Women at work and their tips, challenges, advice, complaints, and experiences

Well, they finally got it done: the $170 billion economic stimulus bill has passed both the Senate and Congress.  President Bush is expected to sign that puppy up right quickly to allow rebate checks of between $300 and $1,200 to be sent out to many tax-filing Americans.

Will I take the money?  Sure.   Will I go stimulate the economy with it?  Well, I suppose if paying off debt counts - sure.  Am I still irritated about the situation?  You bet yer buttons, Workerettes.  In fact, I'm a smidge more peeved than I already was! 

But you're probably going to be getting "found" money - why would you be irritated? you ask. 

Here's why: 

1. I'm pissed at the legislators who tried to tack pet concepts onto the economic stimulus package.  I feel they tried to take advantage of an opportunity to grab money, when the whole point was to provide funds "to the people".
2. I'm pissed at the American people who feel that this money is necessary for them to be able to save themselves from a recession.  Since when is $300, or even $1,200, gonna save your arse when you're already up to your ears in debt, people?
3. I'm pissed at the banks who have encouraged people to take on more, and more, and more, and MORE credit and are now whining to the government that they extended too much credit and they can't bail themselves out.  THAT is what happens when you loan money to people with bad credit, folks!  (Next they are going to whine about people not paying them off with their rebate checks - just hide and watch.)
4. I'm pissed at the people who haven't even filed their taxes yet and are planning on blowing every penny of their anticipated return - AND their rebate check - on TOYS and non-essentials, but who will then complain that they've had to cut out "non-essentials" like lattes and vacations.  Maybe they should have done that already?  (By the way, make sure you go read the article I just linked to, and notice who did the survey that provides the statistics noted: DISCOVER.  Hmmm - a creditor is worried about what people are willing and able to spend.  Golly, I wonder why.)
5. I'm pissed at the very CONCEPT that we have become a nation of people who supposedly hate Big Government and yet expect government bail-outs such as prime interest rate drops, mortgage interest rate freezes, and economic stimulus checks.

A very wise man once said, "The burden of debt is as destructive to freedom as subjugation by conquest."  Stop and think about that, folks.  Who are you bearing burdens for?  How heavy is the weight you carry on your shoulders - and what, exactly, are you willing to do about it?  I don't think I'm the only one who is pretty sick and tired of this great nation becoming one that flips the finger at the government with one hand for their supposed over-involvement in our lives while grasping for a check with the other hand.  I also don't think I'll be the only one who will use that stimulus rebate to break one more chain on the shackles that bind my family to the credit card hawking predators in the banking world. 

Unfortunately, I suspect that we'll be in the minority, and that the businesses who see an upsweep in the first few weeks of checks plopping into mailboxes will be right back at square one (or would that be -1?) when those 3,000 pennies fall right through people's hands.

And as for that guy who spoke so wisely about keeping one's butt out of debt?  You'll see his picture a couple of times if you cash that check out at a bank and ask for the right bills.  His name is Benjamin Franklin.  Something tells me he's spinning in his grave, as the saying goes, at the state of our union.