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Lex Anteinternet: Every once and awhile. . .:

And then. . . there's this: Life Stinks. Merry Christmas! | Catholic Culture

This is an interseting article really worth reading:

Life Stinks. Merry Christmas! | Catholic Culture

Note, this isn't going to go the way you probably think.  Consider these these opening paragraphs:

Merry Christmas to you and your families! It is a glorious and beautiful feast—with the tenderness and simplicity of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph—attracting us to worship the newborn King. Come, let us adore Him. On Christmas, we remember the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity—the Word made Flesh, Jesus—entering the world. He came on a mission to save us from our sins and open the doors to heaven.

But let’s face it. Most of us don’t think that’s enough.

Some of you might remember a hilarious movie from the 1970s. A cranky old guy on TV, fed up with the world, complains that the life situation is “bad, really bad” and he wasn’t “going to take it anymore!” So he calls on everyone to go to their windows and scream, “I’m mad as [Hades], and I’m not going to take it anymore!” For the uninitiated, the name of the movie was Network.

A lot of us feel the same way today. We’re tired of the lies and baloney. Honestly, many of us are tired of life. Oh, for the good old days: The days of the Cold War, the Tet Offensive, the Sands of Iwo Jima, Flanders Field, or Pickett’s Charge. Would that I had been born into, say, an Old South plantation with an easy life. No, wait, as long as I wasn’t one of the field slaves and never exposed to cholera, polio, or sepsis. What was dental care like in the 19th Century? Didn’t George Washington have wooden false teeth?

And it goes on from there.

Every once and awhile. . .

Every once in a while what you're doing, how you are going about doing it, how you have done it, and what that means can hit you like a ton of bricks.

You've known it all along, most likely.

Down in the parking lot where I park every day, there used to be a car with a sticker that said this on it:

We all do things we say we never would

Soccer Mom

Quite true.

I suppose that's similar, in a way, the more grim

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation

Henry David Thoreau

Or not.

And then there's the observation by the observant:

Fr. Joseph Krupp

@Joeinblack

·

Dec 27

#talkedtotheboss He said there is no place where we can stop & think “I’m good where I am.” We are called to a state of blessed discontentment; where we recognize the blessings of where we are while striving to know more & love more. Never stop growing.… https://instagr.am/p/CX_Ha-bLcZ8/

That, we might note, is called Blessed Discontentment, or Holy Discernment.

I frankly think there's a lot to that.  I feel that from time to time, maybe frankly most of the time.  But in my selfish way I'm not really grateful for it.

I'd like to feel contentment, quite frankly, but the origin of my present discontent isn't, I think, of the blessed variety so much as it is of the "Yeoman, you're an idiot", variety.

Added to that, I think, is the affliction of Generation Jones, that being that we're pretty risk-adverse.  Or maybe we're like my father's generation, the Silent Generation, in that we feel we have to make huge sacrifice as by and large, we're not going to take the brass ring anyway, and better hang on to what we got. 

I dunno. . . 

Maybe it's my father's life being disrupted by the early death of his father, and then mine being disrupted by the early death of mine, preceded by the extreme illness of my mother for many years prior to his death.

Still, there's something to it.  The art of compromise for a greater purpose over pursuit of dollars, which is the only American alternative, has merites to it.  Entire cultures, in fact, once prized that, over what we do, that being apparently only money.

None of which is much salve for the first thing noted here.

Or for the fact that time runs out.  Americans like to believe "your never too old", but you can be.

For example, the maximum age to go to work for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is 37 years old.  Not that old.  Does that makes sense?  I don't know, but it's likely based on young people being in better physical shape than old ones, and the need for a person to be able to retire from Federal service by age 60.

The current maximum age to join the U.S. Army is 35 years old. And that's for active duty or any of its reserve components. For awhile it was up around 40, but they've apparently dropped it back down.  That age is 28 for the Marine Corps. . . 28.  It's 39 for the Navy and Air Force (38 for Air Force reservists), so they'll take "older" enlistees.  It'a a bottoms out at 27 for the Coast Guard, which will take reservists up to 38.

You get the point, however.  If you are sitting in your cubicle in Boston watching the Coast Guard cutters go out, and you are thinking, "you know, my job at Amalgamated Amalgamated sucks, I think I'll join the Coast Guard!", and you are 30, you aren't.

The Canadian military, I'd note, is the real outlier, FWIW.  A national "never too old" policy, and something to do with how Canadian old age pensions work, caused the Canadian government to up their maximum enlistment age, or commission age, to 57 years old.

Truly. This is what their recruitment page states (I just looked it up for this super interesting thread):

To join as a Non-Commissioned Member (NCM)  Non-Commissioned Members are skilled personnel who provide operational and support services in the CAF. Non-Commissioned Members start out as recruits and are trained to do specific jobs.	To join as an Officer  Officers in the CAF hold positions of authority and respect. They are responsible for the safety, well-being and morale of a group of soldiers, sailors, air men or air women. Analyzing, planning, making decisions and providing advice are a few aspects of an Officer’s role.
You are between 16 and 57 years old. If you are under 18 years old, you will need permission from your parent or guardian.	You are between 16 and 57 years old. If you are under 18 years old, you will need permission from your parent or guardian.
You are a Canadian citizen.	You are a Canadian citizen.
You have completed Grade 10 or Secondary IV (Quebec).	You have completed Grade 10 or Secondary IV (Quebec).
	You have, or are working towards, a Bachelor's Degree. If you do not meet this requirement, you may be eligible for one of our Paid Education programs.

