The horse’s mouth

Yeah … just don’t look there, OK?

Spent yours yet? Well, let’s back up a minute. By now you have (I hope) received, cashed, and spent your first one. I say “first” one because lately the president is making rumbles that he wants us to have another piece of the pie. Of course I’m talking about our Free Government Stimulator Check.

Mine is long gone. Dad always told me: Bill, never look a gift horse in the mouth. I had no idea what the heck he was talking about. Made about as much sense as his “Birds and the Bees” talks.

I know that for the more conservative thinkers, it was one tough pill to swallow. But for socialists like me … no problemo. (I like my Social Security check every month.) Government handouts are anathema to them. I get that. Free government money ranks right up there with free government welfare programs and free government cheese. Even if your red-statestained fingers quivered with angst taking this socialist handout, I’ll bet you didn’t have any problems spending the darn thing. Just imagine when the roll call vote was taken in Congress and the red-state reps squeaked out their barely audible “Yea.”

But as all students of macroeconomics know, our congressmen and women with D’s and R’s parenthetically printed next to their names came together in a bipartisan effort and did exactly the right thing. Even if the right thing was not the right thing.

John Maynard Keynes (who died hating his parents for that middle name) was the one who came up with all this. He published “The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money” in 1936 when the Great Depression was ripping this nation (and pretty much the rest of the world) to economic shreds. Paraphrasing him a bit (OK — a bunch), he said: Government, always flush with cash anyway, should step up its spending when the economy’s in the toilet.

As we all know, stepping up spending is pretty much a no-brainer for most politicians anyway. Keynes’ words fell on friendly ears indeed. Government’s crazy spending, so his theory goes, will stimulate our crazy spending. All this spending will, in turn, stimulate the economy. Then, after all the stimulating is done, the government is supposed to step back and stop spending like a sailor on shore leave.

But that’s the part of Keynes they forgot to read.

The Keynesian Economics card has been played by governments around the world ever since. Benevolent world leaders and compassionate legislative bodies have invoked its principles to save their unwashed masses and salvage their economies. Corporations bailed out. Small businesses rescued. And starving families fed. Politicians, overcome with umm … compassion, speechified how, because of their political unselfishness and overwhelming concern for the voter, whoops! … the common man, the country was pulled back from the brink of economic disaster.

So, there you go. Now you know why you got your Free Government Stimulator check. And maybe another one in the works.

Many years ago Joanne and I were unwitting beneficiaries of Keynesian Economics when we received a bailout from Big Brother. You see, we married when we were college freshmen. Stop snickering. It was love. Probably not the smartest thing we ever did. Times were tough. Flat busted. (Our finances … not Joanne). We were living on peanut butter, ramen noodles and all that love I was talking about.

Her big brother (we called him Big Brother) rode to our rescue. After seven years of frat keggers, he graduated from college and landed a fat job in the oil industry. He pumped gas at the local Exxon. With some of his overtime pay he wrote us a nice bailout check. Two years ago, while he was lying on his deathbed (gas fumes, the doctor said), I bent over to kiss him. I’ll never forget those last words he struggled to whisper into my ear: “You still owe me for that bailout, idiot.”

JOPINION

oanne walked out to the mailbox in her pajamas one afternoon in April. Just before “Jeopardy” or “Judge Judy” … I can’t remember. Too many J’s. Anyway, sure enough, there it was — our Free Government Stimulator Check.

As she walked back into the house with the old guy next door whistling at her jammies, she thought she’d have a little fun. She hid it from me. Stuck it somewhere I rarely look … in my underwear drawer. After “Jeopardy” or “Judge Judy” was over, she told me she had to make her weekly Walmart run even though it was only Tuesday. She snapped her homemade hankie face mask over her mouth, leaving her nose clear like all those folks you see on TV. As she turned to go, I reminded her she was still dressed in her jammies.

“Bill,” she said. “It’s Walmart. Nobody’ll notice.”

When she got home she slinked into our bedroom with a Walmart bag. Inside she had a fuzzy stuffed animal she got in the toy department. She took her scissors and cut the fuzzy little horsie’s mouth open. She took out the Free Government Stimulator Check from my underwear drawer and stuffed it inside.

When she surprised me with it, there it was. Our Free Government Stimulator Check. Right there in the horse’s mouth.

Sorry, Dad. I looked.