Social Media by Tracy Le Blanc at Pexels.

Social Media Workshop (Saturday March 18 at 2p Eastern / 11a Pacific)
This session will be an introduction to using social media as a resistance tool. Included on the agenda is using QR codes for Tax Day, using Twitter and hashtags, Instagram; reposting NWTRCC material online; creating social media accounts; utilizing Facebook Live or Instagram Live to report from a protest, and more. The session will be very hands-on. Register here.

Tax Day is Tuesday April 18, 2023
NWTRCC promotes tax day actions every year, collecting a list of actions around the US and sending out a press release widely in early April and posting reports on our website and on our Facebook page.

Would you like to do something different for Tax Day this year? We have a list of Action ideas on our website. We are asking folks to take a picture or video of themselves with their Tax Day signs and post these images on social media. When posting a picture or graphic, please let folks know they can find out more info about WTR at nwtrcc.org. Also, add “#WarTaxResistance or #NWTRCC” to your post. Writing these “hashtags” with your message will let that anyone can find your post on Facebook or Twitter by searching “#WarTaxResistance” or “#NWTRCC.”

Share your Tax Day plans here.

May Meeting will be In-Person (5-7 May 2023)
After three years of our twice yearly conferences being only on Zoom, NWTRCC will have an in-person conference the first weekend of May. As has been the case for years, there will be opportunities for people to participate in parts of the conference online.

The conference is being hosted by Joyfield Farm (4874 E 1400 N, North Manchester, Indiana 46962). Joyfield Farm is an organic farm in north-central Indiana, about an hour west of Fort Wayne. The farm has WiFi, which will allow certain sessions to be online, including our Sunday business meeting. The setting will be slightly more rustic than usual with amenities such as outhouses. There is plenty of camping space, including inside of a large barn. Some families in the area will also host folks and provide beds, but these will be limited.

The details for the sessions are still being worked out, but the Friday evening session will be hosted by the Peace Studies Institute at Manchester University, which offered the first undergraduate Peace Studies program in the world in 1948.

Whether you plan on attending the in person or on Zoom, register here.

~Post by Lincoln Rice

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The front page article was about the confusion around various presentations of the military budget by peace groups and the proper terms to use to explain those percentages. The article sets out to explain the differences among “discretionary spending,” “mandatory spending,” “federal funds,” “trust funds,” and “Where Your Income Taxes Really Go.” The confusion is pretty much the same today, so if you need a refresher, that newsletter is still online at https://nwtrcc.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/mtap0213.pdf. Another good source is the National Priorities Project website, which includes a Federal Budget 101 section with explanations about the budget process and also a Glossary that includes the terms above.

Looking at that issue from Feb./March 2013 also reminded me that some may be wondering if War Resisters League is producing a new pie chart this year. The answer is yes. It looks like Biden is releasing the 2024 budget on March 9, so as soon as it’s online we’ll work as fast as we can on the analysis and get it printed and posted online. The timeline is a bit tight for tax day, but at least this year we will be able to work from current numbers. Last year Biden’s budget came out some time after tax day. Of course, how much any administration’s budget reflects reality is an open question. It will be interesting to see the accounting for all the money they have been shipping off periodically to keep the war in Ukraine going.

That newsletter also has a commentary by Gary Erb, who, among other things, takes issue with how the federal debt is presented on the pie chart. I am not sure we have ever satisfied his concerns, but we will make an effort this year to reconsider the percent of the debt that is war-related. This is a tough one to sort through. Historically war has been the major contributor to federal debt, but the previous president’s tax cuts, the pandemic and some of Biden’s programs have added significant amounts more recently. Whether we’ll stick with the 80% is an open question for now.

If budget talk makes you yawn, that newsletter has a  write-up of a member survey that might hold some insights for organizing today. And there’s a review of Peg Morton’s memoir, Feeling Light Within, I Walk: Tales, Adventures and Reflections of a Quaker Activist. She died in 2015, and her book is a good read about a life well lived.

— Post by Ruth Benn
Co-author of the WRL pie chart

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Photo by Ed Hedemann, DC 2005.

Reading my way through the New York Times one morning in May 2020, a photo caught my eye. It was a shot of a crowd from behind, but the one visible sign read “It Is NOT ok to Kill People.” The accompanying article was about the killing of Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Georgia, and it immediately came to mind: who else would be holding that sign but Robert Randall? (He  chastised me in an email with, “I hope there are lots of people who would carry that sign!”)

