“Rebate checks already spent” honks a headline on Page 1 of the Review-Journal. Along with offering the saddest words I expect to read today (”Tony and Gerri Roberto, a Guam couple who spent $600 Monday shopping at Wal-Mart in Las Vegas …”), the story details how locals plan to spend their stimulus checks (mostly: bills; also: some new threads). “That’s the purpose of it … spending,” one woman tells the paper.
As the owner of a house, two cars and three teenage sons, I’m pretty adept at deficit spending — I’d be a natural in Washington, D.C., if I could pass the dress code — but I’m not so sure about this check. The government giving us money it doesn’t really have to make up for money we don’t have so we can buy flat screens to improve the dividends for the shareholding suckfish of Big Biz? Sounds dicey.

“You know what we should do with that check?” I said to my wife. “What?” she asked. She was hoping I’d say flat screen, I think. “Bank it,” I said, “until the war is over. As, you know, a protest. In the spirit of sticking it to Bush and so forth.” Not a bad idea, she allowed.

Maybe we will. Maybe not — three kids, house, etc. It adds up, faster than simple addition can account for. Our household is like an early train: Someone’s gotta frantically shovel cash into the furnace to budge it even an inch. But it would be nice to hold on to the cash for at least a while before giving it back to Bush’s business pals.