With no particular allegiance to party, here is a quick list of ridiculous promises made by candidates during hotly contested elections:
•Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, looking to capitalize on a wave of conservative wins in 2012, promised that by 2020 there would be a permanent American colony on the moon.
•During the 2006 Texas election for governor, perennial presidential and gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman felt that if there would be no gay marriage, then there should not be any marriage.
•In 1988, President George H.W. Bush (the first one in office) said the now-historic and endlessly mocked phrase, “Read my lips: No new taxes.”
•President Joe Biden, and then Elizabeth Warren, both issued promises of eliminating student debt.
•In 1996, President Bill Clinton declared that the “era of big government is over.”
There are so many more examples of politicians making promises that cannot be kept, or to be satirical, such as pelting people with moldy cheeseburgers, or repealing gravity, or outlawing the elderly from living alone, or giving every family a robot, or outlawing sadness, or free grocery stores …
Well, you get the idea.
You would think that in this day and age that folks of the political stripe would realize that access to information would prove their political Hail Marys would be laughed off, but nope, the silly keeps on coming.
For instance, just last week President Trump promised $5,000 to everybody if the GOP took over both the House and Senate in the midterm elections. The first thing that popped into mind was, “That seem a bit illegal,” cause even as a student, I was told that buying votes was illegal. (FYI: It is.)
The second question I asked myself was how that would look. Would Trump write 186.5 million personal checks (that was the number of registered voters in the U.S. as of 2026)? That would cost $932.5 billion. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have Elon Musk money. Would he limit that to just registered Republicans? At roughly 39 million, the cost would be $195 billion. Since his reported net worth is around $6.5 billion, it’s fair to say that some of those checks will bounce.
That leaves the funds coming from another source, and the only one with access to that kind of scratch is the federal government, which, when offered as a straight payout, is still illegal. And stupid. The government plans to take our money (taxes, which is the only income source as the government creates nothing) and then turn around and give it back? Or maybe take on more debt, which will then have to be paid for by taxes?
Some scholars posit that Trump really meant that there will be some sort of tax shenanigans put in place to give adults a break on federal pocket-picking. That would not be illegal. Still, I see it as monumentally stupid because tax breaks should be given because it’s the right thing to do, not as a means to solidify one political ideology over another.
Call it a tax break or a payoff, bribery in any form is dumb in personal dealings, but in the context of running a country, indicative of a corrupt way of thinking and a shameful ploy for consolidating power.
Forrest Gump had the right of it: “Stupid is as stupid does.” Or, to paraphrase my beloved sister-in-law, “Love is unconditional. Pocketbooks are not.”
Tony Farkas is editor of the Trinity County News-Standard and the San Jacinto News-Times. He can be reached at tony@polkcountypublishing.com.
