People saying the $5000 for every taxpayer should go to the debt is missing the point, it makes the money real
You can tell people "We saved $5000 worth for every taxpayer" but if the money doesn't hit your account, do you give a shit? Especially if it gets reinvested in the debt, so for the individual, everything goes on the same as if $0 were saved?
People have said before that if employers didn't withhold tax, but you got the full amount and then had to save it and write a huge check every year, that would make it real and the average person would demand to know how every cent of their tax dollars are being spent and be more outraged at waste, vs "I dunno, I got the same amount in the bank I always do and I hear on the news some money I never get did something or other that didn't hurt me either way, so whatever."
$5000 DOGE savings returned to every taxpayer would be the same in reverse. Everyone who gets the $5000 and spends it on something they always wanted or needed but couldn't get will think "THIS is how much of my money the government was wasting? What the fuck were they wasting it on? I'll NEVER vote again for any politician that wants to go back to wasting MY $5000 every year!"
Then when they hear on the news some government program wasted a trillion dollars, they'll think "How much of MY money did that just waste? How many new computers/car payments/apartment deposits of MINE was that worth?"