I meet all the criteria save for one.  I'm 58.

Not that I was going to call the recruiting department, I wan't, but if I were, the answer I'd get is "go away, you geezer, eh?"

Makes sense, really. Who wants to serve under a 58 year old lieutenant who's a veteran of the US reserves system.  "Why back in the day. . . "

Indeed, as the long-suffering readers of this blog know, all two or three of you, we've been doing day by day playbacks from the early 40s recently here, and had been doing the same for the late 10s and early 20s.  This relates to the ostensible purpose of this blog.  A person had to serve in the Frontier Army for 40 years in order to draw a pension, which very few enlistment men did, but which also explains why promotions were glacially slow in the Regular Army.  Around 1900, however, the system was changed to allow early retirement after 30 years of service, with 75% of the benefit drawn, reduced to 60s% in 1924.  That system also evolved in that time period such that, at first, if you had 40 years in the service you were put in the "retired list", absent some unusual exception.  As a practical matter, that meant most servicemen left by age 60, if they were career men.  In the early 20th Century, however, that was changed so that at age 64 you had to go.

This system was changed again just prior to World War Two as Gen. George Marshall wanted to clear out as many old soldiers as he could before the U.S. entered a new mechanized war.  Tired of older ossified officers like Chief of Cavalry John Knowles Herr, he managed to bring in a 20 year early retirement system, again scaled so that those retiring didn't receive a full pension, and the mandatory retirement age dropped to 60.  He then simply sidetracked most of the senior commanders in their 50s.  Herr, I'd note, retired in 1945 at age 56, his career wrecked by his refusal to ever acknowledge that the age of the horse was over.

That system is the one the military still has, and most law enforcement agencies have it as well.  Given the physical and mental toll that being a policemen seems to have on people, that makes sense.  At least by my observation, after twenty years, most are ready to retire. 

Not all, however, as the Wyoming Game & Fish Department used to require its wardens to retire at age 60, but some jerk occupying that position sued them and won, so now you don't have to retire.  I'm 58, and I thought about becoming a Game Warden when I was young.  If I could retire at 60 years old, I'd do it.  

Or so I claim.

A similiar age restriction, I'd note, exists to become a Catholic Deacon.  It varies by diocese, but at some point people age out.  So, roughly, if you've been hearing a call to be a Deacon for your whole life and decide to act on it by, let's say, age 60, or in some areas, age 50, you are too late.

Being privately employed, and employed in a field where seemingly nobody ever retires, its actually difficult to imagine how retirement comes about.  It's even more difficult for those around you to imagine it.  Having said that, I could imagine my father retiring and urged him to do so.  He was a professional also, but not a lawyer.  He died at age 62, having never retired.

That's a bit haunting frankly.  He never retired, but he was awfully tired.  I receive occasional thanks for things he did even now, some 30 years or so after his death, which I appreciate but which also shows me how much he was identified by what he did.  By his late 50s it was clear to me, as he was frank about it, that he'd had enough and he wanted to retire.  I kept urging him to do it, but I was in university and he probably worried about the expense.  I told him not to, that I'd be fine.  I'd been in the National Guard as an undergrad, and I was willing to go back in as a law student.  Indeed, I'd gotten out of the Guard as I'd believed the fable that law school is hard (any idiot can graduate from law school, truly), and didn't think I'd have time to be a Guardsmen.  It turned out that I would have, and by my last two years I was well aware of that.

Well, he didn't retire.  He was holding out for 63.  He didn't make it.  What hopes and goals were lost in that?  I know a few which were irretrievably lost. . . or maybe not.

In some odd ways, perhaps because of my age, I tend to feel worse about people who experience that late career death than I do those who die in their 40s, oddly enough.  Dying at that age is a disaster, most particularly for those around those who depart, but dying just before retirement age seems to have cheated somebody out of something they were working for.

On being cheated, I'll also note the postponed dream or goal.

My mother had a friend who was a banker.  I didn't know him well, but my mother, who had no real interest in agriculture at all, always referred to him as a "rancher".  He wasn't.  He was a banker.

Now, there's nothing wrong with being a banker.  But his story was that he'd grown up on a farm or ranch as a young man, and then worked his entire career as a banker.  He'd never lost the interest in agriculture and it was pretty clear that's what he really wanted to be.  Around retirement age, but prior to his retiring, he bought a small acreage.  I'd not regard it as a farm, but it was in a farming belt, and he put up hay there.

Or, rather, he tried to.  By that time, in his late 60s, after a lifetime of indoor work, he couldn't hack it physically.  And his wife of many years, additionally, was in extremely poor physical health and had a serious allergy problem. 