Robert died on December 15, 2022, from pancreatic cancer, and his loss is a huge one for the war tax resistance network and for the ongoing struggle for peace and justice everywhere. Arbery was killed not far from Robert’s home, which brought that case of gun violence and racism right to his doorstep, but he was already active on many issues locally. As a friend Sandra Vaughn said in an online comment, “If he saw an injustice he fought with all he had to make it right.”

Robert was special to NWTRCC, and we hold him close to our hearts and send our love and thoughts to his wife of 46 years Linda Randall, who stood with him — at that Arbery protest, when their house was seized for nonpayment of taxes in 1984, through times when he lost jobs because of his resistance — through decades of life’s ups and downs.

Robert may have recruited the most WTRs with his annual tabling at School of the Americas protests, Ft. Benning, Georgia. Peg Morton from Eugene, OR, joined him in 2004.

Robert became a Christian pacifist in the late 1960s while still in high school and in the face of the Vietnam War. “In those days a young person approaching the age of 18 simply had to think about whether or not to kill,” he said. It seems there was no question in his mind that paying for war was as impossible for him as being a soldier. He was a “war tax converter” all his adult life and got active with the Atlanta Tax Conversion Fund for Peace and Human Needs. They hosted a NWTRCC meeting in December 1983 that began his long association with the organization.

The December 10, 1984, Network News reported: “The IRS auctioned the house of Robert and Linda Randall on November 16 to recover Robert’s unpaid war taxes. The event received extensive and sympathetic newspaper and TV coverage in the Atlanta area. 20-25 supporters submitted protest bids and attended the sealed bid auction. …Robert felt very enthusiastic about the support he received throughout the experience.”

Being supported and being supportive was what drew Robert to NWTRCC, which is why we honored him at that 30^th anniversary conference in 2013. Robert held the record for attendance at the network’s meetings and gatherings around the country. Sometimes he was on a committee and had his travel paid, but mostly he used his own resources because he appreciated being in a group where “everyone has shown what it means to live according to your conscience,” as he said in response to the award. Robert came to see friends, but was also the one most welcoming to all newcomers, as evidenced by comments on the war tax resistance listserve at news of his death. (As a matter of fact, one of Robert’s key contributions was starting and hosting that listserve, which has been valuable for conversation and support among resisters, refusers and converters since 1999.)

NWTRCC group outside Kings Bay naval base. (l to r) Ruth Benn, PA Trisha, Carolyn Stevens, Nichoe Lichen, Vicki Metcalf, Robert Randall, Ken Miller, Joel Taunton. Photo by Ed Hedemann, 1988.

Most recently many peace activists met Robert through support for the Kings Bay Plowshares, who entered the Georgia naval base on April 4, 2018, and “beat swords into plowshares” at the Trident submarine base until arrested. Their trials, sentencing dates, and incarcerations in Robert’s hometown, Brunswick, involved more than four years of support actions and events with which Robert was fully engaged. But he had long been active around the Kings Bay naval base. In 1988 he helped host a NWTRCC meeting with John X and Martina Linnehan at their Metanoia House in St. Mary’s, Georgia, and took us to the gates of King’s Bay, a focus of their antinuclear protests. (He was so pleased to see John and Martina again in 2016 when they were living on land at the Sustainable Living Center of North Florida, which hosted a NWTRCC gathering.)

In May 1989 Robert helped host again at the Marywood Conference Center outside of Jacksonville. That gathering lasted nearly a week and included WTR events in Jacksonville, St. Marys, and Brunswick. Chrissy’s blog post from 2019 is another tale of Robert’s hospitality, but most of us who have attended NWTRCC meetings probably think of him as something of a host for every meeting no matter where it was. He was always the best prepared for the business meeting, he carried decades of institutional memory, and was fun to be around. His enthusiasm for post meeting outings, protests, or local tours was contagious. More than anything Robert knew that the primary reason people come together is to share stories and fears and ideas to sustain our resistance and survive the economic challenges.

There is so much more to say about Robert, and this blog page allows readers to add their own stories and comments. But it would be unfair to conclude without emphasizing Robert’s deep religious faith, even though it was possible to spend a good deal of time with him and not realize how central it was to his life choices. This is exemplified in his 2006 tax day letter to the IRS:

School of the Americas protest, Ft. Benning, Georgia. For more photos, click here.

