Kit and Caboodle

 

Finding Our Way Kit and Caboodle The Tax Man Cometh By Stephen L. Wilmeth                 A better name for the first week of August 2021 should be break down city.             Name it and something has happened. The main effort was rebuilding corners in our Howard Trap. It was there last Friday night that the full-scale jail break took place. We had gathered a big draft of pairs to brand the calves on Saturday morning. Tim had come over and was with us the previous day when we started the process by branding what calves we had picked up from the Homestead and on up through the drainages on both the north and south side of Massacre Peak.             Everything about that Thursday branding went smoothly.             With more help on Friday, we had a yet bigger drive, and the cattle were penned in the above noted Howard trap. We went home with the plan to be there first thing Saturday morning when it was cool and get to work. We got there alright, but the cattle were gone.             About 100’ of fence was down in the southeast corner of the trap and the pairs were back on the green grass in the Apache bottoms. That’s part of a big pasture and there was no way we were going to regather the fresh branded calves and stress them more, so the decision was to gather the bulls in the adjacent Apache Pasture and throw them back with the cows for the start of our planned breeding season.             The day was a near bust, but we salvaged what we could. We had no other choice.             So, Pepe and I rebuilt corners along with the jail break hole this week using pipe and steel. It is something we have been planning, but the breakout only hastened the deal. Along the way, we have had truck issues, a heating issue in the Komatsu, a colicky horse, a broken spring on a trailer, a broken thumb, and disgust listening to the news.             Holy, cow … the ranch problems seem almost incidental to what we are witnessing on the national level. It is a travesty.             It is national disgrace.             Finding Our Way             A big part of the various services or favored restaurants that we rely upon for our business and or sanity are scattered along the drive to and from the ranch. Naming them in order, the Prietos’ mechanical and paint shop, Lencho’s pecan orchard, the La Posta, Andele’s, Nick’s tyre shop, Leonard’s construction business office and yard, and Love’s all have unfilled labor needs. D. J. can’t get truck drivers to haul his hay. My neighbor, the once busy building contractor, now has two employees and himself only doing roofing jobs. Leonard has a big sign out front announcing his needs for equipment operators, mechanics, and laborers. The restaurants all have notices apologizing about the likely slow service because they are shorthanded. The Mesilleros are even complaining about their once reliable field hands that are no longer reliable at all. Roman made a pass down through Texas picking up stuff for his newly opened mercado in Mesilla and saw signs everywhere. Help Wanted!             We are not alone by a long shot.             Of course, these issues are predicated on the way things are, but that doesn’t just imply the COVID debacle. The public dole surrounding this nightmare continues to bleed off the workforce and the shortage is becoming not just temporary, but endemic. The drunken government is our biggest competition. Everybody is scared employment expenses are not temporary at all. They are ramping upwards trying to salvage ongoing businesses in an economy and future that is untenable.             Then there is the solid blue New Mexico governance and its contribution to chaos.             Living in a land whereby over 60% of revenues are derived either directly from the United States Treasury or from the oil and gas business, one would surmise the state would be protective and cordial to its limited array of producers. On the contrary, this state is hostile to all extractive producers and is insistent upon embarking on a joyless, communal wildlands odyssey that will bring wealth, happiness a good karma to the believers. Forget about the border. What border? This collective governance is absolutely derelict on border responsibility.             The Tax Man Cometh             Who among you is following the daily run up of the national debt?             At the time this was written, it stood momentarily and nominally at $28,610,398,430,000 (nominally because the unfunded liabilities are minimally 160% of that amount). At that very moment, each and every living American was on the hook for $87,227 ($226,900 with unfunded liabilities included).             To make matters even more bizarre and incredibly reckless, the federal budget for 2021 looms at $6.8T, no, let’s extend that to the real enumeration of $6,800,000,000,000 on record tax harvest from the hinterland of $3,800,000,000,000. That means that even with record tax harvests another $3,000,000,000,000 is being borrowed to do the legacy work of the imbeciles that form the nucleus of the collective minds that are guiding this great nation.             Where does this lead us?             For one thing, can any of us even imagine the cadre of leaders that must step up and say, enough is enough? Framed in New Mexico parlance, those hopeful but brutally honest politicos are going to say, the kit and caboodle of this platform is to reduce the federal spending 44% in order to balance the budget.             Further, we are going to start running this Union like the Trust it must be and deal with the national debt. Entitlements and underperforming assets must be addressed and from the savings thereof of the former and from the sales of the latter, the debt is going to be restructured and eliminated.             Does anybody want to render a guess of how many votes those patriots are going to receive?                         Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “If we could recapture our current lives in Texas, rural New Mexico would move in mass.”