Now that the Fiscal Stimulus plan is signed, I’ve been thinking about the potential impacts and their timing. Yesterday, Chairman Bernanke said he expected the help to appear in the July-September quarter. First off, I doubt this plan will help and secondly, I disagree with the timing. According to Secretary Paulson, the checks will be going out sometime near May. So I can understand why Bernanke would expect to see the impact come in a few months later. However, my thoughts are different. Considering the American consumer’s inability to wait for things and their love of credit cards, I think many Americans will purchase in advance of receiving the checks and put those purchases on their credit cards. Once the government checks come in, the majority will go to pay down some of the credit cards. We’ll see how it turns out but I will be very surprised to see a measurable effect in July-September. Some of the checks have probably already been spent. Some more will be spent between now and when they arrive. Some of the checks will be spent as soon as they are received. Some will be spent months later. According to recent surveys, a percentage of Americans don’t intend to spend it at all. There’s a lot of bad things happening in the credit card market (read this post from Mish). Credit card debt is way too high, but didn’t grow much in December. Payment delinquencies are rising. I wouldn’t be surprised if the administration paid attention to that as they dreamed up the plan I call the “credit card stimulus plan.”