As midterm elections draw near and the national debt surpasses forty trillion dollars, Donald Trump has renewed a promise to deliver five thousand dollars to every American adult — a pledge that now strains the boundaries of fiscal reality, legal authority, and party unity alike. The offer, conditional on Republican retention of Congress, raises an ancient question about the relationship between democratic governance and the distribution of public wealth: where does a gift to the people end and a transaction with them begin? That even members of Trump's own coalition are asking how the bill wo