Friday's Personal Finance stories

If someone handed you $600 right now, what would you do with it?

That's question on lawmakers' minds as they debate whether to inject a fiscal stimulus into the economy in the hopes that cash in consumers' hands will prime the economic engine. As one economist in our lead story today says: "Give the average consumer a check for $50 and he knows what to do with it."

Now, I'm happy as the next person to be handed a few hundred dollars. But do you ever feel as though the double standard is a bit too much to bear sometimes? Americans are exhorted to stop loading up their credit cards and berated for living beyond their means, yet once again the government appears ready to beg us to spend.

Consumers were happy to oblige in 2001, the last time the government handed out a cash stimulus. Still, some economists say consumers are less likely to embrace their inner shopaholic this time, given stagnant wages, steep credit-card debt and, for some, mortgage woes.

Read consumer writer Jennifer Waters' story today for more on what consumers are likely to do should the fiscal stimulus plan come to pass, plus see which companies and government agencies are working to recruit older workers, and find out how the IRS is reacting these days to frivolous tax arguments, all on today's Personal Finance pages.

The dispiriting fact about this stimulus plan is that it's the lowest-income people who are likely to spend the most, while higher-income people can afford to save. So, I'd like to suggest an alternative idea for fiscal stimulus. Rather than the government spending tons of money to encourage poor people to spend, let's leave the little guys, and even the middle guys, out of it. Simply ask a few hundred multi-millionaires to spend an extra grand or two in the next couple of months. Buy their Christmas presents now, maybe. They could even get a special tax deduction for making a gift to the U.S. economy. That'd likely cost our country less. And it would leave the rest of us better able to focus on being savers, rather than consumers.

Andrea Coombes, assistant personal finance editor