don't get me wrong. i appreciate the six hundred some dollars i'm getting back from rent. it's almost a month of rent. in theory, that's substantial.

but, if the government thinks it's doing me or the economy a favour by dividing it by twelve and giving me $50/month for the year, it's really sadly mistaken. what i'd like to do is spend the money on furniture. bookshelves and tables, specifically. at $50 a month, it's going to take all year to do something i'd rather do quickly. it's going to mean i'm going to have to save the money up over the course of a few months and probably go shopping every two months or so with roughly $100.

....except that it's a virtual certainty that i'm not going to do that. instead, i'm going to waste it on nothing of any importance, and mostly on items that are not taxable due to repressive laws.

i'm well aware that the idea is to prevent low income people from wasting it on drugs, or beer and popcorn, but whomever thought that up has obviously never been low income or done drugs, or drank beer and ate popcorn. there's not much chance i'm going to spend $650 all at once. that would be pretty much smoking myself stupid. however, there's a pretty good chance i'm going to pitter away what is more or less smoke money, at $50/month. the way to stop me from pissing it away is to give it to me all at once so i can spend it; the way to have me waste it is to give it to me in monthly installments that aren't enough to buy anything with.

as policy, it's just not very intelligently thought through.

i'm actually considering not claiming the energy credit, so the refund is under $360 and it just comes in in one chunk.

now, that's this year, when i just moved into a new place.

next year, $650 might buy me some gear if it comes in at once. if i played video games (i don't) it might have bought a new system, rather than a new game for an old one every month.

some people could use it to pay down credit card debts. $50/month just keeps them on the interest paying hamster wheel. useless.

...all to try and combat the imaginary problem of people blowing their tax returns on beer by budgeting them monthly beer money instead....

the other options are both more economically useful and more functionally useful.

of course if i was a real economist, i'd say something about investing it somewhere. which is probably true of a small number of people. you'd think that would be what they'd want.

but what i'm irked about is the idea that giving me a small amount will help me spend it more responsibly, because i'm too irresponsible to spend a lump sum. i'll even concede that i'm irresponsible, but they've got the whole thing backwards.

at least give me the choice how to adjust to my inherent irresponsibility, rather than trying to enforce a model of fiscal responsibility on me that is alien to what i know my nature is.

that sort of forced fiscal planning always fails.