To All the Good People Who Pay Taxes
[Letter submitted to the Holland Sentinel, 21 January 1980]

I just cannot understand why you are complaining so much about taxes! As a matter of fact, I think taxes should be increased because the government has a real need for our money. I would agree with your complaints if the tax money was spent on defense because that could stop Russian adventures like in Iran and Afghanistan, and because that could stop Russia's future conquest of America. You would not want to stand in the way of such things....

But complaining about taxes is not appropriate when you look at the valuable projects on which the government is spending your tax money. For instance:

• $64,000 for a study of the mating habits of fiddler crabs;
• $100,000 for a study of emotional effects of separating baby monkeys from their mothers;
• $100,000 to study why hermit crabs pick one seashell over another to live in;
• $640,000 went to Gay Community Services (sic) for "education about gay lifestyles and gay people's problems";
• $93,000 went to teach Navajo Indians to be medicine men;
• $100,000 went to train 205 Amazon parrots;
• $29,100,000 was spent on advertising for the Federal Government;
• $3,300,000,000 each year is spent just to print forms, directives, and reports created by the government;
• $2,500 was spent by the National Endowment for the Humanities to study why people are rude, cheat, and lie on tennis courts.

This totals only $3,330,199,500, but then there is the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, which spent millions of dollars to find out if drunk fish are more aggressive than sober fish, and there are many other projects which just cannot be fulfilled without your tax dollars!!!

[Signed as Stefan Zachartowicz.]

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