Once again this year I am unable to pay any federal income tax which you might deem “due” from me. As I have stated to you in years past, I am a Christian. …The Holy Spirit will not let me sin in this way. I am completely and utterly constrained by God from voluntarily paying for war. (Read the full letter.)

Robert was not a proselytizer. He was more concerned that we act on conscience than join a religion. He did, however, mean it when he wrote at the beginning of his “An Ethic for the 21st Century”:

Let us all agree on this one simple thing:
It is not OK to kill people.

— By Ruth Benn

P.S. We have so many photos of Robert at meetings, gatherings, serious vigils and serious fun from coast-to-coast and with many of you. If you want to see more, click here!

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My 2020 tax folder is piling up with letters back and forth.

However, I had to write back a dispute because they did not correct their original error. The IRS took my estimated and final payments for 2020 self-employment/Social Security taxes and applied them to my income tax debts for 2011 and 2012. This is against IRS regulations. I wrote them about this is August 2021 but got no reply, so last week I copied that text and sent it back to them with my corrected calculations.

I have a feeling this is going to go on for a while. By my original calculations my resisted income tax for 2020 was $1,216. Since the IRS misapplied my 2020 payments, they say I owe $4,431, including interest and penalties and a credit I had overlooked for one of those stimulus checks I didn’t receive.

My dispute letter repeats my calculations but includes the credit. If the IRS accepts it and returns my payments to the proper year, the down side for me is that I may end up with an overpayment for 2020. In addition, all this delay has also messed up the real amount I should be getting in my Social Security payments. That and the fact that the IRS needs to apply estimated tax payments properly and follow their own regulations are reasons to carry on this correspondence.

NYC City Council member Carlina Rivera announces the Move the Money resolution on December 7 at City Hall. Photo by Ruth Benn. More photos by Ted Reich here.

Meanwhile, I did have a better time at a press conference for the NYC Move the Money campaign. City Council Member Carlina Rivera hosted the press conference on the steps of City Hall to announce the introduction of a “Move the Money” resolution in the NYC City Council. If passed, Res. 0423-2022 puts the city on record calling on Congress and the President to cut the military budget and fund social services. City officials who spoke at the press conference spoke eloquently and with passion about the importance of moving the money.

As with most such resolutions it is symbolic, but the campaign itself is a worthy one for peace groups as far as public education goes and the opportunity to work with a broader coalition. The NYC Move the Money coalition itself is made up of 60 labor, peace, community, clergy, environmental and racial justice organizations — and growing. Many of those groups are demanding the mayor fund social services (or at least avoid cuts), but they don’t talk about the obvious source of revenue to fund these programs. Move the Money makes the connection and opens the door for more dialogue and cooperation.

— Post by Ruth Benn

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NWTRCC held its fortieth anniversary conference on Zoom the weekend of 4 – 6 November 2022. About 50 people attended some portion of the conference, which began the evening of Friday November 4 with a short concert with folk singer and political satirist Charlie King. He sang “More than Enough” by Robb Johnson, “Universal Soldier” by Buffy Saint Marie, and closed with a composition of his own, “Spoon of Sand.”

Evening with Previous Coordinators

Following the concert, NWTRCC’s previous coordinators shared some anecdotes from their time with NWTRCC. Kathy Vass, who was the coordinator from 1982 to 1987 shared about the beginnings of NWTRCC and the arduous task of spearheading the composition of a war tax resistance manual. Larry Bassett, who co-coordinated with Kathy from 1984 to 1986, spoke of the daily grind during this time and shared about the significant amount of time that he stood next to a printer making copies of the WTR manual.

Carolyn Stevens, coordinator from 1987 to 1991, spoke about creating and updating WTR literature as well  as the importance of fundraising. Unfortunately, Karen Marysdaughter, coordinator from 1991 to 1999, was not able to join us.

Mary Loehr, coordinator from 1999 to 2003, shared stories from NWTRCC gatherings and the fun that happened at those meetings. She also related that at an international meeting in Washington, DC, David Zarembka shared, “I have lost a house… to divorce.” Mary believed he shared this to indicate how precarious life is.

