President Bush stood in the garden of the White House this morning and announced that the tax rebates would be on their way in your pocketbook by Monday. (You should have your cash on Monday, if you elected to receive your refund by direct deposit. Paper checks will take longer.)

But only those who have filed their tax returns, and meet the income levels, will be eligible for a tax rebate. Sadly, I will not be among those getting an electronic deposit into my bank account.

What are you going to do with your money? With consumers feeling so down in the dumps about the economy (it was the worst numbers for the consumer sentiment survey in more than 25 years), my sense is that most people will either use the cash to pay down debt (an excellent idea!) or buy basic necessities: food and gas.

While $800 to $1,600 isn’t enough money to stave off foreclosure forever, it might be enough to keep your family going for another month or two. The President is hoping you’ll spend it all, and more, on goods that will help jumpstart our economy.

Call me a skeptic, but I don’t think we’re going to see a huge bump in the economy from this.

Published: Apr 25, 2008