial Services Committee that Treasury is examining whether the checks can be issued without authorization from Congress — and the Times reports he testified he supports the payments if Republicans win in November.

Here's my trouble, and it's a garage problem. My car needs that belt. The fellow at the shop, good man, years there, tells me he'll put it on for nothing if I send him three customers before Thanksgiving. Fine deal. So I ask who's paying for the belt and he says the supplier is covering it. I call the supplier from the lot, dog in the back seat, and the supplier says they've got questions about the cost and they don't hand out belts to people who don't buy tires. I go back inside and tell him what the supplier told me, and he says he's looking into whether he can get the belt without the supplier. So which of us is bringing him the three customers for?

Excuse me — one thing and I'll let you close up. On that clean page with the headings, under "What Trump promised," the money arrives if the party keeps Congress. On Tuesday the Treasury says it's examining whether the money can go out without Congress. I apologize for circling the same word, I do, but if the vote isn't what releases the money, what is the vote doing in the sentence — and does the page still call it a dividend?