Don’t fret too much over the amount of money you sent to Uncle Sam last year. In the next few months, 130 million American families will receive an “economic stimulus” tax rebate of at least $300 and as much as $1,200. Assuming the lower amount of rebate, a “stimulated” Wiregrass area resident could buy 92.3 gallons of regular unleaded gasoline.

There’s no such thing as a free lunch: The Congressional Budget Office Cost estimates the cost of the Economic Stimulus Act at $152 billion this year and another $124 billion over the next decade. That’s an average cost of $2,123.08 for each of the 130 million families receiving the stimulus checks.

So the stimulus costs $276 billion. It’s not as though that’s a lot of money. You can’t even operate a good war for that. Iraq has cost the U.S. $520 billion, give or take a few hundred million — almost twice the cost of the stimulus program.

And don’t even think about the national debt. With the runaway deficit at about $9.5 trillion on Monday, the money spent on the stimulus package would amount to less than 3 percent.

With figures that high, it’s all Monopoly money. Or perhaps not. Considering every Monopoly game comes with $15,140 in funny money, almost 627.5 million Monopoly board games would be required to raise the necessary cash — more than three times the number of Monopoly boards sold since the game’s inception in 1934.