Too Much of a Good Thing

 

  If you hang around cerebral folks, you’ve likely heard the words “adage” and “idiom” escape their mouths.

For the record, “Adages, such as ‘a stitch in time saves nine,’ typically offer advice based on common sense or experience and are easily understood by people across different cultures. Whereas idioms, like ‘kick the bucket,’ convey meanings that can be puzzling to non-native speakers and often culturally specific,” according to askdifference.com

So, when someone uses the words “Too much of a good thing,” that, to me, can be very confusing. In my puny mind, that sentence can neatly fit into both of the adage, as well as idiom category. How can that be?

Let’s say you won the Powerball lottery which carries a jackpot that cannot be described as insignificant. Usually totaling in the multi-million-dollar range, that money brings as much angst as it does glee. Suddenly acquiring previously unknown friends and relatives, magically causes such needy people to appear, wholesale, with open hands.

The same holds true for those people from other cultures who cannot fathom there being any good thing that might be overburdening. Once again, too much of a good thing,

Think about trying to invest, save, be benevolent, even squander your newly found bonanza. Buying a deserving person a car, bar patrons a ‘round of drinks,’ or setting up a trust fund for a favorite relative or lifelong friend, can exude wealth that often creates rifts.

Too much of a good thing, again. As is evident, sharing the wealth, not unlike adages and idioms, can quickly become confusing.

But it was my sainted wife who unintentionally introduced a conundrum into our otherwise simplistic life. Being the end of July, when temperatures are regularly reaching three digits, and humidity on The Eastern Shore approaches 98% – a pleasant 98%, that is.

Personally, I’ve been planting a very modest 4’x6’ garden for over fifty-years, usually consisting of two cherry tomato plants, two Big Boy tomato plants, and often a couple of okras, as well as cucumbers. Each has their own place on my table. The cherries are for salads, Big Boys are used on sandwiches, while okra is for gumbo, and cukes are used in my salads, as well.

Not seeming like an extraordinary number of crops, planted correctly, the cherry tomatoes can yield several two-gallon buckets of fruit, as can the Big Boys, both of which are usually shared with friends and neighbors. The aforementioned okra excess must be frozen or pickled as people refer to them as slimy in their refusal of free veggies; for the record, they’re not.

But over the past few years with the expansion of my modest garden into a 7’x32’ plot, I am now able to plant more everything. I’ve written about cucumbers from my garden before, but now I decided we needed two additional cucumber plants since there was a five foot space adjacent to my newly introduced eggplants.

As luck would have it, this year is thus far promising to be a bumper year for many crops.

From time-to-time, a growing cycle appears in the fruit and vegetable growing seasons. Every four-years, or so, my black walnut trees produced an extraordinary abundance of nuts; other years, my plum trees thrived as did pears and apples in still different seasons.

Alignment of the planets – or whatever causes this phenomenon – seems to be right this year of 2025. As such, our first tomato was picked July 1^st. Since then, it’s been tomatoes upon tomatoes from the Big Boy vines finding their way to our kitchen table.

Quickly approaching the beginning of August, we’ve also been harvesting an extraordinary number of cucumbers. In an effort of efficiency and frugality, my sainted wife has been accumulating Mason jars in order to can these green garden denizens.

A small portion of the cucumber bonanza

Buying them by the case she’s become the best friend of the local hardware store who is delighted to sell these canning necessities. The good news is the washing, sterilizing, creating a brine, peeling, chopping, slicing, and finally canning more than 20-cucumbers yielded eight quarts of pickles.

The bad news is that the very next day, she picked another seven cukes with five more in the wings. Of course she panicked. Of course.

‘

Without a preconceived plan for excess cucumber disposal, she took to making casual, unannounced “welfare” visits to neighbors. And how fortuitous she had a small bag containing at least five fresh cucumbers with her.

‘

Wearing a giant smile, she would begin her conversation with an expression of concern that she had not seen our neighbor in several days. (The reason for that is the aforementioned oppressive heat and humidity.)

While extending her hand holding the bag chock full o’ cukes, she learned how to release the bag, turn her body in mid-air, and skedaddle before the unsuspecting neighbor could scream, “NOOOOO!”

Unfortunately, the neighbors quickly caught on to her shenanigans and subsequent visits were met with them hiding like felons anticipating a felony warrant being served. It soon became apparent the jig was up, and time for implementing Plan B.

