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CNN Live At Daybreak

Tax Rebate Checks Soon to be Mailed

Aired July 20, 2001 - 08:34   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN ANCHOR: A couple of hopes keeping matters on the tax rebate that people in the United States are expecting. Five states have changed or are going to change their tax codes. By doing so, they will not take a chunk of the federal tax refund checks that started going out today. Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Utah and Oregon will not be claiming a portion of the rebate. So, that's good news for people living in those states.

Well, there will be 91 million rebate checks heading to a mailbox near you. They're being printed at eight different government locations.

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: That's right, the check's in the mail. And one site is Kansas City, Missouri. Vice President Dick Cheney will be there later this morning. CNN's Jeff Flock there right now. Nothing like the boss coming down to town to make sure things go well.

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Everything is humming along very well here in Kansas City this morning and you know, not quite in the mail yet. Perhaps behind me, you see those boxes back there. Some 692,000 checks have already been printed at least in this first wave. And perhaps you see there's room here. They are awaiting the vice president as well as the Treasury secretary; the Senate minority leader will be here today and President Bush himself via satellite. They're setting up a satellite dish in the parking lot. And his remarks will be here as well via satellite.

An important day here, tax refund checks, as you said, about to go in the mail. And we've got a camera placed back in the bowels of this building here, one of these five centers and a total of eight that'll be printing these checks. And that is a machine back there that, in a curious way, is the last stop on the tax refund preparation. That is the wrapping of the checks.

And I've got Gary Beets with me, who's the deputy director of this. You wrap them. You don't stuff the checks in envelopes.

GARY BEETS, DEPUTY REGIONAL DIRECTOR, U.S. TREASURY: No, there's no government employee that sits down and stuffs checks into envelopes. These checks...

MCEDWARDS: Sorry, Jeff Flock, we've got to interrupt you here just a moment because we do want to actually take our viewers live to Washington. We've got a live shot outside the apartment of Congressman Gary Condit. This is where the media has been staking it out for days and days now, pretty much watching his every move, as he goes back and forth to business on Capitol Hill and his agriculture committee and some of the other work that he does. We're hoping to get a shot of him leaving the apartment in just a moment. We assume to go on to the Capital to do his work of the day.

As you can see the media presence there. And as soon as it happens, we are going to bring it to you live. There's the front of the apartment building there and some of the crews standing by.

If we can go back now to Jeff Flock, we'll do that. Jeff?

FLOCK: OK, folks, back here we were talking with Gary Beets who is the fellow that helps put this all together. How big a job is this for you? You typically would not be printing some 692,000 checks. You'll do about 12 -- 10, 12 million, right?

BEETS: Yes, this is additional workload at this particular point in time. However, like you said earlier, we're issuing 692,000 checks this week. During the normal tax refund season, we would typically process 1.2 million checks. So, we can handle this very well.

FLOCK: I'm going to ask Spike if he can go over and take a look at those boxes over there. These -- are these all of the 692,000 that we're looking at right now in these boxes?

BEETS: No, this is only a portion of the 692,000. We have many more back in the staging area here.

FLOCK: Does it cost you extra to do all this?

BEETS: Not really anything extra, just the postage primarily.

FLOCK: You still have the pay postage.

BEETS: We still have to pay the postage but we pay it at a discounted rate.

FLOCK: You know, talking about some fun facts to know and tell, all these checks, I'm told, weigh about 50,000 pounds if you total them all up. And you print them both on laser printers as well as old printers. How fast do you print the checks?

BEETS: That's correct. Currently, we have two types of technology. We got the old impact printer technology, which prints about 12,000 checks per hour. The new laser technology prints 70,000 checks per hour. So essentially one of the laser printers will replace five of the old impact printers.

FLOCK: And maybe this is no big deal for you because I know you print checks all the time. If the federal government needs to pay somebody, taxpayers, it comes typically through one of the centers. But have you ever seen this kind of attention focused on this effort?

BEETS: No, I've been with the Treasury about 16 years and I've never seen this kind of attention -- no.

FLOCK: And what do you attribute that to?

BEETS: Well, obviously, the -- it -- you know, the fact that these are rebate checks and it represents tax relief to the American workers.

FLOCK: OK, you're doing your part.

BEETS: Thank you.

FLOCK: Gary, thank you. We appreciate it very much.

We will be here throughout the day. As we said, a big ceremony with the vice president, the president himself via satellite, the Treasury secretary back here to trumpet the notion of tax refund checks in the mail. We'll be back. Stay tuned.

MCEDWARDS: All right, CNN's Jeff Flock, thanks so much for that. And I apologize for the interruption.

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