Refuse to Pay for War (and Sign Here)

Some links from here and there:

  • NWTRCC is promoting a “Refuse to Pay for War Sign-On Statement” .

    We are divesting from war by refusing some or all of our federal tax dollars that fund it, or by living below the taxable income level. We invite you to join us publicly in this act of civil disobedience to war and war funding.

    If that sounds like something you’d like to be part of, sign up on their page and thereby band together with your fellow-resisters.
  • The Mennonite Church USA issued a Statement on the value and morality of the U.S. defense budget. Excerpt:

    Our… resolution, “Faithful Witness Amid Endless War,” calls us to seek and implement public ecumenical witness to our confession: “Some trust in their war chariots and others in their horses, but we trust in the power of the Lord our God” (Psalm 20:7).

    How do we place our trust in the power of God while a massive expenditure of our tax dollars trusts in high-tech weaponry to keep us safe? In this routine legislative act, we are challenged to reflect deeply on where we place our security and allegiance.

    The creation of MC USA’s Church Peace Tax Fund provides individuals with a tangible way to support the church’s ongoing peace mission, while symbolically protesting government spending on war and militarism.

    Are there 100 new war tax resisters among us?

  • The number of Americans who formally renounce their citizenship hit new highs .
  • José Luis Espert, a member of parliament in Argentina, called for tax resistance in a recent editorial (and then doubled down in a series of tweets). Espert notes that the tax burden and government spending have both doubled as a proportion of gross domestic product over the past fifty years, as deficit spending has repeatedly put the Argentine economy into crisis. This tax burden falls heavily on the above-ground economy, whose workers, he claims, work half of their working year just to pay their annual taxes. He despairs of politicians ever overcoming the perverse incentives that drive this problem, and so:

    To adjust public spending, the powers that be are clear that they will never do it the right way, but prefer that it be done the hard way with the people starved into a crisis, and this is why a tax rebellion by Argentine taxpayers is necessary. In order to put an end to the immorality of a clique of disgraceful politicians who prefer that we be a Maduro-less Venezuela than for them to be responsible when it comes to collecting and spending.

    Yes. The people have to stop paying taxes…

  • The ragtag human guerrilla war against the robot traffic ticket camera hordes continues, with saws and spraypaint disabling cameras in France and fire, gunfire, and blunt force taking out a few more in France, Italy, Saudi Arabia, and Germany.