My sainted wife seemed to be leaving the house often, at random times. Her excuses varied from “Goin’ shoppin’,” to “Returning a library book,” even “Visiting some sick friend.”

Suspecting something nefarious was going on I decided to surreptitiously follow her. Sure enough, she wound up at the Tallmart store where I espied her sneakily placing our surplus cucumbers in the store’s vegetable bins, cleverly camouflaging them as genuine Tallmart produce which an unsuspecting consumer would hopefully give a new home.

It’s quite a shame that we have so much available food that we are unable to give it away.

And now you have another example of both an adage and idiom: Too much of a good thing.

The Inevitable

 

  “Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

That profound sentence was written by Founding Father Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Jean-Baptiste Le Roy, in 1789.

Eventually becoming a popular idiom, those words are now commonly used to point at anything that is both annoying and inevitable.

So, I was curious as to how we arrived at our present location in life regarding taxes and their punitive affects on our daily lives. Buckle-up and prepare for a wild ride through the true history of taxes, taxers, and taxees.

(Psst: Save yourself some time and trouble of looking up the word “taxees,” as I just made it up to improve that sentence.)

Real estate speculator, King George III

The federal income tax in the United States was officially established with the ratification of the 16^th Amendment on February 3, 1913. Its origins trace back to the Civil War when the first income tax was introduced in 1862 to help finance war expenses.

It should be noted that early taxation relied heavily on tariffs and excise taxes. Odd that this means of finding money worked well until Congress felt they were the smartest people in the country. By the way, what worked so well until then – tariffs – are suddenly vilified since it’s now President Donald Trump’s idea. Oh, my.

However, the income tax was repealed in 1872 due to public opposition. Go figure.

Not to be denied their exercise of power, Congress, in 1894, attempted to reintroduce a 2% income tax on incomes over $4,000, but the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional. Not to be deterred, Congress flexed its muscle by proposing the 16^th Amendment in 1909; it was ratified in 1913.

The first federal income tax under this amendment was a 1% tax on incomes above $3,000, with a 6% surtax on incomes over $500,000. Clearly this paved the way for the annual pickpocketing known as the “Congress Can Spend Your Money More Wisely Than You” Amendment. (Not really, but it should have been named that for accuracy.)

This brilliant maneuver fundamentally changed federal revenue sources, making income tax a primary means of funding guvment operations. With sleazy Congressmen AND women in charge, over time, income tax brackets have evolved significantly impacting American economic policy and society.

Not unlike sharks, Congress suddenly developed a taste for blood, beginning a campaign to see how quickly they could bleed Americans, along with their work ethic. With a seemingly endless supply of dollars from the then-estimated population of 92,000,000 Americans, Congress’ crusade on class warfare began in earnest. Let the exsanguination begin!

But what exactly is the aforementioned excise tax? I’m here to explain.

An excise tax is a specific tax imposed on certain goods or services at the time of purchase, such as fuel, tobacco, and alcohol. It is typically paid by businesses, but passed on to consumers through higher prices. This excise tax is local in nature, collected by municipalities and states, very much like sales taxes are.

To help the federal guvment feel more included, the feds began adding their “fair share” of taxes on goods such as vehicle tires. Tires are subject to various taxes, including federal excise tax (FET) and state-specific fees such as the Tire User Fee in Illinois, which is imposed on the sale of new and used tires. These taxes help fund road maintenance and tire disposal programs. Wink, wink.

Unfortunately, Americans are sold a bill of goods each time the excise fuel prices are raised, lying to us about the need for mo’ money to repair roads and bridges. Uh, huh.

It seems as though the FET, sales tax, and Tire User Fee, is in addition to the ever-present federal income tax. Not a bad legal haul for a politician-generated robbery, but most certainly a crime for Al Capone.

Let’s skip ahead to the calendar. The federal guvment’s budget is on a one-year cycle. Beginning on October 1^st, and ending on September 30^th, this period is known as a “fiscal year.” Fiscal years are determined to set budget deadlines as well as spending periods.

These budget plans are set by Congress who hold the proverbial checkbook and pen. ONLY Congress may spend money from the Department of Treasury; not the President, Vice President, Speaker of the House, or janitor, can authorize spending money. Period.

