We Paid $42 Million and All We Got Was This Lousy Letter

The government has some fantastic news but the only way to tell you that is to spend $42 million to mail out letters to 130 million households. These letters tell you that the fantastic economy stimulus checks that will be arriving right to your door will be arriving not now but in the late spring.

From the Associated Press:

That works out to about 32 cents to print, process and mail each letter. It doesn't include the tab for another round of mailings planned for those who didn't file tax returns last year but may still qualify for a rebate.

So that $42 million sticker price will not be the final cost.

Keith Hennessey, director of the president's National Economic Council, said the letters are being sent to explain how the tax rebates will work.

"Any time you do something as a government tens of millions of times, there is ample room for people to get confused. And so if you're going to have tens of millions of taxpayers getting checks, you want to get the information out so that you have as few people as possible confused about what's happening, they understand what's coming, and it reduces the number of incoming requests that IRS and Treasury have to figure out how to deal with it," said Hennessey.

"Dear Taxpayer," the letters will begin, going on to say the IRS is pleased to inform the recipient that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law a plan that will provide payments of up to $600 for individuals who qualify or $1,200 for married couples filing jointly. The rebates are the centerpiece of a $168 billion economic stimulus package.

The actual rebate checks are scheduled to go out starting in May, after the IRS has finished separately mailing out routine refunds for the 2007 tax year.

Why couldn't the IRS simply send a receipt stating the reasons why the recipient received what they received, according to their tax returns. It would save the cost of an additional mailing and surely setting up a hotline to take questions from the population would not cost $42 million by the end of the summer or even the fall.

Unless this was just the IRS's way of doing their part to stimulate the economy.

Again, from the AP story:

Democrats accused the Bush administration of wasting time and postage.

"There are countless better uses for $42 million than a self-congratulatory mailer that gives the president a pat on the back for an idea that wasn't even his," Sen. Charles Schumer said Friday, arguing the IRS could more effectively spend the money to catch tax cheats.

Considering that the Democrats in the Senate overwhelming shot down the proposed one year moratorium on earmarks, including Senator Schumer, this argument rings quite hollow, especially since those earmarks cost far more than $42 million.

Of course, it may just be that it may be seen as giving credit to President Bush. In which case, don't legislators spend quite large amounts of money when using their franking privileges to tout themselves to their constituents?

This cost is unnecessary, but let's not blind ourselves to the fact that it is far from the only place where belts could be tightened.