No matter your own political leanings, the way you vote can have clear consequences for your personal finances. It may seem like politics only broadly touch our personal bank accounts, with promises of a chicken in every pot or plans to grow the number of jobs in a particular location. But there can be some far more direct connections between your finances and the way your representatives vote.

Today, the Obama administration will announce that all benefits payments from the government will be paid electronically, rather than with paper checks. This includes, but is not limited to, Social Security, unemployment, veterans benefits, railroad retirement, and other government benefits. If you do not have a bank account, you will instead receive a debit card through the Treasury Department’s Direct Express Debit MasterCard program.

As we near the end of April, we also near the announcement period of Series I Savings Bond interest rates. For the uninitiated, here’s a quick recap – Series I Savings bonds are Treasury bonds whose interest rate is pegged to the rate of inflation.

Earlier today, General Motors announced that the company paid $4.7 billion to the U.S. government and $1.1 billion to the Canadian government, fulfilling its obligation agreed to when it received its initial bailout funds. In total, GM received $52 billion from the U.S. government, but only $6.7 billion of this amount was considered a loan. The company already paid back $2 billion, so this $4.7 billion is the last payment.

Aside from some procedural maneuvering in the Senate, the health insurance reform bill that Congress has been working on for the last year, now falling under the Reconciliation Act of 2010 (H.R. 4872) and the Senate health bill, will soon be signed into law. How is the new law going to affect your personal finances? Since there are so many different health and insurance situations in America, it’d be impossible to cover them all in one article.