The Christmas Pause
Six days before Christmas I was walking to the bank—the fellow ahead of me at the ATM was depositing over 20 checks, reminding me that it’s always luck of the draw in such situations—and a delivery biker, who nearly clipped me, casually tossed a Chipotle wrapper on the sidewalk. That’s crude behavior, if common, and I wondered why all the posters and TV commercials admonishing, “Don’t Be A Litterbug!” have disappeared. I loved the word “litterbug,” and it still works: sometimes I’ll walk for five minutes to find a garbage can to dispose of waste. Where all that trash ends up isn’t my concern—probably in the Chesapeake—but it’s the kind of public service announcement longtime politician/fat cat Mitt Romney ought to address in a press conference. It’d be more effective than his ghost-written New York Times op-ed last week calling for more taxes on the wealthy.
Romney, whose net worth is in the hundreds of millions (his unreported, or hidden wealth, is anybody’s guess, and given his political unimportance, I doubt many are guessing). He writes: “Today, all of us, including our grandmas, truly are headed for a disastrous [financial cliff].” Romney’s 78, so his “grandmas” are deceased, and his idea of “means-testing” for Social Security benefits for “future retirees” won’t go over with anyone younger than 60. Even though he says, “It’s time for rich people like me to pay more,” that rings hollow since his personal estate has been scrutinized and updated by tax lawyers for at least a decade.
The Wall Street Journal dinged Romney for his throat-clearing, apologizing-for-being-wealthy essay. An excerpt: “Mr. Romney made his fortune at Bain Capital, and good for him. He can afford to pay more now, but would the 28-year-old Mitt still on the make have thought so? Raising taxes makes it harder to others to get rich.”
Romney admits that gouging billionaires upon their death for capital gains wouldn’t raise much money (no shit). He’s all over the Olympic field with his proposals and they’re not believable; although if he pledged to give his entire fortune, today, to a legitimate charity, his flimsy op-ed would have more weight. His heirs would be pissed, but that’s also not my concern.
Romney could’ve championed the flat tax: the most fair way of docking Americans, even if it’d put accountants and lawyers out of work. A flat tax of, say, 25 percent, is reasonable, with an exemption for families making under $35,000 annually; $30,000 for single men and women. That’s not only fair, but simple: instead of creating 78 new fiscal regulations, which would be exploited, and never approved by Congress, Americans could look at their tax burden and pay online (or by mail, if USPS is finally privatized) and that’s about it.
But now it’s Christmas Eve, a splendid day, when the country’s woes are suspended for a brief period, so I’ll say hey-ho! to Mitt and forget about his tax nonsense.
As the years roll along, I’m a lucky guy if my 31-year-old son Booker has arrived for the holidays in time to continue our tradition of trimming the tree. And so we did on Dec. 21st, 90 minutes of banter (Red Sox chatter, Deep State skullduggery, Trump’s continuation of excess foreign aid), and then watching the latest episode of Landman. As usual, our tree has no theme; it’s color and history. My wife outdid herself this year in selecting and stringing the lights, and when the ornaments were placed I’d blink twice and it was a reminder of spilling around Huntington as a teen on my first experience with psychedelics.
We have a container of tissue paper-wrapped ornaments, and it’s a tip-top collection, dating from the 1930s to 2025. There are casualties: we couldn’t find the Buddy Holly and Saddam Hussein key rings, and a large Cowardly Lion (from Bergdorf’s in the 1990s) was cracked beyond repair. But still intact: a 1950s Santa I claimed as my own as a kid; plastic stars from the WWII years; Red Sox World Series balls from 2004, 2007 and 2018; a pair of The Browning School bulbs with Nicky and Booker’s names in script; tin, cloth and glass items from trips to Mexico, Ireland, Chile, Bangkok, Bermuda and Milan; two 9/11 remembrances; three “disco balls” that perk up the lights; Santas white, black and brown; Homer and Bart Simpson; a pair of delicate crystal danglers a late friend gave me in 1993 and ’94; regal horses, hungry bears, slovenly pigs, falcons, mischievous ducks and cock-eyed rabbits; religious icons from Miami and Cairo; voodoo dolls; a phallic dagger my New York Press friend Gretta gave me in ’95; a “Nixon’s the One” ’68 campaign button; and a dozen period ornaments my mom bought for half-price the day after Christmas in 1965, ’66 and ‘67.
It’s a swell tree.
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023