To Whom It May Concern:
Regarding my Taxes for 2007
It is only with a huge reservation that I send this payment to the government. You will note that I am not sending the full amount.
As a matter of conscience I will not voluntarily pay money to a government whose daily order of business is waging war. By paying such I would be funding those activities, thereby participating in the war. I have, therefore, deducted a Token Amount to protest the use of my tax money in funding an illegal and immoral war.*
51% is the proportion of the federal budget that goes to pay for present wars and war preparations, and for interest on the national debt accrued in order to pay for past wars.
Since I believe our military is the largest, and best working welfare system on the planet (having been active duty myself, and am grateful for the training), I am willing to pay a part of that 51%.
Of the money I’m not paying, I will probably give 1/3 to the local public school, which doesn’t have enough money to pay substitute teachers, 1/3 to my town coffers, since Crowder can’t afford to dig drainage ditches or provide police, and 1/3 to a group I will soon choose, that is working to promote peace. I will get receipts.
I regret I have not, until this year, had an income high enough to have the privilege to pay taxes, and am doing this out of conscientiously objecting to Bush’s Iraq war, and the first Gulf War,… notto defraud the government.
I do this because roughly half of the federal income tax is used to fund the US war machine. Monstrous amounts of dollars which could reinvigorate our ailing health, housing, and school systems are instead diverted to increase the profits of defense corporations and simultaneously destroy life. As federal support for education programs are slashed and more and more young people are told by military recruiters that the best way they can get a college education is to enlist, the spirit of our society takes a beating.
Currently, the US government is spending at least $3.9 billion a MONTH to finance its war and occupation on Iraq, and the US military industrial complex. I have protested in anti-war marches and parades both before and during this war. I continue to protest the war daily…in conversation; by painting anti-war signs on my car; in letters written to the “president”, my senators and congresspersons; with bumper-stickers and posters. The government’s blatant response has been to ignore my protests.
“Let them march all they want, as long as they continue to pay their taxes.” -Alexander Haig, U.S. Sec. of State, June 12, 1982
Hopefully, the decision-makers in Washington will have a much harder time ignoring our resistance. This is why I am writing today, and why you will not receive all of that 51% of my “tax bill” which the government would wrongly use to pay for war.*
Sincerely, and in the Cause of Peace,
Kathleen Gilbert
* Our country is fighting an illegal war in violation of the rule of international law, and the Charter of the United Nations. The United Nations Charter is a treaty of the United States, and as such forms part of the “supreme law of the land” under the Constitution, Article VI, Clause 2. The UN Charter is the highest treaty in the world, superseding states’ conflicting obligations under any other international agreement. (Art. 103, UN Charter) (The United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has told the BBC the US-led invasion of Iraq was an illegal act that contravened the UN charter. BBC News, Thursday, 16 September, 2004)
