We 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. “If it is the biggest bill ever produced in this Congress, it would be the largest legislative exercise in human history.”

“Remember 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’s picture on it.”

“We are talking about legislation, not spending cash. And wasn’t his wife Edna the first lady president of the United States?”

“Stop it. We can only make up a certain amount of history in one morning.”

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’t win, is holding it right now.

There was some sentiment about that one, since this is like so huge that they can’t 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’s in it- actually is loaded with stuff labeled as “temporary” 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.

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’t want.

Melissa, regardless of pronouns, pointed out there were some issues that “they” liked along with some “they” didn’t.

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’s farm next door. So there is still some work to be done on that matter, like the biggest bill.

DeMille was a little frustrated. “I 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’s grandfather’s 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’s 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.”

“Aren’t you referring to the computer peripheral device people use to navigate their computer screens? And wouldn’t the plural of a “mouse” actually be “mouses,” not “mice?”

“Mice is nice. But let’s not do pronouns or plurals this morning. Besides, we can’t 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’t cost a single cent.”

“None of this makes any sense,” grumbled Loma. “I 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’s in it.”

“That’s 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.”

“I think we already know that it is filled with stuff not worth talking about because it doesn’t. 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.”

“If the Senate passes it. Senator Schumer says the Senate should clear their calendars through Christmas to do some stuff. He wasn’t clear about what that was, though.”

DeMille laughed and produced a scroll of ancient paper from the shadow of the rock next to him. “It will be easier to trace construction of the Baltimore & Ohio back in the 1850s. And it will make Chairman Socotra happy.”

“Suppose it doesn’t show what he has been claiming?”

“In that case we can simply drop it and move on. Make up a better history.”

Splash almost made a move to stand up but thought better of it. “I think we can take a lesson from our friends on The Hill on that one.”

“Just remember the current law. The Distillery is closed on Sundays.” Splash blinked hard at that one and actually rose, looking for the keys to the truck.

Copyright 2021 Vic Socotra
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