Suppose next April 15 someone comes knocking on your door, asking for your annual donation. With your generous financial contribution, you are told, the United States will remain strong and secure.
For example, they say, Sandinistas could be made to cry "uncle," and the Immigration and Naturalization Service could more effectively capture and deport Central American refugees. Open access to Persian Gulf oil supplies could be maintained. More first-strike missiles could be deployed in Europe and MX missile silos built at home. Star Wars research could expand, and space shuttles could orbit more military surveillance satellites. And much, much more.
How would you respond? Would you sit right down and write a check, or would you slam the door?
Probably most of you would not voluntarily donate money for these or similar purposes. Yet this spring, when you fill out your 1040s and pay your tax bill, that's exactly how your money will be used.
If your 1985 federal tax liability totaled $4,000, nearly half that amount--$1,720--was used to finance current and future military goals. Here is how your $1,720 was used in fiscal 1985, as derived from information supplied to us by the Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy.
You spent $224 to protect the United States from military invasion. Of that amount, our second-strike nuclear arsenal cost you $172, while your border defense tab (including INS funding) was $52.
You shelled out another $636 to directly threaten and contain the Soviet Union. Most of that amount--$473--supported our massive land and air force occupation of West Germany. The remaining $163 helped research, test, develop, and deploy first-strike nuclear weapons. Partially breaking down those first-strike totals even further, you gave $39 for nuclear warheads, $16 for MX missiles, $12 for Trident D5s, $9 for Star Wars research, and $2 for Pershing Us.
To the tune of $774, you also opened your wallet for U.S. intervention in the Third World. For our Mediterranean forces, you paid $183, and for those in the Persian Gulf, $302. For forces in the West Pacific (including Korea and the Philippines), you forked out $209, while for those in Central America, South America, and the Caribbean, you gave $76. For forces in Sub-Saharan Africa (including South Africa), your donation was $2.
And finally, for other miscellaneous items, including funding for the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, you paid $86. The fact is, a full 43 percent of your total tax bill goes for all the military undertakings outlined above and more.
These expenditures result immediately in the deaths of innocent people in places like Central America and the Philippines while threatening the annihilation of hundreds of millions in nuclear war. Oppression, injustice, and war only continue because good people, often unwittingly, cooperate with the war-making system.
If that is not the way you want your money spent, why not consider withholding some or all of your war taxes this year? Many Christians have concluded that their obligation to Caesar must not include paying for the destruction of innocent lives and have chosen to extend their non-cooperation with evil to the arena of taxation. Our "Seeds" section this month (see page 40) includes some very helpful resources if you would like to explore this option further.
War tax refusal can be an effective, symbolic way to say no to the powers of darkness and death around us and to witness to the gospel of light and life that Jesus has offered to the world. We encourage you to give war tax resistance your careful and prayerful thought.
Joe Roos was a founder and publisher of Sojourners when this article appeared.
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