He ended up selling.  

He's now passed away, but I wonder how a person reacts to that?  You live for years hoping for one thing and then the toll of years won't let you do it.  Is your conclusion that you should have done it in the first place?

Some people, I'd note, keep on keeping on as others require them to.  I knew a physician at one time who worked right up until his death.  I don't know how old he was at that time, but he was at least in his 60s.  He was old enough to retire, and his not retiring was a topic of conversation.  It turned out that he didn't, as he supported a large number of extended relatives with his income.  He wanted to, but he his loyalty to his extended family kept him at his office.

Admirable?  In some sense, to be sure.

And tragic also.

Which I guess takes us back to the first item here.  Surely, occupying a worthwhile career that you have sought to enter and do, isn't a tragedy, even though staying too long may be.  But what about working for years with a lingering "lost vocation" in the background? Surely, that is tragic.  The American belief that "I'll be able to do that some day" is a crock, and realistically, people who live in that world should realize that age, health, economics and circumstances are in fact more likely than not to terminate some of those dreams. Some others not.  A guy who dreamed of being a cowboy, for example, can, if he has the talent and skills, write about that.  Some hobbies that are close to vocations, such as hunting and fishing, can usually be carried on well into advance years.

But we don't get any time back at all.  Time can't be banked.  Money acquired in hopes of a dream retirement can just as easily be lost to the worker by death.

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"

Ah well! for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes:

And, in the hereafter, angles may
Roll the stone from its grave away.

Lex Anteinternet: What was actually in the Build Back Better Bill?

Lex Anteinternet: What was actually in the Build Back Better Bill?:

What was actually in the Build Back Better Bill?

Or is in it?

It's actually hard to get a straight analysis on it.  Anyhow, if you look at the White House's synopsis of it, this is what it did:

Build Back Better Framework:

The most transformative investment in children and caregiving in generations:

Offers universal and free preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds, the largest expansion of universal and free education since states and communities across the country established public high school 100 years ago.

Preschool in the United States costs about $8,600 per year. The Build Back Better framework will enable states to expand access to free preschool for more than 6 million children per year and increase the quality of preschool for many more children already enrolled.  Importantly, parents will be able to send children to high-quality preschool in the setting of their choice – from public schools to child care providers to Head Start. The program will lead to lifelong educational and economic benefits for children and parents, and is a transformational investment in America’s future economic competitiveness. In fact, research shows that every $1 invested in high-quality early childhood care and education can yield $3 to $7 over the long-run, as they do better in school, are more likely to graduate high-school and college, and earn more as adults.

Makes the largest investment in child care in the nation’s history, saving most American families more than half of their spending on child care.

For decades, child care prices in the United States have risen faster than family incomes, yet the United States still invests 28 times less than its competitors on helping families afford high-quality care for toddlers. The Build Back Better framework will ensure that middle-class families pay no more than 7 percent of their income on child care and will help states expand access to high-quality, affordable child care to about 20 million children per year – covering 9 out of 10 families across the country with young children. For two parents with one toddler earning $100,000 per year, the framework will produce more than $5,000 in child care savings per year. Nearly all families of four making up to $300,000 per year will be eligible. And, better access to high-quality child care can increase the likelihood that parents, especially mothers, are employed or enrolled in education and training beyond high school, while also providing lifetime benefits for children, especially those who are economically disadvantaged.

Delivers affordable, high-quality care for older Americans and people with disabilities in their homes, while supporting the workers who provide this care.

Right now, there are hundreds of thousands of older Americans and Americans with disabilities are on waiting lists for home care services or struggling to afford the care they need, including more than 800,000 who are on state Medicaid waiting lists. A family paying for home care costs out of pocket currently pays around $5,800 per year for just four hours of home care per week. The Build Back Better framework will permanently improve Medicaid coverage for home care services for seniors and people with disabilities, making the most transformative investment in access to home care in 40 years, when these services were first authorized for Medicaid.

Provides 39 million households up to $3,600 (or $300 per month) in tax cuts per child by extending the American Rescue Plan’s expanded Child Tax Credit.

The Build Back Better framework will provide monthly payments to the parents of nearly 90 percent of American children for 2022 – $300 per month per child under six and $250 per month per child ages 6 to 17. This historic tax cut will help cover the cost of food, housing, health care, and transportation and will continue the largest one-year reduction in child poverty in history. And critically, the framework includes permanent refundability for the Child Tax Credit, meaning that the neediest families will continue to receive the full Child Tax Credit over the long-run.

The largest effort to combat climate change in American history:

Delivers substantial consumer rebates and tax credits to reduce costs for middle class families shifting to clean energy and electrification.

The consumer rebates and credits included in the Build Back Better framework will save the average American family hundreds of dollars per year in energy costs.  These measures include enhancement and expansion of existing home energy and efficiency tax credits, as well as the creation of a new, electrification-focused rebate program.  The framework will cut the cost of installing rooftop solar for a home by around 30 percent, shortening the payback period by around 5 years; and the framework’s electric vehicle tax credit will lower the cost of an electric vehicle that is made in America with American materials and union labor by $12,500 for a middle-class family. In addition, the framework will help rural communities tap into the clean energy opportunity through targeted grants and loans through the Department of Agriculture.

