by Joyce D. Sinclair

Created on: March 31, 2008   Last Updated: December 05, 2010

The idea of sending everyone a check in the mail with the intention that people go out and spend it, putting it back in the economy is noble at best. It's one of those ideas that sound good on paper, but I think they will be surprised to find that most people aren't going to run out and buy big ticket items like they hoped.

Take us for example. We filed our taxes and received a nice chunk of change back. So, we did the responsible thing and paid off a lot of bills. But then we received another W2 that we forgot about. That put us in the next tax bracket and now we owe $1000 (after we just spent the few thousand we just received paying off credit cards). We're supposed to receive $1200 from this tax rebate check, which $1000 is going back to pay our taxes and the other $200 goes for groceries and gas.

And even if we didn't have to pay for our taxes, I don't think we would just blow it on something huge. (Although my husband would probably try to talk me into buying a new 46" HDTV.) But I would say that there will be a lot of people who would be more prone to spend most of their rebate checks on bills, groceries and gas, and only a portion on a nice dinner, some clothes or something like that.

The bottom the line is that the government wants to set you up to flounder no matter what you spend it on. They want you to go out and buy new HD televisions because they are making it mandatory that everything will be broadcast in HD starting February 2009. And that means they want you to go out and buy a new TV to get the best quality (or at least that converter box). But if you don't buy a TV, then they can say, well, we gave you the money to be able to buy a new TV. So, if you buy a new TV and let your bills go by the wayside, then you're being irresponsible and digging yourself deeper into the credit hole. And the government is making your credit dictate everything in your life.

But if you decide to spend your money on bills, because you're trying to pay off credit cards and other loan-item bills, and subsequently make your credit better, then you bypass luxury items like that HD TV that was once a "want" and now a "need." So, when it comes time for the switchover, you hope your credit score is high enough to maybe put it on credit, just so that you can be back in debt. But then the attitude is that, hey, if you spent your money on bills instead of buying your TV, I guess you're out of luck.

So, although the rebate check was meant well, I don't think it was fully thought out (like many of the policies that Washington comes up with). How hard would it have been to hand out a couple grand per person? Then that might've made a difference. Especially to the working poor and families with children. Don't get me wrong, I'll take whatever they'll give me, but if they think they can throw money at a problem to solve it, they're dead wrong. If they really want to fix the economy, get us out of this war that keeps siphoning all of our money with no return. It's not like trade. When we trade with any country, we send money and goods there, and they send money and goods back. But we are constantly sending money to Iraq and Afghanistan with no money coming back. This war is the number one reason why our dollar is so weak. And start reestablishing a firm manufacturing base here in the United States. It's not enough to create jobs. Like the world needs another call center. We were stable, well at least we could support ourselves, when we had an abundance of farmers and manufacturing jobs. But when we decided that American workers cost businesses too much, capitalism set our country up to fail. If only they would bring back these jobs and stop funding an interminable war, but that would be too much like right.

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