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Let’s Declare a Tax Holiday

The 2020 election was our wakeup call. And, for a brief moment, the crooks at the profitable end of the government gravy-train were genuinely worried. But then they put enough Americans in jail—just a small, small number, but it was enough—that the rest of us got the message. 

Actually, we got two messages: The first one being if you challenge government corruption your life will be smashed and second, that if the government smashes your life, no one in power (and precious few anywhere) will come to your aid. All those impressive and well-spoken guys you voted for will be as helpful and courageous as a small bucket of sticks in a puddle.

Fast-forward two years, and the 2022 elections have happened—have been perpetrated. But we can’t wake up again because we’re already awake. We were shocked by 2020. Now we’re in danger of just tuning out. We’re not allowed to be shocked by 2022 and we’d better not be. The weak among us scamper around finding reasons to explain away the improbable results: “Republicans were too extreme in their messaging!” or “Trump dragged the GOP ticket down!” or “The Supreme Court made people angry!” It’s all nonsense.

America did not choose the Democrats in this election any more than they chose Biden in the previous one. 

Remember how the media fawned on Trump in the run up to 2016 and gave him page after page of coverage, all with the aim of making him the Republican nominee because he obviously couldn’t win? They thought they were guaranteeing a victory for Hillary. American machine politics thought they had it covered.

But then disaster struck: Trump did win. Terror seized the Beltway and we were treated to a never-ending stream of stories about how Trump would destroy the economy (ha!) and lead us into another, possibly nuclear war (ha ha!). In retrospect, they just preemptively accused Trump of doing all the things they are now doing themselves. 

Then the pandemic struck—a virus built in China with American money ravaged the world—and machine politics saw a big opportunity: Because there is nothing these people would not do to retain their hold on power. They would destroy the economy, they would destroy the country—they would even destroy the world if they had to (think impending nuclear war with Russia over Ukraine!)

So in 2020 the gloves came off. It was kill Trump or be killed. Every trick in their “Big Book of Election Fraud” was in play because machine politics had its back to the wall. And when we woke up the day after the election to find enough votes had been stolen, generated, flipped, scratched out, miscounted, dumped and shifted to give the machine their win, we could hardly believe it. But the machine itself was almost as surprised: At least parts of the machine expected to be held accountable. They expected some real investigations, trials, repercussions. Maybe some of them would go to jail. 

But none of that happened. And I will remind readers that when people say “60 election fraud cases went to the courts and your side lost all of them!” what they actually mean is, 60 election fraud cases were thrown out by the courts for lack of standing and similar technicalities and zero cases on election fraud ever went to trial. The Supreme Court delivered the final blow by waiting to hear the relevant cases until after the election was certified, and then declared the whole issue moot.

I’ve written a few pieces suggesting we need more courageous state governors to stand up to the federal government, and to stand for the rights of Americans. Unfortunately, almost everything in politics—like crime—is about money. And states, even Republican states that like to think of themselves free and liberal (in the old-fashioned sense of the word) take a hell of a lot of money from the federal government: Texas and Florida are two of the top three states receiving federal money (the first is California). So before you get your hopes up that Governor Ron DeSantis—whom I really do like—will tell the federal government where it can get off, remember that there’s $24 billion per year at stake, and he probably wants Florida to keep that cash.

It’s too bad, because it isn’t worth it: No money comes without strings attached, and you can see everywhere, on every level, what happens to independent organizations, groups and programs once they start accepting money from an outside source. This was one of the original lessons of the Great Depression and our government’s first foray into socialism: They actually had to establish programs encouraging people not to feel ashamed to take government welfare. It’s similar to a drug dealer encouraging someone to shoot up for the first time.

We—individuals, local governments, state governments—need to get off the drug of government money. Ultimately, it’s just our money but with all the freedom filtered out: We’re actually paying to be enslaved. 

I’d like to start a petition declaring a national federal tax holiday. Not asking the government for one—just declaring it. I’d say the performance of our government is unsatisfactory, and I’m not paying for it anymore until it gets its act together. No taxation without representation. Maybe we could ask Elon Musk to make a poll for that on Twitter—since it seems to be a more reliable method of collecting votes than our carefully supervised elections.

Just imagine what would happen if a governor (say DeSantis) had the courage to divorce his state from the Washington feed trough. The state as a whole could say: The federal government has failed to keep up its side of the bargain, and we are therefore indemnifying our citizens from any responsibility for their federal taxes. Just imagine what we could accomplish with all that money the federal government takes away from us to launder in China and the Ukraine. What couldn’t we accomplish, if the fruits of our labors were ours to keep? I’d call that “freedom.”

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About Dan Gelernter

Dan Gelernter is a columnist for American Greatness living in Florida.

Photo: iStock/Getty Images

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