From the Mind of Meegs

In a bid to rescue our country from financial Armageddon, the government has decided to give us all a payout. I don't know that this actually going to help anything. In the long run, it may actually make things worse. It's a poor substitute for things that might actually have a long-term impact, like reducing our dependence on foreign oil, or cutting government waste, or fixing the billion dollar atrocity that is our healthcare system. But those things take work. So whatever. It's a sop. But it is $600--gift horses and mouths and all that.

When the stimulus package was first passed, I got a letter that I'm sure most of us got:

Dear Taxpayer,

We, the government, have decided to give you some free* money, because we are teh awesome. Yay us!

Aren't you mollified? Doesn't this make you forget about all the ways we've screwed over this country during the past few years? Aren't you once again proud to be an American?

Look for this check in the very near future.

Sincerely,
Your Friendly Neighborhood Dog-Waggers

*Please note that "free" in this case does not mean "free." As any economist will tell you, there is no such thing as "free" where economics are concerned. But passing Econ 101 is not a prerequisite for holding public office, so we wouldn't know anything about that.

Now, I can't get my check directly deposited, because I didn't get a refund this year. (I always plan it so I get no refund, or perhaps even owe $100 or so. That money will be much more useful spending a year gaining interest in my bank account, not the government's.) But according to the last two digits of my social security number, I should be getting my check any day now. So I was excited when I got an envelope from the IRS in my mailbox yesterday.

But it was not my check. Instead, it was a notice telling me that my check was being issued, and I should expect it by the 30th, which is this Friday. A whole three days after I got this second notice. Given the vagaries of the postal service, it's not wholly out of the question to suggest that the check, depending on when it was mailed, could have arrived before this notice.

Remember that government waste I alluded to just a minute ago? Yeah...do we really need them to spend their time and money issuing not one but two notices telling us that we're getting money? Meanwhile, some people won't even get their checks until July.

Instead of printing and mailing a first, let alone a second, batch of notices telling me that you're going to print and mail my check, why don't you just skip right to the printing and mailing of the check, and then call it day? It'd get the whole thing done a lot faster and cheaper.

Why don't you get together and discuss when you might want to meet to decide on when to have a meeting to decide if you want to pursue this route instead?