The ‘phase 3’ stimulus plan was signed into U.S. law on March 27, 2020 in response to the widespread health and economic fallout from the coronavirus outbreak. It included a $500 billion bailout fund for ‘distressed’ large businesses at the insistence of President Trump and his allies in Congress.

TrumpBailouts.org was created by government watchdog Accountable.US to keep the public informed of the administration’s efforts to bail out billion-dollar corporations as the needs of newly unemployed American workers and struggling families continue to compound.  

For bailout applicants, there was no consideration for how many billions of dollars in quarterly profits they had recently posted. No limit on how many millions of dollars they pay their CEOs. No considerations for how many dividends they have paid out to shareholders or profits they wasted on stock buybacks to boost their share price, even in the middle of this crisis. No consideration for how much they benefited from the 2017 Trump tax cuts directed at the largest corporations. 

The result: industries that should have been better positioned than most Americans to absorb an economic downturn are lining up for taxpayer assistance.