What to do with $42 million. . .

$42 million dollars. What would you do if you had $42 million to wast--er, spend? Go on a vacation? Retire? Start a philanthropy?

It's not exactly a problem I have, unfortunately, though the first thing I'd probably do is quit my job and travel for a year. Then I'd buy a house someplace-- perhaps one here and one in Paris or in the Italian countryside? Oh, and I'd buy a house for my parents and my brothers, too. Nothing lavish. I don't care about size so much as long as there is a hammock in the yard and it comes with a dishwasher and gas range. Then I'd resume violin lessons and perhaps learn to play the piano.

But back to $42 million. If you've been following the news (I'm about 4-6 weeks behind, so think back to April), then you know what the significance of $42 million is.

Well, I just received my "reminder" notice for the $600 tax rebate check. . .the one that I already got wired to my account (ten days ago, I'd like to add) and have already mailed off to Myanmar and China to go towards relief efforts. The reminder notice kindly informed me that I should expect it in the mail any day now.

According to MSN, the federal government spent $42 million to mail these tardy notices out. Is this possible? Did they really spend $42 million of tax money to tell me something that I already know about and certainly didn't need a reminder notice for?

First of all, this is as dumb as my workplace putting paper notices in everyone's mailbox whenever a holiday rolls around. I got one for the upcoming Memorial Day holiday "reminding" me that I don't need to come into work on Monday. Duh. Like we don't all know (and secretly live for) this? At least my work place only wastes half a ream of paper, labor fees to copy and file this notice into everyone's mailbox--which couldn't be more than $40 total per holiday. Still, multiply that by 8 or so holidays a year, and that's $320 and several reams of paper and copier toner wasted.

But $42 million is not exactly pocket change to send out needless reminders.

When it comes to getting money, we are a very motivated bunch. If there is news about the government sending us checks in the mail, rest assured that in some way or another, people will find out. Heck, I don't even own a TV and I knew about the stimulus check. And if for whatever reason people don't find out via friends, family, news, word-of-mouth or other networks, they will be pleasantly surprised. Either way, there is no need to send out notices to people that tell them that their check is on their way. None. Especially if it costs $42 million.

Second, it's one thing if the government were rolling in the dough and didn't have any financial problems. $42 million is still an obscene amount of money to waste. But we've got the subprime thing going on, the $311 billion federal deficit, the trade deficit, the weak dollar, people in a tizzy because of rising gas and food prices, baby boomers starting to retire, growing medicare/medicaid costs, failing schools that fail to produce proficient students, etc. Not to mention the earthquake in China and cyclone in Burma and that war bill that might be as high as $1.2 trillion to date.

Surely the $42 million could've been put to better use?

And don't even get me started on the $112 billion the government spent to pay each of us back $600. That's fodder for another post, perhaps.