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\nWe do not know if you are keeping track of the days. At Refuge Farm we are, mostly out of a sort of morbid curiosity about the biggest bill in the history of the United States Congress. It is supposed to be voted on this morning. A Friday. Rocket looked a little stunned. \u201cIf it is the biggest bill ever produced in this Congress, it would be the largest legislative exercise in human history.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRemember the hundred thousand dollar bill they printed? You could get to a trillion and still fit it in one large suitcase. It had Mr. Wilson\u2019s picture on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are talking about legislation, not spending cash. And wasn\u2019t his wife Edna the first lady president of the United States?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cStop it. We can only make up a certain amount of history in one morning.\u201d<\/p>\n
That transition in thought prompted the group to address immediate and real issues. You may be aware that there is a holiday coming up next week. A lot of people seem pretty engaged on that matter. In fact, a bunch of them work up on The Hill. Speaker Pelosi, a leader who never brought a vote to the floor of the House she couldn\u2019t win, is holding it right now.<\/p>\n
There was some sentiment about that one, since this is like so huge that they can\u2019t tell us how much it is. Just the start of it starts at around $2 Trillion, an amount that equals nearly half of the total annual Federal budget. The stuff that is in the bill- to the degree we even understand what\u2019s in it- actually is loaded with stuff labeled as \u201ctemporary\u201d funding for programs that are not intended to be temporary at all. And it may also include amnesty for eight million people who came here in violation of other existing laws.<\/p>\n
There is some additional uncertainty about how that is all counted. Loma claimed the bi-partisan Congressional Budget Office said the real total might be somewhere between four trillion and more than five. And in order to make it sound reasonable, the user-friendly Internal Revenue Service is supposed to vacuum up more than a hundred billion dollars a year in new taxes, plus hire several battalions of new enforcement agents to look over our bank accounts to ensure we all contribute our fair share to something we don\u2019t want.<\/p>\n
Melissa, regardless of pronouns, pointed out there were some issues that \u201cthey\u201d liked along with some \u201cthey” didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Splash was late to the meeting. He apologized but said he had been watching CNN and the biggest bill passed, and now we can all transition to working on the woven bacon blanket that will envelope the fresh turkey breast next week. The bacon is ready, but the bird to which it is attached is actually still walking around over at the Russian\u2019s farm next door. So there is still some work to be done on that matter, like the biggest bill.<\/p>\n
DeMille was a little frustrated. \u201cI had hoped we could get back to the historical record this morning. That already happened, so we know what it cost. As you know, the Chairman has been claiming his family helped build the Orange & Alexandria railroad that runs by Refuge Farm. That may be true, but we have found a sentence in the Socotra records that claim somebody\u2019s grandfather\u2019s grandfather worked on the Baltimore & Ohio and the Louisville & Nashville lines. It would be nice to produce something along that line, and demonstrate the Chairman\u2019s connection to this soil. People like history, and they also seem to like locomotives and trains. That would be a winner for more clicks on the mice out there. Which is what drives the revenue model.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAren\u2019t you referring to the computer peripheral device people use to navigate their computer screens? And wouldn\u2019t the plural of a \u201cmouse\u201d actually be \u201cmouses,\u201d not \u201cmice?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMice is nice. But let\u2019s not do pronouns or plurals this morning. Besides, we can\u2019t click on anything in the House bill that may actually be bigger than the entire Federal budget, which is a bargain $4.6 Trillion. So, we get a free year of cash and they say it won\u2019t cost a single cent.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNone of this makes any sense,\u201d grumbled Loma. \u201cI took civics in high school, and all this stuff is supposed to be proposed and debated in the regular order of appropriations. Now, they just bundle everything up into a single massive bill that they say does everything but no one seems to know exactly what\u2019s in it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the way it works now. It makes it much easier to syphon off hundreds of billions of bucks to projects that benefit donors. Of course, since this is all new, we really have no idea if this is going to do anything like what they say it does.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we already know that it is filled with stuff not worth talking about because it doesn\u2019t. We used to be protected from that, since the members had to vote specifically on the issues. But now the whole thing will have the force of law behind it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the Senate passes it. Senator Schumer says the Senate should clear their calendars through Christmas to do some stuff. He wasn\u2019t clear about what that was, though.\u201d<\/p>\n
DeMille laughed and produced a scroll of ancient paper from the shadow of the rock next to him. \u201cIt will be easier to trace construction of the Baltimore & Ohio back in the 1850s. And it will make Chairman Socotra happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSuppose it doesn\u2019t show what he has been claiming?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn that case we can simply drop it and move on. Make up a better history.\u201d<\/p>\n
Splash almost made a move to stand up but thought better of it. \u201cI think we can take a lesson from our friends on The Hill on that one.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJust remember the current law. The Distillery is closed on Sundays.\u201d Splash blinked hard at that one and actually rose, looking for the keys to the truck.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2021 Vic Socotra
\nwww.vicsocotra.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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