Lastly, Ruth Benn spoke, who was coordinator from 2003 to 2018. Ruth discussed the time she was asked to visit the IRS department that investigated tax protestor organizations. Right before Ruth was called in, the IRS had shut down one of the tax protestor websites. Thankfully, the IRS decided not to take any action against NWTRCC.

Panel on the Living History of NWTRCC

On Saturday morning, four panelists each provided a concise summary of one NWTRCC decade. Ed Hedemann, who was at the first NWTRCC meeting, presented on the 1980s. Robert Randall, whose local group sent a representative to the first meeting, presented on the 1990s. Sue Barnhart, who attended her first meeting in Portland, Oregon in 1993, presented on the 2000s. And Erica Leigh, who served for several years as NWTRCC’s social media consultant, presented on the 2010s.

Memorial Session

For our second Saturday session, we viewed a slide show to the music of Charlie King, in which fifty individuals who have passed away during the last forty years were remembered. After the eight-minute slide show, people shared stories about those in the slide show whom they knew and called forth of the names of those who were inadvertently left out of the slide show. After the additional names with photos are integrated into the slide show, it will be posted to NWTRCC’s YouTube channel.

NWTRCC Trivia

To allow for some fun small-group interaction, we dedicated an hour-long session for trivia. Attendees were placed in groups of five, given some time to chat and catch-up, and then fifteen minutes to work together on a quiz. Lastly, everyone was then brought back to the larger group to find out the correct answers. If you were not able to participate in that session, the multiple-choice quiz from the session can be found beginning on the back page of this periodical. (During the celebration of our 40th year, one of our blog posts will be this quiz.)

The Next 40 Years

Our marathon celebration concluded with breakout sessions in which small groups discussed possible directions for NWTRCC during the next one, five, or forty years. There were numerous calls for an official statement on the war in Ukraine, which came up again at the Sunday business meeting. (See the “NWTRCC News” section for more.) Felice and Jack Cohen-Joppa shared the success they have had with placing QR codes on protest signs on college campuses. NWTRCC will provide a way for Tax Day 2023 demonstrations to do this if they wish.

Nuclear Resister protest with the use of a QR code. Photo courtesy of the Nuclear Resister.

Recognizing the how white our group is, there were calls to continue connecting WTR with racism and earth work. Joshua shared his belief that there would be interest for war tax resistance among several independent media outlets. The NWTRCC office will look into this more during tax season. Other ideas were also offered, which will be brought to NWTRCC’s Outreach Committee for discussion.

Overall, it was a wonderful conference and we were very pleased to see so many people who played a role in NWTRCC’s history. It would be better meeting in person, but I am glad we were able to make the best of what technology has to offer.

Post by Lincoln Rice

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Bill Durland speaking at NWTRCC’s 30th anniversary conference in Colorado Springs (November 2012). Photo by Kima Garrison.

[Editor’s Note: The following two stories were shared in our recent 40th anniversary newsletter. We will continue celebrating our 40th anniversary at our 4-6 November 2022 conference on Zoom. You can see the full schedule and register here.]

The Origins of NWTRCC

By Bill Durland-Littleton, Colorado

It was 1982, and Genie and I had moved to Colorado to form a western office of the National Center on Law and Pacifism. We founded the Center in 1978 in Philadelphia with Quaker and Catholic peace activists t0 help people of conscience who were living in poverty, in prison, and to resist war by withholding their taxes.

Eventually, we had volunteer attorneys and contacts all over the country assisting people in workshops, court representation, and the publication of a guide, “People Pay for Peace.” For four years we conducted these efforts along with the War Resisters League and the Conscience and Military Tax Campaign.

By 1982, these organizations were overlapping and duplicating some of their work. The idea cane to me to form a national organization that would coordinate the efforts of these groups and become more effective in their work. And that’s how NWTRCC was born in a meeting in St Louis. We applaud NWTRCC‘s 40th anniversary and the wonderful leadership it has received over these many years. Genie and I are glad to have lived to an old age to see it.

NWTRCC’s First Coordinators

By Larry Bassett – Lynchburg, Virginia

Larry Bassett in 1985. Photo by Ed Hedemann.

Kathy Levine and I moved from Virginia to Long Island to work for the Conscience & Military Tax Campaign (CMTC) in the early 1980s. We moved along with her two kids and our wood stove. We both put in a lot of time and didn’t punch a clock. The office was in the backyard garage of the house we lived in in Bellport on the south shore on the great South Bay with Fire Island across the water.

