The Taxman Cometh (video)

Due to an obscure Washington, D.C. holiday, Tax Day is delayed until for three days. A long weekend of art and music desert festivities, film (Indian Film Festival, Los Angeles) and yet more old world New Year celebrations (Los Angeles Buddhist Vihara), and so on ends abruptly with tax forms being due.

This year, we all plan to add something to our form: Instructions on how we want that money spent.

We advise everyone to do the same. Number one on my list will include education, followed by social programs, pothole repair, and environmental cleanup. Of course, where does all our money go now? Military spending?

No, surprisingly, ALL of it an more simply goes to the Fed (not the federal government to be distributed to help people and businesses, the privately owned non-governmental banking company that goes by the name the Federal Reserve). The Fed has as much to do with the federal government as Fed-Ex does, which is to say nothing at all. The money being collected through income tax -- with no law, statute, or constitutional amendment authorizing it -- goes to pay off debt invented by the printing of money.

It's hard to believe. It's impossible to believe. But the entire banking system, inherited from the British system this country was founded to get away from, creates money out of nothing, and charges us for doing so. The result is perpetual and inescapable debt. It was not always this way, and it need not always be this way, but not one cent of federal income tax goes to help anyone but bankers who have done nothing to earn it other than to uphold the very system that enriches them at the expense of workers who generate income.

The topic sounds so boring that we never question it. So this year, holding on to the fantasy that our money is being used on foreign wars and foreign aid, bridges and roads, healthcare and firefighters... tell the IRS how you'd like your contribution to be spent. And educate yourself on the hidden truth about taxes.