Gummint giveth, gummint taketh

I learn from the pubic prints that the US gummint, grateful for my more or less 45 years of faithful labor, is going to give me $250 in the next little while in the hope that I will give the economy a goose with it. In the meantime I learn from my cigar dealers that the US gummint is going to fund part of the health program for children by raising the tax I pay on stogies by about 40¢/each, raising the cost of a bundle of 25 smokes by $10. I intend to order nine bundles before the tax increase goes into effect on April 1, so I will probably do more to goose the economy of Nicaragua than the economy of the US. That is a big enough raise in price to make a guy cut back to no more than a couple of cigars a day … not a happy prospect, but pore folks have pore ways, and I feel pore enough to have taken a temporary job with the Census.