Occasionally in the winter the bay froze and we could walk out to Fire Island. Kathy also was an avid organic gardener and spent a lot of time tending a garden nearby that provided a good deal of the food for us. We hauled horse manure and eel grass regularly for the garden. She planted winter wheat once for a winter cover crop and we ended up harvesting it and grinding to make homemade whole wheat bread. Kathy is still a farmer today at her home in Hawaii.

Kathy applied for and was hired to be the first coordinator for NWTRCC. We left CMTC and later, after we had moved to East Patchogue, I joined her as the co-coordinator. We worked out of the house that we rented and one of the major projects at that time was a legal manual. Kathy worked a good deal with Vicky Metcalf to create that resource. I stood at a copy machine many hours printing copies of the manual. And when Kathy and I split up, she continued with NWTRCC for a while until a new coordinator was hired and the office moved to the Pacific Northwest.

We enjoyed doing a little traveling for NWTRCC conferences in Los Angeles and Austin and Colorado. Seeing a little bit of the country was one of the perks of the job. It was during my time working for NWTRCC that I had my 1985 adventure with the Justice Department and the Brooklyn federal district court and Judge Weinstein, who dismissed the case against me, finding in my favor and establishing a precedent for refusing to provide information about assets to the IRS. With that victory I blew my best opportunity so far to end up in jail for civil disobedience. That eight months in 1985 was probably more stressful than my current adventures with the IRS refusing to pay $250,000 for my $1 million 2016 inheritance and my current debt to the IRS of over $300,000. I continue to hope that people will watch the documentary film The Pacifist, still available on Amazon.

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Originally, the proposed funding had some Republican support, but that soon soured and the future of the funding proposal seemed dead.

All that changed when Biden and congressional Democrats saw an opening to quickly pass the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The IRS funding would probably not had passed as a solo bill, but it found life after being added to the IRA. Last Sunday, Senate Democrats passed the IRA and the House is expected to pass it later this week.

What’s in the Bill?

The bill will increase the IRS budget by almost $80 billion over 10 years… so a yearly increase of about $8 billion. The current yearly IRS budget is $12.6 billion, so this is a yearly increase of over 60%. That is substantial. After decades of inadequate funding, the IRS will be flush with funds. In terms of people power, this bill will add 87,000 employees to the IRS over a ten-year period—roughly doubling their numbers.

Half of the new funding will be dedicated to enforcement. From the start, supporters emphasized that enforcement will focus on high-income individuals, but low to mid-income households will surely feel the repercussions of this beefed-up enforcement. At the end of the 2010, the IRS wrote off $14.6 billion of taxes due as it expired after reaching the 10-year-statute of limitations. At the end of 2019, $34.2 billion was written off. The IRS expects that increased enforcement will increase taxes collected by over $200 billion during the next 10 years.

It is unlikely that the larger IRS budget will lead to more property confiscations for war tax resisters. Photo by Sami Aksu from Pexels.

The remainder will be used for operations, tax-payer services, and technology. The IRS has an embarrassing back-log of paper returns to process, not enough people to answer the phone, and an antiquated computer system. I am sure that these three items will be priorities for the remainder of the funds.

Consequences for War Tax Resisters

Nothing in the bill indicates that the IRS will increase property confiscations for items such as cars and homes. The decrease in confiscations was largely due to a change in philosophy in the late 1990s. But as the IRS slowly rebuilds its enforcement ranks, we will likely see an increase in wage garnishments, bank levies, retirement fund levies, W-4 lock-in letters, and notices of public liens filed at local courthouses.

Of course, before they can take action on recent years for WTR paper filers, they will have to actually process their returns! As always, the NWTRCC office will stay abreast of these matters and keep you up to date.

— Post by Lincoln Rice

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Today I gathered my patience and decided to try calling the IRS again. I can get pretty frustrated being on hold for minutes on end, so I try to remember that IRS employees are not the enemy but end up being the fall guys for governmental dysfunction. As war tax resisters (at least those of us who file) it is also frustrating that we feel our message gets stuck at the IRS, but the topic did not come up in this call. I just wanted to know what happened to my return, and I know others in our network have similar questions.

From a 2017 article, “We’ve Called the IRS Over 10,000 Times“. It’s probably only gotten worse.

