Stimulus Deadline Approaches

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Oct 14, 2008 3:57PM

Ah, those Economic Stimulus checks. Remember those heady days? The Summer of '08, when the government just handed us money and few did what they should have done (pay off credit card debts and mortgage payments) and instead stimulated the economy by purchasing that HDTV they didn't need. That worked well. According to the IRS, almost 100,000 Chicagoa-area residents haven't filed for theirs and the deadline is approaching. Tomorrow, in fact. Illinois ranks 7th nationally in terms of those who haven't filed. Those who still want to file can check out more info at the IRS website. All told, 4.3 million Americans have yet to file for the stimulus check for a total pay-out of $1.3 billion. Look...we know things are tight all over, but $1.3 billion? It wouldn't be the worse thing in the world if that goes unclaimed and the government could, you know, use it to pay off a small chunk of that $10 trillion debt, would it?