Chief Investment Strategist, The Freeport Society
Tax his land, tax his bed, tax the table at which he’s fed.
Tax his tractor, tax his mule, teach him taxes are the rule.
Tax his work, tax his pay, he works for peanuts anyway!
Tax his cow, tax his goat, tax his pants, tax his coat.
Tax his ties, tax his shirt, tax his work, tax his dirt.
Tax his tobacco, tax his drink, tax him if he tries to think.
Tax his cigars, tax his beers, if he cries… tax his tears.
Tax his car, tax his gas, find other ways to tax his ass.
Tax all he has, then let him know that you won’t be done till he has no dough.
When he screams and hollers, then tax him some more.
Tax him till he’s good and sore.
Then tax his coffin, tax his grave, tax the sod in which he’s laid.
Put these words upon his tomb, “Taxes drove me to my doom…”
When he’s gone, don’t relax.
It’s time to apply the inheritance tax.
The Adam Smith Institute
Happy Tax Day, I guess.
Federal taxes were due today. If you haven’t filed yet, you should probably get on that! Or at the least, file an extension.
Sadly, the tax code is so hopelessly and unnecessarily complicated that I gave up on ever getting my return filed on time. I’m still waiting on at least two straggler K1 forms to arrive before I can finish and submit.
But, in the spirit of Tax Day, let’s stop for a minute to consider where all of your tax dollars go… and highlight some of the truly asinine things Uncle Sam has chosen to waste our money on.
Where Our Hard-Earned Money Goes…
At the top of the list would be the estimated $870 billion in interest costs. That’s more than we spend on the military, by the way… the biggest, baddest, most world-dominating military in human history.
Yet we spend close to a trillion dollars per year servicing debts on money wasted years or even decades ago on projects that we’d have a hard time remembering if our lives depended on it.
I’d love to tell you the interest we’re paying is used to finance “investments,” but we both know that’s not true. Sure, the occasional bridge or highway got built. Great! But the overwhelming majority of it was frittered away on whatever frivolous expense Congress deemed important that day.
Like tourism in Egypt, apparently!
With 3,000 years of history and some of the world’s greatest cultural treasures, including the pyramids of Giza, one might think that Egypt would be perfectly capable of managing its own tourism industry. That’s what a market economy is for.
And yet… the Foundation for Economic Education reported that Uncle Sam spent $6 million promoting tourism in Egypt last year… and over $100 million over the course of the past several years.
It seems that the good taxpayers of America also spent $200 million keeping “starving artists” well fed.
In his annual Festivus report, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky reported that, as part of a government program to help struggling concert venues during the pandemic, “So-called ‘small business owners,’ such as Post Malone, Lil Wayne, Chris Brown, and Smashing Pumpkins, received up to $10 million each. Even Nickelback received $2 million.”
Given that Nickelback hasn’t had a real gig in 20 years, I’m sure that $2 million went a long way.
The list gets so much worse.
In recent years, the government spent over half a million dollars to study how cocaine affects the sexual behavior of Japanese quails.
Northwestern University researchers took over $3 million in government money to watch hamster fights.
And in perhaps the weirdest use of government money in history, scientists in St. Petersburg, Russia, received over half a million to sever their brain stems and then use electrical charges to make zombie cats walk on treadmills.
Nice to see our hard-earned money so thoughtfully spent.
The Soul Crushing Why
If the government actually lived within its means, none of this idiocy would be possible. Uncle Sam was able to justify juicing pigeons with cocaine, creating hamster fight clubs, and turning 18 cats into a zombie freak show precisely because it could borrow with impunity… thanks to a compliant Federal Reserve that has kept borrowing costs suppressed for decades.
Well, that model isn’t working so well these days.
It turns out that borrowing $34 trillion and blowing it on irresponsible spending sprees is a great way to generate inflation… inflation that the Fed is now struggling to contain.
The cat – zombie Russian or otherwise – is out of the bag, and the Fed is finding it rather difficult to stuff it back in.
So difficult, in fact, that we’ve gone from clamoring for four interest rate cuts this year to dreaming of at least maybe one. And whether we get even that one or not will come down to what the Fed decides on May 1.
My bet?
The Fed decision that day is going to be a shock. That’s why Freeport Society friend Louis Navellier and I recorded a special Election Shock Summit broadcast to explain what is likely to happen next… and how best to invest in this environment. Time’s running out to prepare, so watch the replay here.
To life, liberty, and the pursuit of wealth.