Ensures clean energy technology – from wind turbine blades to solar panels to electric cars – will be built in the United States with American made steel and other materials, creating hundreds of thousands of good jobs here at home.

The Build Back Better legislation will target incentives to grow domestic supply chains in solar, wind, and other critical industries in communities on the frontlines of the energy transition.  In addition, the framework will boost the competitiveness of existing industries, like steel, cement, and aluminum, through grants, loans, tax credits, and procurement to drive capital investment in the decarbonization and revitalization of American manufacturing.

Advances environmental justice through a new Clean Energy and Sustainability Accelerator that will invest in projects around the country, while delivering 40% of the benefits of investment to disadvantaged communities, as part of the President’s Justice40 initiative.

The framework will also fund port electrification; facilitate the deployment of cleaner transit, buses, and trucks; and support critical community capacity building, including grants to environmental justice communities.  In addition, the framework will create a new Civilian Climate Corps – with over 300,000 members that look like America. This diverse new workforce will conserve our public lands, bolster community resilience, and address the changing climate, all while putting good-paying union jobs within reach for more Americans.

Bolsters resilience and natural solutions to climate change through a historic investment in coastal restoration, forest management, and soil conservation.

The framework will provide resources to farmers, ranchers, and forestland owners, supporting their efforts to reduce emissions. At its peak, the increased investments in climate smart agriculture alone could reach roughly 130 million cropland acres per year, representing as many as 240,000 farms. Farmers, ranchers, and forestland owners have long demonstrated leadership in environmental stewardship with strategies that provide benefits for the farm, the environment, and the public. These investments will help meet the demand from the farming community for conservation support and enable producers to realize the full potential of climate benefits from agriculture.

The biggest expansion of affordable health care in a decade:

Reduces prescription drug costs.

Finally let Medicare negotiate drug prices. 

Medicare will negotiate prices for high-cost prescription drugs.  This will include drugs seniors get at the pharmacy counter (through Medicare Part D), and drugs that are administered in a doctor’s office (through Medicare Part B). Drugs become eligible for negotiation once they have been on the market for a fixed number of years: 9 years for small molecule drugs and 12 years for biologics. Medicare will negotiate up to 10 drugs per year during 2023, with those prices taking effect in 2025, increasing to up to 20 drugs per year.

The policy will establish a clearly defined negotiation process that is fair for manufacturers, and gets the biggest savings on drugs that have been on the market a long time.  This discourages drug companies from abusing laws to prolong their monopolies, while encouraging investments in research and development of new cures.  Drug companies that refuse to negotiate will owe an excise tax.

Impose a tax penalty if drug companies increase their prices faster than inflation.  Starting when this bill becomes law, future drug price increases will be compared to their current prices.  We will finally put an end to the days where drug companies could raise their prices with impunity.  If prices for a drug increase faster than inflation, manufacturers will owe a tax penalty, holding down prices for Americans with all types of health insurance.

Directly lower out-of-pocket costs for seniors. Today, there is no cap on how much seniors and people with disabilities have to pay for drugs, and millions of seniors pay more than $6,000 a year in cost-sharing.  This proposal puts an end to this burden, and ensures that seniors never pay more than $2,000 a year for their drugs under Medicare Part D.

The plan will also lower insulin prices so that Americans with diabetes don’t pay more than $35 per month for their insulin. Lawmakers have also agreed to lower seniors’ cost-sharing for all types of drugs and they are working expeditiously to finalize legislative text that will save seniors money at the pharmacy counter without increasing premiums.

Strengthens the Affordable Care Act and reduces premiums for 9 Million Americans.

The framework will reduce premiums for more than 9 million Americans who buy insurance through the Affordable Care Act Marketplace by an average of $600 per person per year. For example, a family of four earning $80,000 per year would save nearly $3,000 per year (or $246 per month) on health insurance premiums. Experts predict that more than 3 million people who would otherwise be uninsured will gain health insurance.

Closes the Medicaid Coverage Gap, Leading 4 Million Uninsured People to Gain Coverage.

The Build Back Better framework will deliver health care coverage through Affordable Care Act premium tax credits to up to 4 million uninsured people in states that have locked them out of Medicaid through. A 40-year old in the coverage gap would have to pay $450 per month for benchmark coverage – more than half of their income in many cases. The framework provides individuals $0 premiums, finally making health care affordable and accessible.

Expands Medicare to cover hearing benefits.

The Build Back Better framework will expand Medicare coverage to cover hearing coverage, so that older Americans can access the affordable care they need.

The most significant effort to bring down costs and strengthen the middle class in generations:

Makes the single largest and most comprehensive investment in affordable housing in history.