If – IF – the federal guvment runs out of money, they cannot spend more because the pre-established limit has already been spent, and the checkbook balance is $0.00. In American dollars, that is ZERO.

Oftentimes, the guvment runs out of money, though. Natural disasters, civil unrest, over-exaggerations of the flu, foreign wars, and other unforeseen emergencies quickly deplete the coffers, at which time it is necessary to still spend money in the name of humanity and public safety. That’s when Congress meets to raise the budget in the form of a loan – a loan that needs to be repaid – hence, the name “loan.”

Currently, the loan as of late stands at a nosebleed $37,000,000,000,000. That’s 37 trillion dollars!

Click here for the actual Debt Clock   https://www.usdebtclock.org/

No matter who you are, that is a lot of money, but the brain trust in Congress think there’s room to write more bad checks for frivolous things. And they are quick to tell you that if only they had more money, all would be well. It wouldn’t, because they’ll only spend more. Trust me.

Now for the big question: Where will Congress get the money?  Answer: You.

And the little question to which you also know the answer: How will Congress extort your money? Little answer: Taxes.

Don’t forget that America became a nation because Britain’s King George III raised the excise tax on tea. Don’t forget.

Forward to 1865

 

  What was old is now new. Take, for example, electric cars. Electric vehicles were experimented with by several auto manufacturers as far back as the 1830’s, in Scotland. Attempting to find a suitable battery was difficult, inasmuch as electricity for charging was still widely unavailable.

After a period of deep thinking, European auto manufacturers decided, in 1901, that the internal combustion engine was far less expensive to manufacture and maintain than electric vehicles. But now they’re new again in 2025.

Then there are bell bottom britches. Exactly where bell bottom pants were born is a mystery, but they were adopted by the U.S. Navy in 1901, for use by sailors. They were found to be more easily able to be doffed by an overboard sailor preventing drowning. Used during World War I, they became accepted as a fashion must for both men and women.

Eventually, they disappeared until being “rediscovered” in the 1960’s and 1970’s as an accessory in the fashion world, again, when thought of as new. (As an aside, I also had a pair of bell bottoms, and I looked good.)

Not to be outdone, the brain trust of California’s transportation system thought it would be a terrific idea to make traveling throughout the Eureka State more safe, comfortable, and efficient by building a railway system.

You read that right. Someone who didn’t learn about the rail systems of America, Europe, or the Far East, in elementary school apparently stumbled upon something termed “trains.”

Trains have been around for hundreds of years in varying forms to include electric, steam, plus diesel, that have not only proved efficient, but cost effective, as well. They were successful in transporting both goods and people across a developing nation for many, many years.

Trains began waning following the Civil War ending in 1865, in favor of the new mode of transportation called the automobile.

As with all things, they age; some things age better than others. And just because they were once beneficial to ‘their times,’ doesn’t mean they should or could be revived. 

Gavin Newsom pointing to the direction 
his popularity is heading

Creating the California High-Speed Rail Program (CHSRP), California Gubernor Gavin Newsom thought it would be amazing if he could build this much-wanted boondoggle to showcase his forward-thinking abilities.

Promising this rail system would service areas from San Francisco to Los Angeles, was the easy part. Using a media blitz to promote and continue enthusiasm has become arduous, though.

With the CHSRP using the ol’ razzle dazzle game, they continue to cheer lead this bottomless money pit. Visiting

https://hsr.ca.gov/2025/01/06/news-release-californias-high-speed-rail-program-celebrates-progress-and-highlights-next-steps-towards-operations/

will take you to a website of fluff, along with nebulous platitudes that may actually invoke a case of Type 2 Diabetes.

Enthusiastically bragging about working on 171-miles of track, following the creation of more than 14,500 construction jobs, this statement from CHSRP gives one the impression this exercise was making great headway.

Unfortunately, this saga has been seemingly never ending. Beginning with early visions in the 1990’s, this high speed rail system had planned to remove cars from the roadways thereby relieving congestion.

With $9.95 billion in bonds sold in 2008, this pipe dream was well underway to becoming a reality.

Officially breaking ground in 2015, the section between Bakersfield and Merced, seemed like the easiest place to start. “The goal was to complete this segment first and then connect to the more populace areas,” according to brilliantmaps.com. That was ten-years ago, for your information.

