June 25th, 2008
Government Seizes Stimulus Checks
Already planned how you’re spending your stimulus check? Think again – you actually may not ever see it.
Uncle Sam might have decided that the best way for you to spend your check it to automatically pay off your debts for you, including your student loans.
Over a third of the total stimulus checks were rerouted to pay outstanding student or farm loans to the U.S. government. The checks are caught by running the names of all recipients through a database built on state and federal agencies reporting Americans behind on their payments. Don’t worry – you’re safe if you’re up to date.
I can see if I haven’t paid taxes in a few years, and the government decides to keep my income tax refund. I can even understand rerouting child support checks because they are court mandated (and, let’s face it, we’ve heard plenty of stories of exes avoiding those payments). But to tell me when and how to pay my student loans? I thought we lived in a country of choice!
It’s bad enough I have to wear a helmet or a seatbelt whenever I drive a vehicle because the government thinks they know what’s best for my safety. Now, I’m told when to pay my loans, too? Perhaps I had a plan to invest what I would have received into a money market earning 7% rather than paying my 4% loans. Well, I guess I should have been making those minimum payments all along regardless.
Great point! Though this is a country of free choice, “supposedly,” this is a great life lesson of our need to be thoroughly informed before making decisions. Or especially spending money before we have it. I’m sure there is fine print in those government loans, etc., that does stipulate or has some loophole to allow the government to garnish these checks the way that they are.
But I definitely agree that it is very intrusive to handle “our supposed” money this way.
Comment by Henry — June 26, 2008 @ 11:40 am
To be fair, the government is using those checks to pay *federal* loans. If you owed me $30k and weren’t paying it back on time, I wouldn’t give you six hundred bucks either.
Not to mention – entering into a loan agreement is a legally binding obligation. Once you sign that promissory note, you are legally required to pay back the money on the agreed-upon schedule. So no, paying back your student loans isn’t a choice–it’s the law.
And those helmets and seatbelts? Not just for your safety. Guess whose insurance premiums go up to cover the costs when the non-seatbelt-wearing driver goes headfirst through the windshield?
Comment by Calliope — June 27, 2008 @ 5:40 pm
I just think that Congress should have made it clear when they passed the stimulus check bill. These students and citizens who were counting on getting $600 this month (and have probably budgeted it towards something) are totally shocked when the check never arrives. It should have been announced in the same breath of the checks.
And do you think it’s fair for our health insurance companies should be able to tell us how much to exercise or what foods to eat? It’s the same principle of choice.
Comment by uni.versatility — June 29, 2008 @ 11:33 am
I think it might be fair for insurance companies to regulate your diet and exercise if you were so obese that you’re costing them (and by definition, all their other premium-paying members) inordinate amounts of money for weight-related medical care.
Freedom of choice should only extend insofar as you don’t hurt other people with it, and in the U.S. we’re only just now starting to recognize the impacts of our individual choices. The environment is a good example – you may feel it’s totally your choice to drive an SUV, but when you do it, you’re having a very detrimental effect on people around you. On the whole world, in fact.
Comment by Calliope — July 1, 2008 @ 10:58 am