In the grand scheme of things $42 million is not all that much money. The stimulus package is supposed to cost $167 billion, so the cost of sending out the letters is .03% of that total. When you figure that 130 million americans are getting checks, that's really not a bad amount.
Regardless of how much it is in the grand scheme of things, it is a totally useless and frivolous waste of money. It shows that the people running the program deserve to be fired for incompetent waste. If tomorrow the federal government mailed out blank sheets of paper, costing another $42 million, would you think it was okay, because, in the grand scheme of things, $42 million isn't much money for our government?
I wonder what company or companies ended up getting that money. Maybe some paper supplier gave a "contribution" to Bush, and now is getting his reward by supplying the paper for mailing out useless letters to 130 million people*. The paper came from somewhere, and someone made a profit on it, when the money could have been spent on something useful instead.
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*or however many people were mailed useless letters that cost $42 million to send.