This lofty project was expected to be complete by 2020, but the timeline has now reached beyond 2030. Financial issues have also plagued the project. “Originally projected to cost $33 billion,” brilliantmaps.com continues, “the project’s estimated cost has ballooned to over $128 billion. As a result, the funding shortfalls have become a significant obstacle. The federal government initially provided some support through stimulus funding during the Obama administration.”

Gubernor Newsom has arrived at a place where he, as well as his CHSRP, must explain where all those billions and billions of tax dollars went over the last 17-years. The bigger mystery is where the additional $95,000,000,000 will go. However, the biggest enigma is what are all those 14,500-construction people doing? Something to ponder.

California is proud to declare itself a state in which a resident needs a vehicle to travel. Widespread, Los Angeles itself is nearly impossible to navigate without a car, thereby demanding more wider roads, which create more pollution, necessitating additional traffic enforcement, besides vehicle registrations and inspections – all of which demand additional citizen’s taxes, handled by an obese bureaucracy.

Leading this charge, Gubernor Newsom fancies himself as frugal, when in fact, he is a spendthrift. Showing little regard for taxpayers, residents, drivers, and consumers, Newsom has been attempting to use this as one of his résumé items for 2028 presidential bid.

It’s too bad he’s desperately reaching backward into 1865 for tomorrow’s answers; not the brilliance for which one would hope in a leader.

His 2024 visit to The White House appeared to signal his own intention to run for the highest office. Seemingly measuring the Oval Office for new drapes, Newsom remained tight-lipped when asked speculative questions concerning this clear perusal of his future Washington, D.C. residence.

Pretending to not know of what reporters are referring, Newsom, to this day, has been making ‘presidential-like’ statements regarding current President Donald Trump’s behavior and actions concerning day-to-day operations. His scowl, complimented by his furrowed brow is a dead giveaway when determining if his audition is, indeed, authentic.

With poor decisions dangling from his neck much like cheap jewelry, Gubernor Newsom has been ignoring those faux pas collected akin to cheesy Mardi Gras beads. Wildfires, riotous protests, anti-Semitic rallies, transgender (Title IX) sports issues, illegal alien invaders, his environmental debacle, accompanied by outrageous and punitive tax policies, have all been gleefully explained away as “progress.”

Newsom apparently feels as though there’s a secret reset button that he’s able to push that will effectively erase all his past sins.

Sniffing out media cameras and microphones better than a bloodhound, Newsom seems to enjoy any and all havoc he creates in the name of forward thinking.

Unfortunately, all this forward thinking doesn’t include a Venn Diagram that encompasses from where all his stellar policies and dictums funding will come.

As with many – maybe most – guvment projects, funding monies be damned. The populace is seen as a giant cash cow to create a facade that rarely can be called a success without politicians and other guvment honchos digging into the wallet pockets of constituents.

If Gubernor Newsom wants to sit at America’s helm, he will need to quickly learn that our nation is not hankering for another spend-then-tax the populace. Based on his political track record, he doesn’t have a clue about budgets, much less constituents.

It’s time to send him into the private sector for a taste of how a real job works.

Promises, Promises

 

  Once again America is divided because of news. Unfortunately, this time around it is not fake news.

Parsing out and subsequently digesting this ‘new news’ has become rather laborious what with all the goings-on in the world and individuals’ private lives. As such, news consumers have resorted to finding means by which to expedite their news feeds, one of which being the internet.

Loaded chock full of eager advertisers trying to sell their wares to anyone, anywhere, has created a medium that rudely interrupts “normal” web surfing. Pop-ups blaze across the screen to not only antagonize but also disrupt any attempt to get to the core of a particular search.

Throughout its short existence, the internet had become a mixed hotbed of news-agency propaganda besides distractions in the form of those pesky pop-ups. As an aside, most of those pop-ups are titillating to the point of ‘train wreck’ status.

We’ve all been there: Driving down the highway when traffic comes to an abrupt stop. Flashing lights, wailing emergency vehicle sirens, tow trucks, citizens standing roadside weeping and often covered in blood, draws enough attention to make you want to look – like it or not. We must witness the train wreck.

Akin to the roadside train wreck is something generated by brief those hokey news briefs I call “click bait.”

Click bait is an enticement to divert your attention away from what you were doing, causing you to focus attention elsewhere. They begin with sensational headlines such as “Pope interviews space alien,” or “Donald Trump cheated with golf partner.”

