The government just snuck $300 into my bank account. I decided a while back that I wanted to donate to OutsideIn, a local non-profit that provides health care to low-income and homeless people in Portland. They also run some great programs for homeless youth. It’s the sort of work that I might like to do–if it paid pretty well. It doesn’t.
Giving away $300 was the easiest thing I did this week. You can donate online!
Well, I thought it would be this wonderful thing if there was a website that could help you put your economic stimulus payment to work doing something meaningful. Luckily for me, there are already websites out there that have extensive catalogues of every non profit doing every kind of good work. Namely, Idealist.org, and tenways.org. Now I just have to figure out how to convince people to give away money. Should be easy, right?
First, the government sends out their checks. Then we turn around and put the money to good use. I’m not saying many people don’t already have a good way to spend an extra $600–paying the rent, feeding their families, paying off credit cards, federal taxes, dog food, mortgages, student loans, tanks of gas, new shoes–but if even 100 people decide to give away their refund, that’s $60,000 working in our communities.
The Bush administration has concocted a scheme to revive our economy. They’re giving back 150 billion (give or take) of our tax dollars, in the hope that we’ll do what we do best in America: buy stuff.
What if we didn’t buy stuff though? What if we took our 300/600/1200 dollars, and spent it on something the Bush administration doesn’t value, like say, children’s health programs or education? What if we put our money into alternative energy research, since god knows the government won’t.
There are a lot of people struggling in this country. What if we used our refunds to help them out? How hard would it be to give up your economic stimulus payment?
