Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong is proposing a plan that would pay dividends to Americans while making the size of the government leaner.

Armstrong says on the social media platform X that President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is a “once in a lifetime opportunity” to “cut the size of government back to health.”

According to the Coinbase CEO, America’s founding fathers may have failed to anticipate the tendency of politicians to promise more free stuff in an effort to get more votes.

“To future-proof this, we may need a constitutional amendment capping total government expenditure (at say 10%), or a way to align incentives.”

Armstrong says that the creation of a US sovereign wealth fund could potentially help in increasing federal government spending when necessary while curtailing expenditure over the long term.

“You’d ideally have a way to temporarily dial up burn (say in wartime), but still have the right incentives to not let spending get totally out of control longer term.

An example would be a US sovereign wealth fund, where every citizen gets a share (maybe people can buy more if they want), and any budget surplus pays a dividend.

Every citizen then has skin in the game. Maybe Congress gets a slightly larger stake.”

To support his argument for a leaner US federal government, the Coinbase CEO says,

“[Economist and Nobel laureate] Milton Friedman famously suggested the function of government be limited to:

1. Courts to enforce contracts and settle disputes.

2. Police to keep the peace at home (enforce laws, protect property rights).

3. Military for national defense.”

Billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk, who was handpicked by Trump to spearhead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), responded to Armstrong saying, “Milton Friedman was great.”

Last week, President-elect Donald Trump announced he was appointing Musk and biotech entrepreneur, Vivek Ramaswamy, to lead DOGE shortly after his election. Trump said DOGE would help his administration’s quest to “dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures and restructure federal agencies.”

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