My Not-So-Stimulating Economic Stimulus Payment Has Finally Arrived
Published 7/9/08 (Modified 3/9/11)By MoneyBlueBook
After months of waiting and checking my mail box regularly like a little kid waiting for his video game to arrive, I was finally relieved to discover a little envelope from the United States Treasury yesterday - my long awaited 2008 Economic Stimulus Payment check had finally arrived! Cha-ching (punctuated with a few obligatory fist pumping motions).
Actually, about a week ago I had already been given written notice that the check was on its way. I received one of those pointless waste of paper junk mail letters from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) letting me know that I was entitled to an economic stimulus payment check as provided by the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, and to expect its arrival in a week or so. The letter also provided a simple breakdown of how the federal government calculated my small time stimulus payment.
But what was the point of sending this predecessor letter out to let me know this? Why is the IRS and federal government so oblivious and wasteful when it comes to wasting millions of dollars on paper and delivery costs to send out these pointless letters? Why not just combine the calculation breakdown letter with the actual stimulus rebate check that I received yesterday rather than sending them separately on different weeks? The financial savings for the federal government could easily have been several million dollars. Especially since we are now in an economic recession and the government keeps griping and raising issues about needing to balance the budget, and even
Read the full article »