We got our notice this week that our government check is on the way. That's right, the Bonus Bucks we get from the government as part of the Shameless Pandering Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 are coming soon. According to the letter, we should be receiving the check within a week or so.
The letter goes on to explain that the money is not taxable and does not need to be claimed on our next tax return; it details how the amount was arrived at; and it says what we need to do as part of the Act. Which, of course, is nothing. I can't seem to find exactly how much is being spent, but, based on the claim on the IRS's website that there will be 130-million payments given out, and assuming the average payment is around $1200 ($600 per person, plus $300 per minor child), we looking at something like $156-billion dollars of money the government doesn't actually have, being paid out to people who should probably use it to buy down their own debt, even though the government says it needs to be spent immediately on stuff.
I'm used to all that. I'm used to politicians spending any amount of money they can to buy votes during an election year, no matter how much debt they create. I can handle it. What bugs me is the letter itself.
Why was this letter needed? Seriously, anyone over the age of five who has been even semi-conscious for the last six months knows all about this. They know about it because the politicians have been trumpeting it for the entire time, and the news media -- never ones to pass on the chance to fill time or column inches without actually having to do their jobs -- has dutifully reported everything the government says.
Simply put: If someone who is in line to receive one of these checks has not already heard about it from newspapers, radio, television, the Internet, friends, relatives, neighbors and random conversations at work, they are probably not going to open a letter from the Treasury Department, even if it does say, at the top in red capital letters, "DO NOT THROW AWAY."
I did some quick calculating to try to figure our how much the letter itself is costing. The cheapest I could find for plain white security envelopes -- the kind that contained the letter -- was the Office Depot Brand, which were $10.49 for a box of 250. Assuming anyone buying in bulk gets a 25% discount, they run about three cents per envelope. Figure the paper costs about a half-cent per sheet (Office Depot, again, $35 for a box of 5000 sheets); the ink on the envelopes and letters are about 2-cents per sheet, and the man-hours, electricity and other costs to make them comes to around 5-cents per letter, plus the postage, that comes to 53.5 cents per letter.
That brings us to right around $70-million. That's right: Seventy. Million. Dollars. To let people know something they either already know or are too stupid to figure out on their own, anyway.
That would pay for, what?, as much as a half-hour of the Iraq War.
And all because it's an election year. That's right: All these billions and billions of dollars are being spent, not to prop up the economy, but to win votes. I have been an observer of politics for pretty much my entire life, including a few years working in news and being very close to politicians, and if there is anything I have learned, it is that, regardless of what a politician tells you he or she cares about -- the economy, the environment, helping Working Families, whatever -- the only thing they truly care about is votes.
Why couldn't Reagan reign forever?
Posted by: me | June 23, 2008 at 07:51 AM