Published: April 14, 2008 05:46 pm            

Ms. Takes: Fed cash coming to stimulate economy

My Best Friend and I got a mailing the other day from the federal government. That’s rarely good news and it served mostly to confuse us. We were admonished NOT to throw the letter away, although any penalty for doing so was not specified.

It seemed to be a run-down on the fine points of the “economic stimulus package” in typical bureaucratic language. We aren’t sure exactly what it all means, but it seems certain that our income falls somewhere between “too-rich-to-qualify” and “too-poor-to-qualify”. I think that means that we qualify for a windfall of some amount which we are expected to squander in a manner to perk up the economy.

But figuring out exactly the nuance in meaning between filing tax returns jointly and filing individually gave me a case of the vapors. All that’s really clear is that you must file a return for any hope at all of a check.

Not that there is any recourse. The too rich seem to be the REALLY rich, the folks who got theirs with tax cuts enacted over the past few years. Besides, they probably wouldn’t do much stimulating anyway since they never have to wait and plan for major purchases.

The REALLY poor would seem to be in the best position to stimulate things since $600 would be a bonanza the likes of which they probably haven’t seen before. But since they normally don’t file a return they are out of luck. Filing something is apparently the first step to riches. Even if you never filed before, this seems to be a good time to do it.

I am not one of the world’s leading economists, but I did pass Econ 101 and am struggling to understand how strewing $600 checks hither and yon is going to erase a multi-trillion-dollar debt for our country. That, it seems to me, is the root case of things going down the tube.

Let’s take a conservative one-trillion dollar debt. Suppose I squander my $600 on some frippery (a favorite librarian suggested I plunge on one of those cupcake chairs and donate it to the children’s room at the library!) that subtracts only $600 from the national debt and it is still more than a trillion! Even if every $600 check was blown on a cupcake chair, it’s still only a nibble at a monumental debt.

Dad used to say, “If you can’t pay cash, you can’t afford it!” Maybe Dad had a point. I wonder what HE would have bought with his $600?

Liz Ciancone is a retired Tribune-Star reporter. Send e-mail to opinion@tribstar.com.

        

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