After an hour+ on hold (as they warned in the initial recording) a human actually answered. She was friendly, and I explained the basic problem. “Can I put you on hold 5 – 7 minutes while I review the account?” She did return, probably after the full 7 minutes, but didn’t know much more. She asked if I e-filed and I said no, so “Can I put you on hold 5 – 7 minutes while I review the account again?” I desperately asked if I could get hold of her if I got cut off. Nope, you have to call the same general number again and basically start over.

Probably the full 7 minutes later she came back, and finally I had an answer!

“Problems were encountered, and it will be 16 weeks before your return posts.” Her response seemed to imply that it was a problem with my return, so I said I assume these problems are due to  the IRS backlog. She affirmed my suspicion and said they had begun to work on my return July 11, but “don’t expect it to post before the 16 weeks are up.”

I broached one more question with her about my misapplied estimated payments, but she said I’d have to call Collections about that and gave me another number. I’ll have to wait til my patience reserves build up again before calling them.

The only relation to my resistance is that I continue to choose to file on paper so that I can enclose my annual letter and annoy “the system.” Now the system is so dysfunctional that my effort to annoy may be biting me in the butt. I’m not sure there’s a way around this except to tap into greater patience reserves than I normally have.

— Post by Ruth Benn

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In order to create an IRS account you have to verify your identity with ID.me, an online security platform. I started the whole process maybe 2 or 3 weeks ago. After putting in all the basics – address, phone, email, social security number, etc. – then you have to upload documents like your photo ID or driver’s license either from your computer or with a Smartphone photo app they link you to. I’m sure I spent at least an hour doing this the first time, using both methods when one didn’t seem to be working. ID.me seems to have pretty high standards for quality of image, and most of the time mine didn’t pass quality control.

When I finally had my pictures accepted, the system moved on to checking my credit after seeking my approval. The next message that came back was that they could not complete that step, and I’d have to use the “live video” verification option. Studying a few FAQs led me to the probable cause of this blip. A year or two ago I had frozen my credit account because of some generally reported hacking issue. I didn’t bother to go back and release the freeze, but the wait for the live video ID was more than an hour, so I gave up at this point.

Then the email reminders started coming in. “You’re almost there. Log in to your ID.me account to finish verifying your identity.”

This is kind of what I looked like.

All those emails — and the fact that it’s my turn to write a blog — launched me back into the process. I went straight for “live video ID,” because I had noticed that earlier in the day the wait is shorter. But…before you see an agent, you once again have to upload more documents, with the same quality perfection that threw me for a loop the last time. Driver’s license, social security card (with the time it took to remember where I kept that old thing), and passport, the latter of which did not want to sit flat for its portrait until I finally taped it down. After dozens of photos using both the Smartphone link and my camera-to-computer-to-file upload, taking at least an hour (and almost giving up again) I finally managed acceptable pictures. At this point my wait for the live agent was only 10 minutes!

She asked all the basic address, birth date questions, and then she needed to see all three documents during the call. It took a while to line them up with the camera without reflection or blur so that she could read them clearly. All-in-all, that step was a breeze, but did they really need me to upload everything first?

Finally I was verified as who I say I am and could log right in to my IRS account. There I was greeted with a big bold message across the top: “Your Account is in Jeopardy of Lien or Levy.” No surprise since I have 10 years of debt piled up due to my war tax resisting.

Otherwise, is it enlightening? Well, maybe. One document say the IRS received no 1040 from me for Tax Year 2020. Another document shows they received “Payment with return” with the exact amounts I sent for Social Security when I filed my 1040 on time in May 2021 for Tax Year 2020. Funny how they manage to find the money orders…. This will be useful to mail back to them saying “as you see, you had a return from me.”

I expect with the backup of paper at the IRS, some of the problems have to do with the fact that I file on paper, and they want to drive us all into the online system. Even though I got over my resistance to creating an online account, I do plan to continue resisting the online filing system (setting up this account took all my bureaucratic energy for the next few years!). And, of course, I plan to continue my economic protest. I still like being a little cog in the machine, even as the machine itself seems to be breaking down.

— Post by Ruth Benn

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Tax Day April 18, 2022, NYC. Photo by Ed Hedemann

War tax resistance is a quarterly, paycheck-to-paycheck or even daily act of resistance to war, depending on your method, but it can be quite solitary. If nothing else, the annual tax day (thanks, IRS!) gives us a chance to act together.

