An Open Letter to the Politicians in the Federal Government

First off guys, I appreciate the money you are giving me and my wife come May. If I understand your intentions, you wish us to go out and mindlessly spend it rather than trying to save it. If we all do this, according to your reason, it will "stimulate" the economy. Now, I'm not an economic expert. Hell, I didn't really even like my economics classes in school. But don't you guys think this is kind of like sticking a band aid on a gaping stomach wound without even applying some neosporine or poking the intestines back in? I mean $600 a person sounds nice, but really, how long do you thing that's going to last. People will spend that quick. You will be dumping money in the economy for a couple of weeks, a month at the most and things will go back to normal. Look, we've all seen the medical shows. The guy who has the heart attack, his heart never starts back on the first shock. You have to electrocute the hell out of his ass to get the all ticker pumping strong again. If the economy's heart isn't pumping, one shock is not going to cut it.

I mean giving everyone who pays taxes $600 bucks sounds good, but isn't it really flash? Aren't you trying to look like you're doing something so you don't get voted out of office, all the while hoping the economy fairy waves her magic money stick and makes everything better. I mean if you really wanted to do something, wouldn't you be trying to figure out why the economy sucks and plug the hole. I'll help.

There are things in life that you have to have: Shelter--rent or house payment, food--groceries, health --medication, other necessary items like electricity and or propane or natural gas, water, pornography, liquor and condoms, ect. To get those things you have to get to work, which often means driving, so you need gasoline. Then you have the things you like, but can live without, the luxury items like movies, nightclubs, eating out, vacations, travel, new furniture, ect. If the necessary items cost more, say because fossil fuels go sky high and suddenly it costs 90 bucks to fill your gas tank, and shipping costs go way up so the cost of food, medication, heating fuel, ect. suddenly goes way up, you just don't have to cash to buy the non-necessary stuff. So now people who's livelihood might be in industries dependant on the spare money may find themselves out of work because people aren't buying pool tables, 4 wheel drive vehicles, new couches, or going on vacation, because they can't afford it. It costs them too much to just get back and forth to work and feed and house their families.

If you really want to stimulate the economy, do something to drop the gas prices. This will make it not cost so much just to go to and from work. I used to spend about $15 a week on gas. Now I spend about $50. I went from a 6 cylinder Ford to a Suzuki lawnmower engine in a box, but still spend over 3 times as much. If it don't cost so much to transport stuff, business will slowly lower the price of stuff back down. This will encourage the average Joe to go back to buying crap he don't need, since he now has some spare cash again. With sales up, businesses will go to hiring back the convenient but non-essential people they laid off when sales dropped off.

My wife and I used to go to the bar or club once or twice a month, eat out at a decent restaurant a couple of times a week, go to the movies or bowling a couple of times a month, and blow hell out of the shooting range on a regular basis. Now, about all we can afford to do is sit at home and watch TV or play on the Internet. Hitting the gym a couple of times a week is now our high point. This really sucks. The $600 you give me will go to paying a few bills a little ahead to give me breathing room. That's all. On the other hand, if you can encourage gas prices to drop, you could save my $30 to $40 per week, that would make $120 to $200 per month I can spend on other shit. If the other shit drops a little in price, I can buy more off it. Plus I am more likely to make that 800 mile trip to visit the old in-laws or the 200 mile one to see the nephews. See, you can stimulate the economy and make my wife happy. That's a win-win situation.