The framework will enable the construction, rehabilitation, and improvement of more than 1 million affordable homes, boosting housing supply and reducing price pressures for renters and homeowners. It will address the capital needs of the public housing stock in big cities and rural communities all across America and ensure it is not only safe and habitable but healthier and more energy efficient as well. It will make a historic investment in rental assistance, expanding vouchers to hundreds of thousands of additional families. And, it includes one of the largest investments in down payment assistance in history, enabling hundreds of thousands of first-generation homebuyers to purchase their first home and build wealth. This legislation will create more equitable communities, through investing in community-led redevelopments projects in historically under-resourced neighborhoods and removing lead paint from hundreds of thousands of homes, as well as by incentivizing state and local zoning reforms that enable more families to reside in higher opportunity neighborhoods.

Extends the expanded Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for around 17 million low-wage workers.

Before this year, the federal tax code taxed low-wage childless workers into poverty or deeper into poverty — the only group of workers it treated this way. The Build Back Better framework will extend the American Rescue Plan’s tripling of the credit for childless workers, benefiting 17 million low-wage workers, many of whom are essential workers, including cashiers, cooks, delivery drivers, food preparation workers, and childcare providers. For example, a childless worker who works 30 hours per week at $9 per hour earns income that, after taxes, leaves them below the federal poverty line. By increasing her EITC to more than $1,100, this EITC expansion helps pull such workers out of poverty.

Expands access to affordable, high-quality education beyond high school.

Expand access to affordable, high-quality education beyond high school. Education beyond high school is increasingly important for economic growth and competitiveness in the 21st century, even as it has become unaffordable for too many families. The Build Back Better framework will make education beyond high school – including training for high-paying jobs available now – more affordable. Specifically, the framework will increase the maximum Pell Grant by $550 for more the more than 5 million students enrolled in public and private, non-profit colleges and expand access to DREAMers. It will also make historic investments in Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), and minority-serving institutions (MSIs) to build capacity, modernize research infrastructure, and provide financial aid to low-income students. And, it will invest in practices that help more students complete their degree or credential. The framework will help more people access quality training that leads to good, union, and middle-class jobs. It will enable community colleges to train hundreds of thousands of students, create sector-based training opportunity with in- demand training for at least hundreds of thousands of workers, and invest in proven approaches like Registered Apprenticeships and programs to support underserved communities. The framework will increase the Labor Department’s annual spending on workforce development by 50% for each of the next 5 years.

Promotes nutrition security to support children’s health.

The Build Back Better framework will help children reach their full potential by investing in nutrition security year-round. The legislation will expand free school meals to 8.7 million children during the school year and provide a $65 per child per month benefit to the families of 29 million children to purchase food during the summer. 

Strengthens the middle class through a historic investment in equity, safety, and fairness.

The legislation makes a transformative investment in Rural America through a new Rural Partnership Program that will empower rural regions, including Tribal Nations and territories, by providing flexible funding for locally-led projects. The Build Back Better framework will provide nutrition security to millions of American children by expanding free school meals, which are the healthiest meals that children consume during the day. It also will make an historic investment in maternal health and establish a new and innovative community violence intervention initiative, in addition to investing in small businesses and preparing the nation for future pandemics and supply chain disruptions.

Invests in immigration reform.

The framework includes a separate $100 billion investment in immigration reform that is consistent with the Senate’s reconciliation rules, as well as enhancements to reduce backlogs, expand legal representation, and make the asylum system and border processing more efficient and humane.

The Build Back Better framework is fully paid for:

Combined with savings from repealing the Trump Administration’s rebate rule, the plan is fully paid for by asking more from the very largest corporations and the wealthiest Americans. The 2017 tax cut delivered a windfall to them, and this would help reverse that—and invest in the country’s future. No one making under $400,000 will pay a penny more in taxes.

Specifically, the framework:

Stops large, profitable corporations from paying zero in tax and tax corporations that buyback stock rather than invest in the company.

In 2019, the largest corporations in the United States paid just 8 percent in taxes, and many paid nothing at all. President Biden believes this is fundamentally unfair. The Build Back Better framework will impose a 15% minimum tax on the corporate profits that large corporations—with over $1 billion in profits—report to shareholders.  This means that if a large corporation says it’s profitable, then it can’t avoid paying its tax bill. The framework also includes a 1% surcharge on corporate stock buybacks, which corporate executives too often use to enrich themselves rather than investing workers and growing the economy. 

Stops rewarding corporations for shipping jobs and profits overseas.

President Biden has led the world to stop the race to the bottom in corporate taxes and that rewards corporations that ship jobs and profits overseas. That’s why the President won an agreement among 136 countries on a 15% global minimum tax. This framework would help finish the job.  Consistent with that agreement, it’d adopt a 15% minimum tax on foreign profits of U.S. corporations, so that they can no longer claim huge tax benefits by shifting profits and jobs abroad.  And, it’d make sure that other countries abide by the agreement they adopted by imposing a penalty rate on any foreign corporations based in countries that fail to abide by the international agreement.  Other countries will not be able to try to take advantage by failing to meet their commitment.

Asks the highest income Americans to pay their fair share.