This year our NYC WRL group decided to vigil at the IRS, which is in lower Manhattan, and add a short march down Broadway to Wall Street to take our protest to the corporate war profiteers. Then a friend with a foot in the antiwar movement and NYC Extinction Rebellion helped connect the peace movement tax day action to XR’s Spring Uprising week of actions.

XR tripod-sitter blocking road in NYC financial district. Tax day 2022. Photo by Ed Hedemann

It was a lively affair this year, with a performance by a new street theatre group, Rising Together Guerilla Theater, and the louder demanding voices of more youthful XR activists leading the march chants. NYC WRL activist Mike Levinson spoke well for war tax resistance. The march ended at the Charging Bull statue where XR’s activists were blocking the road with tripods featuring “NO WAR” and “NO WARMING” banners.

Hopefully this will be the start of building an ongoing coalition that more strongly connects the crises of war and climate change.

But that coalition is still too limited. A week before our tax day march, the Poor People’s Campaign held a march on Wall Street as part of their Mobilization Tour for the Mass Poor People’s & Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington, June 18, 2022.

Poor People’s Campaign march on Wall Street, April 11, 2022. Photo by Ed Hedemann

Many usual suspects from local peace groups were in the crowd, and the Rising Together Guerilla Theater did a trial run of their skits before the PPC rally started. But we are still working too separately on compatible but parallel paths at times.

Perhaps the fact that organizers of these two marches both chose Wall Street as a destination for protest is a sign that we are destined to pull together more closely and go after the corporations that steal from the poor and fuel war to increase their profits.

— Ruth Benn

Activist Hideko Otake is a prolific chronicler of all kinds of protests in NYC. She has photos and video from tax day and also from the Poor People’s Campaign rally and march.

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Image of NATO protest in Chicago from Steve Rhodes on Flickr.

The revolving doors of the Pentagon opened up this week to the 8 largest U.S. weapons manufacturers and the war strategists to come to the table. They were making plans  for a war in Ukraine that may continue for years. It was as if a dream that had been brewing for years appeared to be coming true. The obscenity of military spending in the U.S., feverishly gobbling up over half of federal income taxes for decades has become even more perverse in the last few years as the pandemic has magnified the denial of the resources for people’s needs and our home in which we depend.

In February 2020, the U.S. Army published an article Interoperability: Embrace it or Fail! that was cowritten by leaders in Australian, French, British and U.S. militaries. The paper argues for the need to have weapon systems that would be standardized amongst allied nations and ends with a future scenario. “It is now 2035 and you find yourself deployed to a theater within the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command general area of operations where tensions are high. Your previous experience in Europe highlighted a disjointed approach towards sustainment and logistics yielding sub-optimal solutions. You remain hopeful that NATO and ABCANZ (America, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) nations have learned from previous challenges and are better prepared for LSCO (Large Scale Combat Operations) in your new theater.”

Long time war tax resister Don Timmerman at NATO protest.

In another part of the document it speaks of gauging levels of ambition: “Interoperability requires nations to spend money, take risk and cede sovereignty in order to increase legitimacy, cohesion, mass and agility.” That seemed to have been the previous U.S. presidential administrations continued refrain to NATO members that they needed to pay more of their GDP towards defense spending.

Following World War II, many western European countries’ military budgets invested more of their taxes or collective resources towards the needs of their populations and less on military spending. Quite dramatically the world has witnessed a reversal of that trend with Germany making a dramatic jump from #7 in military spending to #3 and reversing its ban on exporting weapons. In the article “Waltzing to Armageddon,” Chris Hedges points out how U.S. military spending will help recruit Eastern European nations to join NATO and will fast track conversion to NATO weapons and technology. Long standing neutral nations of Sweden and Finland are considering joining NATO–adding additional impetus for a global war.

Image from Catholic Worker protest of NATO in Chicago.

While some may have notions of U.S. exports being McDonalds and Levis, the number 1 export of the U.S. has long been weapons. Now it appears as if we are attempting to convince our allies to adopt the McDonaldization of our militaries and create standard systems, munitions, and fuels. The only country to use nuclear weapons is calling for new standardization and efficiencies of delivering death.

