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By Laura Drinan
Hometown Weekly Reporter
Over the weekend, many adults spent a chunk of their time scrambling to file their taxes before April 17. Certainly, these last-minute filers were busy, but so was Walpole’s Peace and Justice Group, who held their Tax Day vigil on town common on April 14.
With banners and signs in hand, the group aimed to make the community more aware of how the government spends tax dollars and rally for change.
“It’s on Tax Day because the one place we, as taxpayers, pay the most in taxes is our federal income taxes, but we have little say in how that money gets spend,” said Philip Czachorowski, who helped to organize the vigil.
“Today, our federal expenditures are way out of whack with what they should be because over 50 percent go to the military, whereas human services and human needs are woefully underfunded. One of the things we’re standing up here for is to redirect the overinflated military expenditure to fund human needs.”
The group’s Tax Day vigil was in solidarity with the Global Campaign on Military Spending.
“Ever since World War II, when Eisenhower talked about the industrial military complex, we’ve just accepted the fact that we need to keep funding the military to these levels, and if you look at what that has given us, we’ve fought, since 9/11 in 2001, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. We have all the turmoil going on in Yemen and Syria, and the United States itself has spent between four and 5.5 trillion dollars on those wars,” said Czachorowski.
“It’s an incredible amount of money, and you think about what you can do with that for people,” Czachorowski continued. “We need to get away from a war economy, and we need to get away from a war mentality and think about diverting those funds to human needs.”
Community members joined together to hold a 40-foot banner, which was made from a variety of colorful fabrics sewn together to depict the amount the government spends on it. Taking up two slivers of the banner were brown and blue stripes of fabrics, labeled “Food and Agriculture” and “Transportation,” respectively. The colors on the banner continuously grew wider, but not in comparison to the section that represented military spending.
Those in attendance could also participate in the “Penny Poll,” which asked each person to decide how the government should spend his or her tax dollars by placing pennies in variously labeled jars.
The Peace and Justice Group worked with the town and with Walpole’s police department to utilize the common and the gazebo for guest speakers.
With their dedication to addressing the needs of the people, Walpole’s Peace and Justice Group is one of Walpole’s most passionate and active community groups.
