“Who is John Galt?” was the common refrain of characters in Ayn Rand’s book Atlas Shrugged. In the book, productive members of a dystopian society in the US refused to be further taxed and exploited by government and society in general. To varying degrees, they dropped out from being productive, starving the tax man and those on the government dole of the fruits of their hard work and innovation.
Today, more and more Americans are practicing “Going Galt”-lite. They are taking steps to minimize their taxable footprint, especially in the face of growing calls for additional taxation of the remaining productive members of society.
Many in Congress and our President seem bound and determined to enact their big-spending agenda over the objections of everyday Americans, kind of like the government did in Atlas Shrugged. Despite e-mails that overwhelmed Congress’ mail servers, non-stop phone calls, stacks of letters and angry constituents visiting in-person, Congress has voted to spend trillions of dollars in spite of our objections.
Are you looking for a way to do something about it before the next election? The old saying is that we have to use the soap box and the ballot box, so we won’t have to use the cartridge box. We don’t want to use the cartridge box, and the ballot box won’t be available (except for the primaries) until November, yet Congress seems oblivious to our soap boxes. What can you do?
(GunNews) – Starve the beast.
You can do more than just minimize your taxable footprint. Thinking of buying a new car or boat this year? Don’t. Make do with what you’ve got or buy used from a private party.
Challenge your property taxes. If you think your home is assessed too high, get it appraised and contest your bill. (I did and will save $200 in 2010 and each subsequent year!)
Got a couple of extra cars you hardly ever drive? Sell ‘em or scrap ‘em. Rob the State of Illinois the licensing fees and save yourself the insurance costs, however negligible.
Where possible, order items online and save the sales tax.
Change your deductions to eliminate that annual tax refund you get. Starve those big spenders of your surplus payments.
Don’t like the new airline security proposals or the already-invasive security theater process before boarding? Drive, especially if it’s less than 450 miles.
Irritated with all the fees and shenanigans your TARP-recipient institution plays with your accounts? Pull your money out and open an account at your locally owned and operated bank or credit union. (You should do this anyway, for a host of reasons!)
Starve the beast at every turn.
While a few hundred dollars here and there don’t seem like much, when done by hundreds of thousands or millions of Americans, they are noticed.
As an added bonus, it gives our enemies in Congress and the White House something else to focus on instead of attacking our gun rights until the Great Septic Clean-out of 2010 takes place on Election Day.
President Obama could easily turn his sights to gun control, as opposed to amnesty for illegals, a new massive energy tax, nationalization of 401k accounts or a national value-added tax. Americans were overwhelmingly opposed to TARP, stimulus, and the health care reform too and look where that got us.
Starve the beast. It’s our own personal message to big government.
Originally published in the February 2010 issue of GunNews.