As with so many other instances of corporate welfare, corruption, bureaucratic contempt, and state brutality, the stadium issues raise an obvious but seldom-asked question: why do so many people pay their income taxes?

This is not a rhetorical question. At the local, state, and especially federal level, we now have a political system where low, middle, and even upper middle income people get far less back in services and benefits from the federal government than they pay in; and the extremely wealthy--the top 1%--get far more. Military spending, non-military corporate welfare, and interest on the national debt alone accounting for something like 60% of the federal budget each year. The impact is even greater when considering how much money isn't in the budget in the first place because of what the rich don't pay. Corporations and high-income folks getting more tax breaks each year, while already-inadequate social spending continues to be gutted and more and more prisons get built to hold the people who can't cope.

The very rich are getting richer while everyone else's wages are stagnant or dropping. Governments--funded largely by the wealthy--are one of the primary mechanisms for this wealth transfer. The money pushing the Dow Jones over 10 bazillion isn't being newly printed; that would be inflationary. But it's coming from somewhere--from your pockets, into the pockets of Bill Gates, Boeing, Nordstrom, and Co., and much of it via Tax Day. A relatively tiny portion of the proceeds then gets recycled into purchasing politicians and policies that will ensure a tax, legal, and regulatory structure even more favorable to them and less favorable to everyone else. The ordinary citizen today has little meaningful choice or input in almost any important public policy issue at the state level, and none nationally.

So why do so many people pay their taxes?

Two hundred twenty or so years ago this was called "taxation without representation" and we threw out the government. Today, the masses vent our frustration by laughing along with the Tax Day jokes on late-night TV, or going further into debt at the Tax Day sales at our local mall.

But what if we refused? The federal government in particular is vulnerable; the income tax system is based on voluntary compliance, and the IRS--though fearsome in its media-assisted reputation--is essentially a very large, and not even very efficient, collection agency. People laugh off collection agency bills simply because they don't want to (or can't) pay, but quake in terror of the IRS when the money isn't just going to a private business-- it's going, in large quantities, to an institution now dedicated at the highest levels to enriching its patrons even if it means killing you. We are volunteering to buy the bullets for our firing squads.

Why does virtually everybody volunteer?

This isn't a Freemen or Posse Comitatus-type question of the legitimacy of taxation. Quite the opposite; it's specifically because portions of everyone's labor should contribute to the collective well-being of the community (rather than, say, Paul Allen's net worth) that our current tax system is ethically bankrupt. The issue here is where the money is going, how it's being spent, and how the spending decisions are made. People struggling to pay the rent, who can't afford health care, have no job security or retirement prospects, can't find affordable daycare, college, or anything in between for their kids, and so on, are tithing 30% or more of their income to people who already have enough yachts and private luxury jets to get by.

There are a few folks saying no. War tax resisters refusing, for reasons of conscientious objection, to fund militarism; people intentionally living under the taxable income; people who, forced to choose between enough food to feed the family in April and paying the IRS bill, make the eminently political decision to forego hunger. As usual, there will be small groups of folks leafletting at area post offices, and having a vigil or protest downtown, on Tax Day. You'd think there'd be millions.

Resisting taxes--symbolically or fully--has risks. It can be a nuisance, or it can complicate one's life immensely, and noone should undertake it without understanding the risks. But there's also risks involved in passively cooperating with our own demise. And it's simply amazing that more people don't look closely at which risk is greater.

Next week: Where Our Income Tax Dollars Go!

Nonviolent Action Community of Cascadia--one of the groups that has helped support the launching of ETS!--also administers the largest escrow account of resisted tax money in the U.S., by holding the money for resisters (it's retrievable, so people aren't left in the lurch by an IRS seizure), reinvesting it in socially responsible programs of the sort the state doesn't fund adequately, and using the interest for peace, social justice, and resistance organizing. War tax resisters have also helped financially in supporting the launch of ETS! NACC also has resources and experienced war tax resistance (WTR) counsellors available for folks who are considering taking action and need more information or counselling; and will be hosting a regional WTR conference on Saturday, May 3. Call 547-0952 or e-mail cmtc@igc.apc.org.