It was disheartening to begin the week with news that the U.S. was going to vastly expand the types of weapons it was sending to Ukraine. It seems like the response to death and destruction is to send more weapons and money even after the Biden administration has already spent $2.4 billion on Ukraine since taking office. The alarm bells go off when Defense News reports that U.S. lawmakers proposal of $13.6 billion for weapons and training “was like putting Biden’s proposal on steroids.” 

Chrissy Kirchhoefer inside Obama Headquarters in Chicago as part of NATO protests

The wicked irony of escalating a war when many are celebrating Passover, Ramadan, and Holy Week. All the rituals are marked by personal reflection and communal coming together to share nourishment. The rituals of war tax resisters coming together for Tax Day with War Resister’s League pie charts to educate about U.S. military spending have been scaled back during the pandemic. The last “regular” Tax Day in 2019 coincided with holy week yet the events of the world have changed us all. What has not changed in these 2 years and has only increased is the amount of U.S. taxpayer money going towards military spending.

While some have questioned the increasing amounts of our collective resources going towards the Pentagon especially with the removal of troops in Afghanistan after 20 years and the lack of resources during the pandemic, war fever has been catching and spreading the world over, trying to rob us of our money, “others” lives and our collective imaginations. 

Catholic Worker preform works of mercy as part of NATO and works of war protest.

Many will continue to be out in coming days to reclaim our imaginings for another world that does not promote or fund the slaughter of innocents. Go public in your opposition of paying for war by signing NWTRCC’s sign on statement, find inspiration from others taking action with the newly formed War Industry Resisters Network that are encouraging actions at places that profit from war around Tax Day to Earth Day and let us know of actions that you take so we can share them with NWTRCC and the annual Tax Day Report. Know that everyday is a great day to speak out about military spending and that there is a vast worldwide network of others who share your concerns!

Chrissy Kirchhoefer

The post Pentagon Spending: Efficient at Destroying but Inoperable for Healing Our World first appeared on National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.

The post Pentagon Spending: Efficient at Destroying but Inoperable for Healing Our World appeared first on National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.

Biden’s budget proposal for FY 2023 totals a trillion dollars more than previous budgets with dramatic increases in every department, including tax credits that have really helped the poor in recent years, pandemic relief, big jumps in the Department of Education, food and housing programs, pandemic-related relief, infrastructure and other positive programs.

But — isn’t there always a but — before we pop the champagne, there’s more to consider than just a glance at the pie and percentages.

Ed Hedemann and I analyze the budget and write the pie chart for WRL, and it is a project that becomes more challenging as the federal budget process gets more and more dysfunctional. The President is supposed to release the proposed budget in early February, and Congress is supposed to debate and pass a new budget by the start of the federal fiscal year each October 1.* However, it was not until March 10, five months into the current 2022 fiscal year, that Congress finalized and passed a budget.

Because it takes so long for real spending to be reflected in the published budget, what we see year after year is a proposed budget that is more a policy statement than likely to become reality, with one exception: military spending.

You may recall that the FY2022 budget that Congress just passed included even more for the Pentagon than military or Biden requested, a whopping $730 billion. And, that’s just for the Pentagon; it does not include all those other agencies that we list under current military that have “security” functions. And Congress added another $13.6 billion for the Ukraine, about half of which is military aid. (At the same time, they took out the Covid aid package and, of course, had already refused to pass legislation to address climate change and invest in child care, health care and education.)

So, while the pie itself looks better than most years, percentages don’t tell the full story. On this current flyer, the $978 billion total is $13 billion higher than our analysis last year. It’s obscene.

data from DoD “National Defense Budget
Estimates for FY 2022,” August 2021, table 6.3

It’s no time to celebrate. It’s certainly no time to stop resisting!

— Post by Ruth Benn

* National Priorities Project has a good outline of the process and more budget explanations on their website. They also have a glossary that explains the difference between “mandatory” and “discretionary” spending, both of which add up to “where your income taxes go.” The WRL pie chart includes both. Many other organization show percentages based just on discretionary spending.

P.S. In the course of posting this blog suddenly a rather large word mix-up in the flyer headline jumped out at me (online versions are getting fixed). With thousands printed, we’ll have to live with it — and the embarrassment that we and proofers didn’t catch it. Oopsie…

The post The Untouchable Pentagon first appeared on National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.

The post The Untouchable Pentagon appeared first on National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.