The Build Back Better framework includes a new surtax on the income of multi-millionaires and billionaires – the top 0.02 percent of Americans. It would apply a 5 percent rate above income of $10 million, and an additional 3 percent above income of $25 million. The Build Back Better framework will also close the loopholes that allows some wealthy taxpayers to avoid paying the 3.8 Medicare tax on their earnings. 

Invests in enforcing our existing tax laws, so the wealthy pay what they owe.

Regular workers pay the taxes they owe on wages and salaries—with a 99 percent compliance rate—while too many wealthy taxpayers hide their income from the IRS so they don’t have to pay. And, as a result of budget cuts, audit rates on those making over $1 million per year fell by 80 percent between 2011-2018. Wage earners have a 99 percent compliance rate, and, by contrast, the top 1 percent evades over $160 billion per year in taxes. President Biden’s Build Back Better Agenda will create a fairer tax system – a tax system that requires the wealthy to finally pay their fair share and rewards work, not wealth. The President’s plan will accomplish this through transformation investments in the IRS: hiring enforcement agents who are trained to pursue wealthy evaders, overhauling technology from the 1960s, and investing in taxpayer service, so ordinary Americans can get their questions answered. Additional enforcement resources will be focused on pursuing those with the highest incomes; not Americans with income less than $400,000.

Hence, part of the problem. 

The framework starts off with "transformative".

The better evidence is that people want restorative, not transformative.  And "conservative" as in the original meaning of the word, i.e., to conserve.

Being restorative would be transformative right now, and to be truly conservative would be as well.  But the sales pitch of liberals, and their angry cries now, that we "want to go forward" doesn't appeal much to average people who can look back and know that things were once much better, and decent, at some point in the past.

Neither to serve nor to rule.

 The Super Wealthy Absentee Landlord, The Ignorant New Arrival, And the Myth

Prologue

This is a thread about the super, super wealthy who lives in one state and owns a ranch in another, the person who sells their house in California, or whever, and moves to Wyoming and busts a ranch into tiny lots, and the myth of Western Settlement.  Not much else.

Neither to serve nor to rule.

If America could be, once again, a nation of self-reliant farmers, craftsmen, hunters, ranchers, and artists, then the rich would have little power to dominate others. Neither to serve nor to rule: That was the American dream.

Edward Abbey

Rupert Murdoch isn't a rancher. . . and that's what's wrong with American agriculture.

And maybe with the United States itself, as it currently is.

It's contrary to the American Dream. The real American Dream.  

We serve, and we are ruled.

For those who might not know, Murdoch, age 90, recently purchased a ranch in Montana from the Koch family, who shouldn't have owned it either. The price was $200,000,000.  Upon buying it, Murdoch stated:

This is a profound responsibility, we feel privileged to assume ownership of this beautiful land and look forward to continually enhancing both the commercial cattle business and the conservation assets across the ranch.

Well, excellent.  If that's the case he'll put a conservation and agricultural easement on it and sponsor an effort to turn the entire thing over, ownership and all, to people who actually want to make their living as agriculturalists and who in fact do.

He won't turn it over to anyone, however.

As it is, he's some sort of modern duke.  And indeed, that's an appropriate way to look at a man of blue blood British ancestry who was born in Australia.  He's a foreign import from a land where his parents were granted peerage but which also has a history of detesting the wealthy.  So, lucky us, he came over to be a pain in the ass to us in all sorts of ways, having already made a lot of money in his native land, to which we might hope he will return.

Now, this isn't to be taken in the wrong vein.  What this is to suggest is that there's a land problem in the United States. And that problem is both big and small.  On the big end, it's that large ranches like this one are now the domains of absentee petty kings and dukes, people with absurdly vast amounts of money who rule from afar and don't live in, and are not part of, the community that the ranch is part of.  And they're all part of a community.  

On the small end, it's people grasping out for a piece of the country and turning it into city lots with large lots.  And these too are often outsiders, who move in with the procedes of a house they sold in California that allows them to buy what they imagine to be a "ranch", but which is actually a large lot in a now busted up ranch, which they'll graze down to stubble and then probably abadon when they figure out that owning a cow, even one, is a lot of work. The damage, however, will be done by then.

The candle burns at both ends.

Indeed, the American wealthy, which Murdoch isn't, are to be lauded in some, indeed many, instances for preserving local farms and ranches in communities they are in fact from or which they become part of. They come in and buy land next to cities that would otherwise be subdivided.  And in extreme cases, they take some really remarkable stands, such as that of the Robinson family of Hawaii, which has preserved the island if Niihau with its small native population, grounding it for many years in agriculture until it just couldn't pay anymore, and whose current owners has threatened to defend its agrarian status literally to the death.

Rupert Murdoch isn't going to defend anything to the death.  

Murdoch, I'll note, isn't the only one in this category.  The largest individual owner of agricultural land in the United States is, or maybe was, Bill Gates.

It's an investment for him.

Some time ago here I ran a Quebec statute which was designed to protect agricultural land in the hands of farmers.  And that's the sort of thing that the US needs.  If Rupert is to be a rancher, so be it, but that's what he should be, and by that I mean give up his publishing loot and actually go work the land, right there.  If he's not going to do that, and he's not, he ought to take a hike. Whoever owns that land in Montana ought to be a real rancher who has bought it to make money ranching or who at least is comfortable in the community which he's impacting.

