Time: Thu Jun 26 07:24:42 1997
by primenet.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id HAA06158;
Thu, 26 Jun 1997 07:19:46 -0700 (MST)
by usr02.primenet.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id HAA02327;
Thu, 26 Jun 1997 07:19:35 -0700 (MST)
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 07:17:56 -0700
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: Taxpayer's Declaration of Independence (fwd)
<snip>
>
>The Taxpayer's Declaration of Independence
>
>by Congressman George Hansen, (ret.)
>
>When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for taxpayers to
remonstrate against the arrogance, greed, ineptitude, and broken promises
of government officials, and to exercise the rights of peaceable assembly
and protest to which the Constitution for the united States of America
entitles them, a decent respect for the public opinion requires that they
should declare the reason which impel them to denounce and deplore the
betrayal of their trust and the abuse of their resources.
>
>We hold these truths to be self-evident: that taxpayers are, and of right
ought to be, the employers of politicians and bureaucrats, and are entitled
to receive fair value for the hard earned tax dollars they furnish the
government. That government should utilize tax monies efficiently, making
systematic, sustained, and determined efforts to eliminate waste, fraud,
mismanagement, and abuse. That fiscal and economic policies should advance
the public interest and national purposes. That whenever government
becomes unduly subservient to special interests, it is the taxpayer's right
and responsibility to champion the public interest and cast their ballots
accordingly.
>
>Prudence, indeed, will dictate that a National Taxpayer revolt should not
be undertaken for light and transient causes; and accordingly experience
has shown that taxpayers are more inclined to bear high taxes, while taxes
are bearable, than to rectify the situation by making a clean sweep at the
polls. But when a long chain of abuses and scandalous policy failures
imperil the nation's financial intergity, waste countless billions of tax
dollars each year, and undermine the confidence of citizens in
representative government, it is the taxpayer's right, it is their duty, to
turn the traitors out.
>
>The history of the Washington Establishment is a history of repeated
injuries to taxpayers. Incumbent politicians and bureaucrats squander the
nation's substance, debase the institutions of self-government, and burden
the nation's productive citizens with excessive taxation. To prove this,
let the facts speak for themselves.
>
>Officials in Washington have failed to balance the budget even one time in
nearly 30 years, mortgaging our future and putting America on the path to
national bankruptcy. Interests payments on the national debt in 1989
totaled $254.4 (B)illion -- .54 cents out of ever dollar collected from
your pocketbook. If the debt continues to grow at the current rate, by the
year 2000 individuals (you) will have to pay more than 100% of their tax
dollars just to meet the interest payments.
>
>Criminal Politicians and Bureaucrats in Washington have become addicted to
living beyond their means, spending $1.58 for every additional dollar in
legislated higher taxes.
>
>They have used dishonest accounting practices to evade the fiscal
discipline imposed by the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings balanced budget law,
shifting paydays and disbursements from one fiscal year to another,
arbitrarily designating certain expenditures as off-budget," and raiding
the Social Security Trust Fund for pork-barrel spending projects.
>
>They have withdrawn fiscal policymaking from public scrutiny, cutting
deals in backroom "budget summits," which invariably set the stage for
higher spending, taxing, and deficits.
>
>They not only voted themselves a whopping 37% pay raise, and more recently
an additional 24% pay raise, defying the taxpayer's manifest wishes, but
colluded to remove any pay raise as an issue at election time. Thus they
conspired to line their pockets while depriving taxpayers of any options at
the polls.
>
>They have given us a government riddled with staggering cost overruns,
expensive program failures, multimillion dollar procurement scandals, and
billion dollar losses in federal programs. These include: the $500
Billion-plus Savings & Loan debacle; a $6 to $8 Billion HUD scandal; an
I.R.S. $4 Billion investment in failed computer systems; an educational
system that fails to prepare our youth to compete in the economic market
place, and abandoning them as functional illiterates; and welfare programs
that trap generations of poor in engineered conditions of poverty and despair.
>
>Officials in Washington have waged a cruel war against the family
pocketbook by failing to index against inflation the tax exemptions for
children and dependents.
>
>They adopted only a fraction of the Grace Commission's 2,478
recommendations, depriving taxpayers of more than $670 (B)illions in
saving[s] since 1984.
>
>They have spent (B)illions of dollars every year on pork-barrel projects
to curry favor with special interest groups. They have constructed a
multitude of new bureaucracies, thereby establishing swarms of officials to
eat out our substance, and to "Harrass Our People," and waste their money.
>
>They have corrupted the rule of law, exempting themselves from equal
protection, affirmative action, and workplace safety regulations that they
impose on their fellow citizens. They have placed onerous and oppressive
tax burdens upon the American people, forcing the average taxpayer to work
187 days of the year just to meet his unjust tax obligations. They call
for new taxes even though increased taxation will depress economic growth,
contract the income base from which taxes are collected, and widen the
deficit, without consideration of reduced spending.
>
>They have created conditions for future disasters similar to the Savings &
Loan scandals by recklessly expanding government aid in lending guarantees,
both foreign and domestic welfare, and social insurance programs.
>
>We, the taxpayer's of the United States of America, are outraged by
chronic deficits, multimillion dollar waste, and a government that is no
longer accountable to the people for what it does with their resources. We
are sick to death of oppressive, and progressive taxation, gross
mismanagement and inefficiency, the excessive influence of special
interests, and the desecrations of the institutions of self-government.
We, therefore, do solemnly publish and declare that taxpayers ought to be
free of incompetent, wasteful, and irresponsible government. And we
resolve that through the awesome power of the people's vote, we shall
restore to the United States a government of, by, and for the People. So
help us God.
>
>Courtesy of Freedom Forum
>Copyright 1997
>
># # #
>
>
>
>-> Send "subscribe snetnews " to majordomo@world.std.com -> Posted by:
Kepi
>
>
========================================================================
Paul Andrew Mitchell : Counselor at Law, federal witness
B.A., Political Science, UCLA; M.S., Public Administration, U.C. Irvine
tel: (520) 320-1514: machine; fax: (520) 320-1256: 24-hour/day-night
email: [address in tool bar] : using Eudora Pro 3.0.2 on 586 CPU
website: http://www.supremelaw.com : visit the Supreme Law Library now
ship to: c/o 2509 N. Campbell, #1776 : this is free speech, at its best
Tucson, Arizona state : state zone, not the federal zone
Postal Zone 85719/tdc : USPS delays first class w/o this
As agents of the Most High, we came here to establish justice. We shall
not leave, until our mission is accomplished and justice reigns eternal.
========================================================================
[This text formatted on-screen in Courier 11, non-proportional spacing.]
Return to Table of Contents for
Supreme Law School: E-mail