Letter to my Congressman about an idea I had

Dear Sir:

I was listening to National Public Radio today for part of the Diane Rehm Show and they were discussing the possible one-time tax rebate that is being considered to try to stimulate the economy. One of the problems they were foreseeing is that for this to work, people need to take their rebate money and spend it on goods or services. However, apparently only about 1/3 of people will do this. The remaining 2/3 of us will either save it or pay off existing debt with the money. I had suggestion for this problem:

What if the IRS sent the rebate in the form of a pre-paid credit card? Many merchants offer similar cards so they cannot be that expensive and the systems for processing them are already in place. Further, the money would remain in the Treasury until actually spent, meaning the government would get the interest on it during that time. Finally, while it is conceivable that a person might spend the money from the card and then save or pay off debt with an equal amount of money from another source, I believe it would be less likely. More often, the citizen would use the pre-paid card as a credit card which means they would purchase something with it, and that would increase the amount of benefit from the rebate.

About the only problem I see is that this solution might create more "unclaimed property" held by the Treasury. However, I believe the IRS probably already has that issue with some of the tax refund checks it issues, so I hope it would not overburden the system.

I hope that whatever staffer reads this letter for you forwards the idea to you and that you can forward it on to someone on the appropriate committee. I think the idea has merit.

Sincerely,