Nation Demands Tax Dollars Only Be Wasted On Stuff That's Awesome
JULY 13, 2010 | ISSUE 46•28
Protesters called on Congress to redirect excess spending toward the development of robotic bees equipped with live-streaming night vision.
WASHINGTON—Acknowledging that the outrageous misappropriation of public funds is inevitable, an estimated 500,000 Americans gathered in the nation's capital Sunday to demand their misused tax dollars at least be squandered on something really awesome that everyone can enjoy.
Protestors from every state in the union voiced concerns that the federal government is misusing its wasteful spending on special interests, bloated no-bid contracts, and other boring shit like that.
"Washington has been pouring our hard-earned dollars down the drain for too long," said activist Brian McGill, addressing a crowd on the National Mall. "And that won't ever change—we understand that. But we have a message for our elected officials: When you waste taxpayer money, you'd better waste it on something that seriously kicks ass."
"Our government throws away billions on the hopelessly inefficient bureaucracy that runs the Pentagon," McGill continued. "But has it thrown away even one red cent of that same inflated defense budget on, say, a huge fucking laser cannon that we can take turns shooting?"(interpolation by me: I'm in! ;D ;D ;D)
Sunday's massive demonstration was organized by the National Taxpayers Union, Americans for Tax Reform, Citizens for the Public Financing of Really Cool Shit, and numerous think tanks. A coalition of these groups also submitted a formal petition to Congress demanding extensive changes to the way government misallocates funds
In that document, they call on legislators to cease sending foreign aid to corrupt nations; to cut the least profitable Amtrak routes and use those funds to construct regional light-rail; and to redirect corporate farm subsidies into a fund earmarked for the manufacture and grilling of the world's largest Polish sausage.
"Will this mega-kielbasa of record-breaking length and weight serve any real purpose?" asked Jeremy Forlan, a 44-year-old small-business owner from Miami. "No. Will we eat it like crazy? Absolutely."
A CNN poll conducted last month found that, among Americans who favor eliminating tax breaks for Big Oil and blowing the cash on something that's actually cool, 41 percent want to build a shopping mall in the clouds that would be accessible by hovercar, 33 percent support the research and development of a viable invisibility pill, 19 percent would triple the length of summer, and most of the remaining 7 percent just want sweet new boomerangs that actually come back after you throw them.
Nine of 10 respondents said they favor the continued public financing of new sports stadiums, but only if the old ones are imploded in an elaborate pyrotechnic display that everyone can watch from reclining chairs as AC/DC's "Highway To Hell" blasts in the background.
Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, told reporters that instead of wasting $18 billion each year on a space program plagued by failures, the government should assemble the world's finest scientific minds and finance an effort to make cartoons come to life the way they do in the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
"Just the amount NASA spends overpaying its contractors would cover the research grants necessary to begin making cartoons a part of our world," Norquist said. "Then we could be buddies with cartoon dogs or get married to sexy animated ladies. Taxpayers could truly rally around a project like that."
"The animated ladies could have really curvy figures," he added. "And red hair."
Others have put forth a plan to lift the nation's spirits by genetically engineering a species of gigantic bats and then breeding about 12,000 of them. According to documents detailing the proposal, "Everyone could ride around on [the giant bats] and drop things on people," and there would a nationwide system of protective nets to catch anyone who falls off or decides to jump to the ground in mid-flight.
Meanwhile, Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) has vowed that Congress "won't spend another dollar" on new prisons to house nonviolent drug offenders until it has allocated the resources necessary to finally capture Bigfoot.
"Or if we can't track down Sasquatch, let's send a cow to Venus or use robots to deliver the mail or something," Chambliss said. "Whatever it takes to keep people from asking too many questions about what happened to the $13 trillion we've borrowed so far."
