Tariffs are a terrible idea to begin with. Imposing a massive new tax regime on families is economically illiterate, morally lamentable, and politically insane, but assuming President Donald Trump and his team really are committed to their unfortunate tariff experiment long-term, the least they could do is not make matters worse.

Many Republicans seem determined to do just that. Last month, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) introduced legislation that would distribute tariff revenue to taxpayers in the form of a $600 rebate check.

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“Like President Trump proposed, my legislation would allow hard-working Americans to benefit from the wealth that Trump’s tariffs are returning to this country,” Hawley said.

Over the weekend, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick once again reinforced that Trump is considering rebate checks.

“Tariff revenue is going to be $600, $700, $800, $900 [million], $1 trillion,” Lutnick told Charlie Kirk. “The president is thinking about, ‘Look, I’ve created this value from all our people. Why not share that money with the people?’ … He cares so much about the American people.”

Lutnick’s tacit, or perhaps accidental, admission that, yes, the tariff revenue comes at the expense of the public gives the game away. I could rant for hours on the ethical problems with robbing the working class and handing them back the crumbs, but that is not even necessary. We have hard, fast data that prove that attempting to mask bad policy with handouts does severe damage to the economy, and you don’t have to have a long memory to understand this basic economic reality.

Trump signed two stimulus bills into law in March and December 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, sending people payments of $1,200 and $600, respectively. Not to be outdone, then-President Joe Biden sent an additional $1,400 stimulus check in March 2021. These payments contributed directly to the 40-year high inflation that hit the United States in 2021 and 2022, and the federal government’s insistence on infusing alarming amounts of cash into a locked-down economy sent U.S. inflation higher than the levels seen in the rest of the developed world, according to four economists with the Federal Reserve of San Francisco.

“Inflation rates in the United States and other developed economies have closely tracked each other historically, however, since the first half of 2021, U.S. inflation has increasingly outpaced inflation in other developed countries,” their analysis found. “Estimates suggest that fiscal support measures designed to counteract the severity of the pandemic’s economic effect may have contributed to this divergence.”

Opinions vary, but experts have calculated that anywhere from one-fourth to one-half of the 8% inflation the nation experienced during and after the pandemic was directly related to federal stimulus payments.

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Economic realities aside, there are political reasons for Trump to avoid making the same blunder only five years later. Handing out cash failed to drag Trump’s 2020 campaign over the finish line, and inflation was an albatross around the neck of Biden’s administration for four years. Trump has made it comically clear that he would like Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to cut interest rates, and Powell has reiterated several times that uncertainty due to the ever-changing tariff rates and fears of inflation are the reasons why he has kept rates static. As Powell appears primed to cut rates this fall, perhaps the only factor that could keep rates where they are would be, say, the exact behavior by the White House that sent inflation through the roof in 2021.

I have no reason to doubt that, as Lutnick said, Trump “cares so much about the American people,” but repeating the greatest mistakes of his first term by employing economically illiterate, inflationary policy would be a funny way of showing just how much he cares.

Brady Leonard (@bradyleonard) is a musician, political strategist, and host of The No Gimmicks Podcast.