Senator Thune Calls the Other Party's Pre-Election Checks a 'Bribe,' a Word His Party Retired in 2022

WASHINGTON — Senate leader Thune said Thursday that the President is "resorting to trying to bribe the American people for their votes" with a promised $5,000 per-adult payment conditioned on his party keeping Congress, and a member of Thune's House leadership answered with a counter-offer of a $10,000 dividend, a pony, and free ice cream for life.

The Press's Senate desk notes that the last time a president moved several hundred billion dollars toward voters in the weeks before a midterm, that one in the form of forgiven student loans, Thune's party called it an investment in the middle class and the party now writing the checks called it a bribe. The vocabulary has since been exchanged, cleanly, with no words lost in transit.

The senator's argument that conditioning federal money on an election result is illegal is, The Press observes, correct, and was also correct four years ago, when it was the other side's argument and Thune's side's problem.

A member of the President's own party said he feared the checks would fuel inflation and accused the President of trying to buy votes, demonstrating that the position exists on both sides of the aisle, in the minority, quietly.

At press time the word 'bribe' had been applied by both parties to both parties within a single presidential cycle, and The Press's style guide had given up and listed it as a synonym for 'appropriation.'