It’s Friday, thank god, and I was a little more stimulated than usual when I logged into my bank account.  A rather respectable sum, deposited last night from the coffers in Washington DC.

I’ve long been a proponent of education and healthcare and the stimulus payments got me thinking: instead of giving Americans enough to make a few minimum payments on their credit cards (something I’m sure will make a few people happy), why not do what our parents told us to do and invest it?

Sure.  They tell us it’s an investment.  Spend more, and the economy will thrive.  But there’s more to spending than knocking $600 off the Visa bill or buying a few new trinkets for the home, and I really wonder if this administration thinks past the next five minutes.

The IRS estimates that one hundred and thirty million households will get a check.  Even if everyone got the minimum $600, that still works out to seventy-eight BILLION dollars.  Divvy that up among the states, and we’re still talking over a BILLION dollars per state.

I bet we could build a lot of schools with a billion dollars.  And buy a lot of textbooks and pencils.  Heck, we could even spring for a few new computers.

And the best part?  Building new schools would create construction and infrastructure jobs, not to mention teaching jobs and support staff jobs.  The value of communities increases as the quality of the infrastructure increases.  The quality of education improves and we produce better citizens.

So which do you support?  A few dollars in our wallet, or an investment in our country?