Fourth stimulus check news: The upsetting reason you might not get one

A little more than one month from now, a new stimulus-related benefit is set to begin that will send millions of US families a monthly check from the IRS depending on how many eligible children they have as well as the details of their personal financial situation. These new stimulus checks will be for either $250 or $300, and the recurring nature of them will represent a big expansion of the federally funded social safety net -- the IRS has said some 39 million households will receive at least one of these payments, which will also turn the IRS into another federal entity that pays taxpayers on a regular basis, instead of being by and large a collection agency up to this point.

Meantime, plenty of people are still talking about, predicting, and/or hoping for a new stimulus check proper, along the lines of the three payments (for $1,200, $600, and $1,400) that came before. The drumbeat of calls for such payments continues to grow in some circles -- such as among national Democratic lawmakers, and via this Change.org petition that's now garnered more than 2.25 million signatures -- but it's probably wishful thinking at this point to assume you'll get another new stimulus check, the same as the three previous ones. Here's why.