That indeed was the American dream.

Ringo kid: Look, Miss Dallas. You got no folks... neither have I. And, well, maybe I'm takin' a lot for granted, but... I watched you with that baby - that other woman's baby. You looked... well, well I still got a ranch across the border. There's a nice place - a real nice place... trees... grass... water. There's a cabin half built.

Stagecoach. *

Putting it simply, but with a task that isn't simple, we need to get back to what Abbey noted for a variety of reasons. And one is that the land candle has to quit being allowed to burn at both ends.

And while we at it, let's take a look at how we got here, somewhat.

First of all, we'd note, we got here because as a society we've confused "free markets" with capitalist economies.  The United States doesn't have a free market.  It has a capitalist economy.  Capitalism is an economic theory that allows natural partnerships to be organized as a person at law, thereby shielding its individual partners, now shareholders, from liability and accordingly also limiting their risk to their economic investment.

Now, a person can truly say that's ingenious, and it is, but it's not "free market".  Even free market hero Fredrich Hayek, who was somewhat ambivalent and somewhat troubled about corporations, didn't hold that corporations were a free market institution.  Indeed, troubled enough to write a treatise on it, stating:

My thesis will be that if we want effectively to limit the powers of corporations to where they are beneficial, we shall have to confine them much more than we have yet done to one specific goal, that of the profitable use of capital entrusted to the management by the stockholders. I shall argue that it is precisely the tendency to allow and even to impel the corporations to use their resources for specific ends other than those of a long-running maximization of the return on the capital placed under their control that tends to confer upon them undesirable and socially dangerous powers, and that the fashionable doctrine that their policies should be guided by “social considerations” is likely to produce most undesirable results

Hayek, The Corporation in a Democratic Society:  In Whose Interest Ought It and Will It Be Run?

Hayek may not have reached the conclusion I have, but he did acknowledge that "long-running maximization of the return on the capital placed under their control that tends to confer upon them undesirable and socially dangerous powers."  Not exactly a huge endorsement of corporations as they've come to exist.  

Well, we haven't heeded Hayek's advice, and now we're bearing the brunt of it, all the way from the farmer's fields to the corner bookstore. 

Gone to a small appliance store recently, have you? 

I didn't think so. Walmart was your option, wasn't it.

Road to Serfdom indeed.

But let me get back to the matter of people on the land, claims to the land, the landed, and the unlanded, and claims to ancestoral fielty.

This post was started  prior to November, on our companion blog Lex Anteinternet, and I have dragged it over here.  It was started before any of the current political advertisements were released.

The opening scene from the movie Red River.  A scene, frankly, that's considerably more honest than many might like to imagine.

It's political season, which means that we're going to get a lot of homage to ancestors in some cases, and omissions of any discussion of them in others, at least in this state.

Maybe that's the way in every state.

This post doesn't apply to one or two politicians, but rather to things, as it were in general.  And like a lot of posts here, it starts off with a meandering post.

One of the blogs only recently linked in here is the Foothills Agrarian blog.  One of the things the honest poster there notes is that he wanted to be a full-time sheep rancher, but it didn't work out, so he's part-time.  I'm like that. When I was young I dreamed of being a full-time rancher.  Well, it didn't work out.  I’m a full-time lawyer, a part-time rancher, and a part-time writer.  This is the way things are.

But that fact, and perhaps an unusually introspective nature, gives me a view of things that probably causes me to appear as a contrarian to many who know me.  There are a lot of things in the law that I think are grossly wrong and that lawyers, while they have reason to be proud of things, have a lot of things to be deeply ashamed of.  It nearly balances out, at least in terms of litigation.  We don't as we listen to our own propaganda, however.

The same is true, about propaganda, for agriculturalists as well  For some reason, we've entered into a state of being in which we flat out believe everything that the GOP says about anything, even when it's directly contrary to what we can plainly observe, let alone to our own best interests.  People in urban areas tend to do the same thing with the Democrats.

In the West, one of the things we like to believe is pioneer stories advanced by politicians.  Lots of agriculturalists like these too. And there's real reason to like them, and even give some weight to them.

I've sort of just done that.

For one thing, that a person comes from a third generation ranch family means that they are local, rather than some import who moved in and decided to get into politics.

And it might mean that they're really farmers or ranchers.

My parents had a coffee table which, set in the table are a set of tiles.  I loved to look at it as a kid. They portrayed scenes of European American advancement into the West, such as covered wagons.  If you listen to some politicians this time of year, it's like they're narrating that.

In other words, it's common to hear things like "x was born and grew up on the family ranch and is a third generation Wyomingite. . . "  That does mean something.  It'd mean as much, however, to say "x was born in the county hospital and his father was a banker, and was a second generation Wyomingite".  The thing you are really getting is that the person is a typical Wyomingite.  Truth be known, as much as I wish it were not true, being a son or daughter of a banker probably is more meaningful, in terms of representing the average, than being a son of a rancher or farmer is.

