The magazine known as Money has been around since 1972, so they’ve seen some crazy things. The Arab oil embargo, for one. The Disco Craze. The 1996 Ford Taurus.
But things seem even crazier now, if such a thing were possible.
Along with so many other magazines published during the last half of the 20th century, Money was printed on paper… and was therefore partly responsible for the decimation of our global forests. And like so many magazines lately, Money has become an ‘online’ publication… and is therefore partly responsible for occupying bandwidth we could have been using to watch Netflix without all those interruptions.
It’s a trade-off. We want news, but we also want entertainment. (Doesn’t everything feel like a trade-off nowadays?)
We also want money. And we have a government willing to give it to us. But first, we have to get past the myths. That’s part of the trade-off.
The day after President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan of 2021 into law last week, Money posted an intriguing little article written by reporter Julia Glum and titled “Can the IRS Take Back Your $1,400 Payment? 7 Stimulus Check Myths, Debunked”.
One of the seven myths debunked by Ms. Glum:
Myth: The IRS will take back your stimulus check if you get too much.
The facts: Say if you made $80,000 in 2020 and $70,000 in 2019, but you haven’t filed your taxes this year yet. You would get a $1,400 stimulus check even though your current income disqualifies you. Once you file your taxes, effectively telling the IRS that you now make $80,000 and should not have received a stimulus check, you may be afraid the government will try to take its money back.
But you’re in luck. Unless the money was sent to a dead person, the IRS is generally not clawing back EIPs. Keep the cash.
It seems the Democrats who passed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan didn’t want rich people to get a $1,400 COVID stimulus check this time around. So if you earned $75,000 or less during 2019 (or during 2020, if you’ve already filed your tax return) you’re entitled to the full $1,400. If you earned more than $75,000 but less than $80,000, you will get a reduced amount.
Over $80,000 in your Adjusted Gross Income — or over $160,000, for a couple — and you get zip.
One of the myths Ms. Glum failed to debunk. unfortunately, was the idea that a couple making over $160,000 a year would spend the $1,400 foolishly, if they were to receive it. Obviously, the Democrats understand nothing about the economy. People who make over $160,000 a year are experts at spending money. No one can possibly spend $160,00 in a year unless they really know what they’re doing.
It’s the people like me, who earn almost no money at all, who will spend the $1,400 foolishly… because we have so little experience. Usually, after I pay my rent and buy some Ramen noodles at Walmart, I have barely enough left from my paycheck to buy some cheap red wine. Since the COVID came around, I’ve even had to skip the wine.
People like me are probably going to waste their entire $1,400 trying to catch up on back rent. But a couple who makes $160,000 a year would be able to do something truly useful with $1,400. Like, say, take a trip to Costa Rica. (I hear the plane fares are really reasonable right now.)
But the biggest myth about the stimulus checks — which Ms. Glum totally avoided talking about in her Money article — is that the US government actually has enough money to make these payments.
If we look behind the curtain, we find that the US government has borrowed $1.9 trillion from the Chinese government, and although the checks appear to be written in US Dollars, they are actually payable in Yuan.
Luckily, the exchange rate is pretty favorable at the moment. Your $1,400 check is worth 9,100 Yuan. Now that’s a real stimulus!
Heck, I might buy two bottles of wine.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.