Of course, the Pope story is about Jimmy Pope from the Bronx who is a heavy LSD user, while the Trump story misleads by omitting his golf partner actually gave him a Mulligan. Neither of these click baits were honest or informational. But they made you look.

Which is where we find ourselves less than several weeks after the New York City (NYC) Democratic Mayoral primary race. We couldn’t avoid the hoopla which was an exposé of showcasing failed New York State (NYS) governor Andrew Cuomo, along with a relatively newcomer named Zohran Mamdani.

Being a long-time governor spending ten-years in office, Cuomo has proven himself to be a genuine sleaze bag, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, when he ordered nursing homes to admit patients from hospitals without testing them for COVID-19. He was blamed for a large number of those nursing home deaths.

Mamdani’s, appearance on the Democratic ticket generated a considerable amount of interest and enthusiasm. Being a relatively newcomer – he’s been representing the 36^th district in NYS since 2021. He’s also a member of the Democratic Party and the Democratic Socialists of America. And proud of it.

With the aid of another Socialistic-leaning Congressional Representative, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 33-year-old Mamdani seemingly coasted to a wide-margin victory over Cuomo.

Immediately thereafter, the hoopla began to resonate across the media. Wearing an insincere smile, Mamdani continued to make the rounds while spouting his brilliant plan for “fairness,” and “equity.”

It all sounded so good to the downtrodden and spiteful New Yorkers who suddenly demanded a pound of flesh from smart investors plus business owners, alike. Take no prisoners!

Forgetting who was feeding them, those under educated voters could easily see lots of freebies in their future.

Promises of free bus rides, free subway trips, free cell phones, free food from city-owned and operated grocery stores, as well as free clinics, we on the tongues of every financial analyst and news pundit in America. This was revolutionary. REVOLUTIONARY!

Similar to attracting flies to poop, Mamdani was drawing larger and larger crowds of admirers and well-wishers on his trek to Gracie Mansion, following every spoken word. But from whence will the money for all the newly incurred bills come?

I’m glad you asked.

Evidently, Mr. Mamdani has this vision of taxing the “wealthy” for their fair share. It appears as though the actual numbers that separate the rich from the poor remain somewhat nebulous to our new Democratic shooting star. All we need to know is that a Mayor Mamdani will conjure up a clear number after his election.

Of course, that will be much too late to put the proverbial genie back into the lamp. Not to worry, though, as something desperate needs to be done to help the NYC underclass in such dire times.

He’s mentioned he will aim at stopping the current Commander-in-Chief, President Donald J. Trump, inasmuch as President Trump has been unfairly targeting needy illegal immigrants in America’s throes. Mamdani is angry that America’s resources, innovation, and subsequent wealth are too precious to waste on Americans.

Currently bragging about his socialist tendencies, Mamdani mentioned his brilliant programs that would spread his generosity would have to be likely confiscated from those not sharing his benevolence.

For the record, socialism is term used to describe an economic system that advocates a system of shared ownership and wealth equity. Communism, on the other hand, is similar to socialism, however communism receives its monies and holdings from state confiscation.

As is evident, socialism is nothing but communism light. Confiscation without guns...socialism for all!

Former PM Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, once said, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” That pretty well sums up the situation in which Zohran Mamdani hopes America’s NYC will head.

This sleazy tactic is very, very similar to one used in 1930’s Germany. A political newcomer from Austria felt Germany was in need of a more robust economy that would help most German people. With Jewish, homosexuals, and anti-National Socialist Party citizens serving as scapegoats, Adolph Hitler turned that nation against his perceived enemies to drive Germany into a world war. It should be noted that his newly contrived National Socialist Party – NAZI, for short – is nothing like what our modern media is comparing to President Trump.

This razzle dazzle plunged the world into desperation, poverty, mayhem, with international divisions felt to this day.

These wacky ideas from such immigrant transplants such as Mamdani should not be ignored, but rather heeded to prevent such dangerously stupid ideas from being implemented.

To prevent this derailing of America – this step having its inception at a low level – must be stomped out with education and an historic perspective.

Mamdani is not a clown. He is a dangerous threat that will turn the minds of ignorant, complacent Americans into slaves for his grandiose hare-brained idea of changing NYC into a socialist-run entity.