I’ve already questioned how our government, intent on pushing us out of our homes and into the shopping mall, is going to pay for this band-aid scheme, given that our federal bank account has been overdrawn for so long.  Yes, I’m such a negative nelly.  I know.

But as our newest get unpoor quick scheme takes shape, no one seems to think about the hidden costs that come as part of the package.  The plan (as of today) is for the federal government to send out checks of $600 per taxpayer ($1200 per family) so that we can go buy shiny stuff made in China that we neither want nor need.  Fair enough, that’s the American way.

But what is the cost behind these checks?  The ink costs money.  The envelopes don’t grow on trees.  Paper has gotten really expensive.  Somebody has to run the machines that put the checks into the envelopes, cart the whole magillah to the door and pass it to the fellow who loads it on the post office truck.  Well, you get the picture.

Why is it that we never think about the amount of money spent to do the mundane, ordinary tasks that are necessary to make these brilliant schemes happen?

Ordinary people (like me, and there’s nobody more ordinary) think about their operating costs when we come up with brilliant ideas.  We do this because the costs associated with our bigger ideas come out of our pockets.  When you actually have to pay for envelopes, you think about what they cost.  You learn to keep your non-productive costs down because making money is good.  Rule to live by: It is better to make money in business than lose money.

The government, however, has no similar motive.  The people in the back office don’t worry about the costs of paper or ink.  The President says mail something, and they mail something.  Same with Congress.  Their is not to reason why, etc.  But these things still have to be paid for, and guess who is doing the paying?

The cost of mailing a whole lotta checks to a whole lotta Americans has got to be huge.  If anybody has a viable number, please let me know.  But I’m going to engage in rank speculation and suggest that we could run a bunch of schools, or a handful of hospitals, or maybe a smallish state, on the amount of money that is going to be spent just to send us our $600 mad money.

I don’t know about you, but I work awfully hard for my money.  It’s not fine with me to have somebody waste it.  So when the government comes up with a great scheme like this, I wonder why I bother to manage my own practice with any degree of thoughtfulness, just so somebody else can reach into my pocket, pull out a wad of cash and flush it down the toilet.  Just wondering.