Friday, March 29, 2024

The Journal of Steffanie Rivers: Stimulus Check Equals Welfare

Steffanie Rivers
Steffanie Rivers

*If you’re one of the ten million Americans who filed for unemployment last month, you’re probably hoping for that government stimulus check to show up and save the day!

The last word on its arrival is it could take months – even by direct deposit – to be distributed. Don’t blame President Donald Trump this time. Blame obsolescence and incompatibility.

Apparently, the Internal Revenue Service has an old computer infrastructure that can’t keep up with the latest technology needed to generate and deliver stimulus checks to 3.2 million Americans in a timely manner. Some people say the problem has a quick fix. Keep hope alive, in other words. Nothing against ‘hope,’ but we’ve heard it all before.

And for people like myself who always opt to receive paper tax refund checks – because we have a low-level of trust with the feds – we might as well think of that money as a holiday surprise: Christmas is probably when we’ll see it. Blame the United States Postal Service for that.

I mailed a birthday card from Dallas to Baltimore on March 19th and it still hasn’t arrived. I mailed a birthday box from Texas to Tennessee in late February. No word on what happened to that either. The USPS motto about rain, sleet or snow not stopping their flow; they have disproven it many times. But I digress.

stimulus-check1

 

Some politicians are doing their best to lead us through this medical, social and financial crisis. Yet, the decision-making skills of many seem illogical. Hundreds of school districts across the United States are closed. Millions of non-essential businesses have been forced to cease operation and people are forbade by state and local mandates to gather in groups of more than ten, all to help slow the spread of the deadly virus COVID-19.

Yet liquor stores are still open; marijuana dispensaries are still open and gun ranges that were closed were reopened. Apparently, the National Rifle Association petitioned Homeland Security to reclassify gun ranges as ‘essential’ business. Ammunition supplies are as scarce as toilet paper. Millions have filed for unemployment. But they’ve got enough money to drink liquor, smoke weed and shoot guns! It all makes zero sense.

Some people thought they would never be in this position: Searching for a government check in the daylight with a flashlight. They look down on others who receive government assistance, better known as WIC or use an EBT card to purchase groceries. They don’t consider tax breaks as welfare.

News flash: Government assistance by any other name is still welfare.

Steffanie Rivers is a freelance journalist in the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex. Email her at [email protected] for comments, questions and speaking inquiries.

 

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