BRATTLEBORO — Monday, April 15 is Tax Day. Each year, approximately half of the federal income tax goes into a U.S. military that is more and more out of control - sequester or no sequester.
As I write this letter, I am looking at a March 22, 2006 news article from the Brattleboro Reformer, “Kollmorgen gets $2.8 million contract for naval work.” The article points out that U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy secured the contract as a senior member of the Senate Military Appropriations Committee.
Leahy is quoted in his visit to this Brattleboro plant: “There are things that we're always going to need. I hope there may be peace in that area [Iraq], but the U.S. is not going to disarm. There is a trend, a trend that I welcome, to be more technologically advanced.”
Our cities and towns (including Brattleboro) have become dependent upon Pentagon spending. Anybody who works for social justice knows the difficulty of peaceful change or economic conversion when jobs are affected.
As a result, even decent people like Sen. Leahy fall under the seductive spell of the military-industrial complex that President Dwight D. Eisenhower so strongly warned us about when he left office.
However, we do have the power as individuals to choose where our money goes. We don't have to pay for war. Our refusal to pay will not make a significant difference in the military budget, but it might make a difference to our consciences.
On Tax Day, stop by our war-tax-resistance information table outside the Brattleboro Post Office between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Pick up a brochure or booklet and learn from the experiences of hundreds of people over several decades who have redirected their refused war tax dollars to organizations that help people.