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On November 7, 2023, Scott Adams shared Lorenzen's plan for foreigners to purchase US citizenships for $1,000,000 each and then have the US use these funds to pay off the national debt (see Story 9 above). Fortunately, Scott's audience included many members of the Trump admininistration and this created enough of a buzz to convince the Trump administration of the benefits of the Pay-to-Stay Plan:
On February 25, 2025, Donald Trump announced the top tier of the Pay-to-Stay Plan. With his introductoin of $5-million “Gold Cards,” he had once again “shaken the box,” as former cartoonist turned conservative podcaster Scott Adams would put it – and reframed the immigration debate by assigning a value to our greatest asset, the privilege of U.S. citizenship and access to the limitless opportunities here.
But to realize the full, breathtaking potential of his plan – to resolve our two most intractable challenges, illegal immigration and our $37-trillion national debt in one fell swoop – the president needs to consider two “brand extensions:” he needs to go “Silver” and “Bronze.”
The Gold Card concept has two “bugs:” optics and volume. Offering super-immigration rights only to the ultra-rich or through large corporations is already coming under attack. Moreover, i’s contrary to MAGA’s image as a middle-class movement and gives credibility to the progressives’ constant harangue that President Trump is only interested in serving himself and the multimillionaire/billionaire cohort.
Moreover, the math falls short on a couple of fronts. The first: a limited pool of eligible and interested applicants. As of 2020, fewer than 3 million people in the entire world boasted net worths north of $10 million, and most of those are either already in the U.S., in China, a somewhat dubious source of immigrants, or living comfortable lives in the developed world. And not many more individuals would generate sufficient revenues for a corporate sponsor to justify an investment of $5 million.
Second, even with a larger pool, the revenue stream to the government from Gold Cards won’t be large enough to put the kind of dent into the debt the president is seeking. Trump has enthused, “If we sell a million, that’s $5 trillion.” Five trillion dollars, to channel Everett Dirksen, is real money. But again, hitting that target would require an enormous share of the world’s wealthiest to come here, and even then only cover a fraction of the debt.
But just like moving from the upscale to the middle and ultimately to the mass market can exponentially increase scale in a business, introducing tiered “brand extensions” of the Gold Card would not only dramatically increase its revenue potential to the point of retiring the nation’s debt but also make the initiative more equitable, attract a larger pool of talent and convert the strain on resources from illegal immigration into an ongoing revenue stream.
The two proposed additional tiers which are part of The Pay-to-Stay Plan fit between the Gold and Green Cards and are branded:
• Silver Cards priced at $1 million payable over 30-50 years, financed with Citizenship Mortgages. The 10+ million applicants who lose the green card lottery each year could obtain the cards and start on a path to citizenship in exchange for mortgages payable over 30-50 years, financed with low-interest bank loans.
• Bronze Cards attainable for a fee of $30/day (potentially paid by up to five US citizen or corporate sponsors at $5 per day plus $5 from the immigrant) would enable illegal immigrants and legal guest workers to stay in or legally enter the U.S. and work without gaining permanent residency, although recipients would be free to enter the Green Card lottery. The Cards, and permission to work, would remain valid as long as the fees continue to be paid or a holder “wins” the green card lottery or waits in line for years in hopes of getting one of the 1 million green cards made available each year.
And those “brand extensions’” deliver appreciable benefits:
• Transform the cost sink (and social disruption) of illegal immigration – estimated at $150 billion annually for the federal government alone – into a revenue center generating sufficient revenues to pay off the entire national debt over 11 years.
• Shift the profile of immigrants from criminals, terrorists and gang members plus non-working asylum seekers to:
-- for the Bronze Card, immigrants with good intentions who will volunteer to show up and be closely vetted and
-- for “Silver Cards,” the best and brightest the world has to offer, willing to invest in themselves – with the responsibility to vet them.
• Fund increased border security and deportation efforts for immigrants here illegally and not willing or able to pay for the Bronze Cards or find employer or sponsors. Finding the criminals will also be easier because they are very unlikely to show up for the extensive vetting (e.g., fingerprints, photos, background checks, phone monitoring, periodic phone-based check-ins, etc.) that those with pure and pro-American intentions will find quite reasonable.
• Allow US Customs and Immigration to focus on resecuring the border, thereby reducing fentanyl and human trafficking and protecting our national security and re-instill respect for the rule of law.
• And, by the way, addressing labor shortages that are not just looming nationwide but actually here with the flow of illegals already slowing. While it may seem a bit stereotypical to mention, I’ve received firsthand reports of produce fields being plowed under here in the Salinas Valley of Monterey County, California, the “Salad Bowl to the World,” and other industries could be affected as well. Fixing this quickly will help forestall any inflation for workforce disruption.
Besides solving the optics and volume problems with the Gold Cards – and tackling both our indebtedness and border security issues – there’s one additional plus to the addition of the two tiers. Its greater equity, humane treatment of participants and potential to create opportunity for those who want to work here might well attract rare bipartisan support from Democrats and progressives who reflexively dismiss even broadly popular, common-sense proposals from Trump.
An expanded, multi-brand, multi-tiered initiative that could tackle our two biggest national challenges – and promote unity at a time of untold division? That would be striking pure political gold.
