Uncle Sam in Your Pocket

No, even more so.

Remember that nifty "Foreclosure prevention and relief" law that was sponsored by Sen. Chistopher "VIP Mortgage Client" Dodd, written by Bank of America and Countrywide Credit, and signed into law by the president recently?

Remember how it carried a mandatory -- yet rather tangential -- provision for federal government monitoring of all automatic payment transactions? You probably thought, "hmm."

And maybe then you thought, "why'd they do that?" And then, "well, they must know what they're doin'."

But some of us thought, "OK, what are the pickpockets (with the full force of the federal government) up to now?" And some others of us posted it on our blogs.

Well, now The U.S. Department of Education -- that's a federal agency -- is notifying those with outstanding student loans, thusly:

NOTICE OF PROPOSED TREASURY OFFSET AGAINST ALL PAYMENT STREAMS AUTHORIZED BY LAW, EITHER CURRENTLY OR IN THE FUTURE. THESE PAYMENT STREAMS MAY BE PAYMENTS TO WHICH YOU ARE ENTITLED TO RECEIVE EITHER NOW OR IN THE FUTURE.

There is a bit of clarification on the Loan Statement, but not much. It reads, in part, "These payment streams may include (but are not limited to) Federal and/or State tax refunds, Social Security Benefits, and/or Federal travel reimbursements."

Since they're already hitting Federal income tax refunds, and have been for years, I can't imagine why they feel the need to remind people, unless something has suddenly changed. Something, for example, in the "but are not limited to" category. Could that "something" be the sweeping new "payment stream" monitoring stipulation provided by Sen. Dodd's recently enacted "foreclosure prevention" law?

This apparently applies to past due and defaulted loans. These are fair game, I suppose. But the methodology is a bit ominous.

I hope we're not moving closer and closer to the day when you don't have to pay a bill, it's all done by Uncle Sam's monitoring of your "payment streams," and all you have to do is show up for work.

Or else.

(some very interesting Student Loan Default statistics here.)