Again, I wish that weren't true, as I wish it was still an option for the son of a banker to become a rancher or farmer, and by that I mean, let's say, by age 25, not by 55 or 65 after you've made a pile of cash doing something else.

At any rate, something to keep in mind, when the son or daughter of a rancher thing is thrown in, it should be the question of whether or not that's what you do.  We draw a lot of lawyers as candidates around here, and two out of our three folks in D.C. are members of that profession. The top two contenders for the GOP ticket for the House are lawyers.  It may be fine to say that you grew up on the family ranch, and that means something, but are you there now?  That would mean more.

Indeed, the answer to that might tell us a lot about a lot.

What it might tell us is that there wasn't room on the family place.  It used to be common that the younger sons (and it was usually sons) of ranchers and farmers had to move on, after land became too expensive to buy, and they often entered the professions.  I knew one dentist, for example, who became that as his older brother was stepping into the family ranching operation.  Daughters were almost always just expected to move on as it was going to the sons.

Or what it might also tell us is that the younger "grew up on the family ranch" person was shoved into it by the Great American Delusion, which is that everything is bigger, brighter and niftier in The Big City.  "Go become a lawyer, Jed. . . you'll make lots of money".  Indeed, it's interesting to note that at one time a lawyer candidate who pitched his humble origins tended to emphasize he'd escaped them, which may be a more realistic point. . maybe.

Or might just mean that's where the person's career goals were, rather than on the soil.

Anyway you look at it, saying "I grew up on a ranch" doesn't mean a lot unless you are willing to address why you aren't on it right now.

Another interesting aspect of this is that people really don't like emphasizing family dynasties much.  Both of the GOP candidates are part of them, one more notable than the other.  Neither seems to emphasize that.  At one time, they would have. Roosevelt's ran as Roosevelt's, for example, even when they were from different parties.

Anyhow, getting back to theoretical point here, there's an fascinating aspect to all of this.  Part of it is that we can't really claim too much virtue from the work of our ancestors unless we shared in it.  My ancestors helped build modern Montreal into what it is now, for example, but while I can be proud of it, it probably doesn't give me a bunch of street cred anywhere, and for good reason.  On the other hand, my grandfather had a packing house here in town and that is even now part of who I am.  If I ran for office, and I'm not going to, I could note that legitimately, I think.

Another part of that, however, is being honest about the backs we're standing on.  We rarely are.

The usual claim in this area, when it comes up, is "I grew up on the family ranch and my family is an "x" generation rancher".  Okay, that's great.

Truly, it is.

But that means that your parents either inherited the place or had the means, probably from working agriculture back in the day, to buy a place. That involves real hard work and sacrifice, and it's admirable.

It doesn't necessarily mean that you did that.

It also means, for most multiple generation ranchers, that they benefitted from one of the various Homestead Acts, which means that the land was originally cheap as it had been forcibly expropriated from the original occupants.

Indeed, the original idea was that the Indians didn't really own anything, and to encourage settlement of the West, which was seen as a good national policy for some reason, people on the bottom end of the agricultural ladder could get a start by homesteading.

The entire policy was sort of shockingly socialist in a way, if you will.  The Government owned the land, and in exchange for working it, they'd give it to you. That wasn't socialist in the Karl Marx sort of way, but it wasn't exactly free market capitalist either.

Modern ranchers and farmers ought to remember that.  The "we built this country with our own two hands and sweat" sort of view is sort of right, but only if you throw in that the added part that the Federal Government expropriated it by law from the rightful owners and backed that up with an Army composed of poor German and Irish immigrants who were backed with American industrial might.  Nobody really wants to say, however, "we came to occupy this land after some poor Irish sots got killed taking it from a bunch of people we corralled into large-scale internment camps.". Truly, now, it wasn't thought of that way, which doesn't mean it wasn't actually that way.

Now, none of that diminishes the hard work of your ancestors, and it wasn't intended to invoke a Vine Deloria, Jr. sort of attitude, but we really didn't build everything out of nothing, and there were some folks here before.

And, as noted, the folks who stepped on to the scene weren't Siegfried, Tristan and Siglinda, but regular folks who were benefitting from a government program that had its own aims, with that aim being settling the unsettled region in a way that the Prairie Farmer celebrated when the Homestead Act hadn't quite made a century

Prarie Farmer centennial edition. This is copyrighted and is posted here under a Fair Use commentary exception.

I don't know that I'd celebrate that now, i.e., the massive cities rising up behind the plains, but that perhaps sort of was the homestead act had in mind.  The result, I suppose, also noted in the final scense of How The West Was Won, which always, frankly, makes me a bit sad.

Which might be why I tend to root for the side losing out in the movie Shane.

Be that as it may, Abby was right.

And Chesterton too:

Footnotes:

*It's worth noting that a really interesting treatment of Stagecoach by Catholic Culture's movie podcast, Criteria.  A guest whose an expert on the film was interviewed and noted how deeply natural the scence quoted above was.  As it does justice to it, and I cannot, looking that up would be worthwhile.