GETTING STIMULATED

When it comes to stimulation, often as not you'll find me first in line. I've got nothing against being stimulated, as long as it isn't by a government; that's like being stimulated by an oversized steam-driven contraption in desperate need of oil.

So I chuckled when I heard about the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, the Diebold president’s Surge-like plan to save the US economy from what he and his crew have done to it, by giving each not-yet-completely-broke citizen a nanodrop to put in their personal debt bucket-- if they don’t, under the circumstances, simply blow the check on a few cases of beer.

With a national debt in the trillions and a derivative threat of many more trillions, the crew call $300 an Economic Stimulus. (Those with qualifying income of less than $3000 [!] and tax liability of zero don’t get stimulated at all; somehow that makes a GOP kind of sense.)

I expected, though, since I’ve been living outside the country for the past 35 years, that I personally would not get stimulated in such a way. But not long ago I received one of those classy tear-along-dotted-lines-to-open letters from my relentless friend the IRS, addressed precisely to my foreign home, informing me of my possibly being entitled to a payment of anywhere from zero to $600 "plus additional amounts for each qualifying child.” In natural disbelief I looked the pulp document over carefully, searching for the must-be-there clause along the lines of “...those who have lived overseas for more than 34 years and have never paid any US taxes do not qualify for the Stimulus Payment, and will be liable for $10,000 or more in Life Elsewhere Tax for every year spent abroad.”

But I could find no sign of the naysay clause that characterizes hopefully scanned government/financial/insurance documents; there was nothing specifying my ineligibility, not even in the small print or between the lines. Can I therefore expect-- my “Net Income Tax Liability” being “Zero” (Foreign-Earned Income Exclusion) and my “Qualifying Income” being “At least $3000"-– a check from the IRS for this summer’s beer? According to this hedgy letter, I can.

Actually, I suspect I’ll get the old steam-delivered naysay clause instead of a check, but that's ok-- I’d rather not be stimulated by the G-device; who knows where it's been.

Anyway, E pluribus unum, Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes and so forth.

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In re which: How I Spent My Stimulus

MOUNTAIN LANDLADY

We have a nice big flat-topped rock next to the tall old oak in the garden, with daffodils growing around it, it's a great place to sit in the shade on a hot-day break from gardening or woodpslitting, and while I was in the house taking a lunch break the shemonkey came out of the bamboo and headed straight for the rock in all familiarity, sat down casually and looked around like she owned it all, landlady taking inventory, relaxing there on her comfy rock amid her daffodils in the cool shade of her oak as calmly as you or I might sit there with our arms around our knees and scanned the garden in all serenity, itemizing, thinking to herself 'hmmm... I notice my human tenant has put in some tomatoes for me, they should be due in 4-6 weeks…' and making a note in the mental palm pilot they all carry, when I stepped quietly out onto the deck and grabbed a couple of egg-sized rocks from the monkey ammo basket.

She didn't see me or hear me, she was so engrossed in the new assets I had generated on her behalf '...we finished what few mushrooms there were last time, but now where are the onions, cucumbers, pumpkins I require...' and was puzzling over what to do with all that pointless firewood ‘…maybe the kids could play on it...,' so deep in her audit she didn't notice me until I pounded the rocks on the deck railing and made like a New York landlord yelling in monkey. She levitated about three feet in the air, legs already running in the away direction.

That's when I noticed that at least half a dozen henchmonkeys had been hunching quietly up in the trees above the hairy landlady and in the underbrush behind her, where they'd been awaiting the results of her inventory, ready to carry off whatever of her assets she indicated. They all took off at once in a loud cloud of brown fur, discussing tomato due dates.

Reminded me of the IRS, somehow...