$600

Actually written on January 25th, 2008. Since this time, 20 people have been inspired to pledge their entire rebate to charity. That's a pledge of about $12,000 total.

If our politicians and newspapers are telling the truth, most of us will be getting a $600 check in the mail come late May. For those of us who pay our taxes and make between 3 and 75 grand per year, the check is practically on its way. And our patriotic duty is, of course, to go out an blow it on stuff... most of us on stuff we don’t need or even know that we want yet. And of course everyone loves this idea. How could you be against it? For the first time in what seems like years, the Republicans and Democrats actually came together. I mean, how could you be opposed to Christmas in June?

But I’m not too keen on it.

I (for one) have had about enough of this nonsense about doing your “patriotic duty” by spending money on yourself. What kind of a narcissistic culture praises such uninhibited materialism?

Has anyone stopped to think what the United States of America (aka God’s Greatest Gift to Mankind since Jesus) could do with $150 billion? I mean... do we really even care that while the government is sending out checks so that we can splurge on a new Ipod, there are people in the world who can’t seem to scrounge up a bowl of rice?

According to Bread for the World, 850 million people on earth go hungry each day. 11 million children die annually from malnourishment. And although we’ve all heard such figures before, it seems like there is nothing we can do.

So I have a question. How much money do you think it would take to feed the entire world for one year? Assuming that we kept our current levels of giving the same, how much more money would be required of us, the Christian Nation, to make sure that food was provided for every single mouth on earth for the rest of 2008 and into 2009? Keep in mind that our government is giving us $150 billion for our new Ipods.

Answer: $13 billion. Yep. If our country wanted to, it could eliminate world hunger this year simply by reducing this “economic stimulus package” from $150 billion to $137 billion. So if those wonderfully unified Republicans and Democrats had decided to give me a check of $548 instead of $600, they could have thrown in the elimination of world hunger on the side. But no. I live in a land that doesn’t give a damn.

(Oh, and, by the way, many economists agree that an economic stimulus package like the one being given to us this year will do “little” or “no” good for the overall American economy. Don’t take my word for it... I heard it tonight from David Brooks of the New York Times).

Most of our country will delightfully open their mail some May morning and find that the government has given them a $600 shopping spree. I, for one, refuse to do it. I serve a different God. I’m going to proudly and boldly do my very unpatriotic duty and immediately dump the cash overseas where it belongs.

Ha! Imagine. If only 10% of the recipients of these rebates donated their money to www.bread.org or similar organizations, we’d feed every hungry person on earth. I’d love to see the look on our politicians faces if that happened. In fact, I’d pay $600 just to see it.