The Continuing Crisis…And How You Can Help

It’s the end of the year, and you know what that means: your last chance to decide what to do with your hard-earned money.

We all know that the federal government wastes a good chunk of what we pay in taxes every year. There’s no reason to expect that 2004 will be any different. Here’s what’s in next year’s budget already: millions of dollars to install a rainforest in Iowa, hundreds of thousands for a musical theme park commemorating the life of Johnny Appleseed, tens of millions to unlock the secret of the trout genome, and billions more for thousands of similarly worthless items.

And what happens to the money that our elected officials and the bureaucrats haven’t simply pocketed when no one was looking? They take a good amount of it, and they give it away to poor people. I’m not making this up. Between all of the New Deal and the Great Society programs, we’re talking about billions of dollars. Maybe trillions.

After skimming off for waste, fraud, abuse, and idiocy, not to mention the $20 billion or so that the government can’t account for at all, it’s a wonder that there’s any money left for programs of vital national importance like missile defense, interstate commerce, and ethanol subsidies.

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a “taxpayer earmark.” You can’t direct the government to spend your tax money on something useful, like the NIH’s research into idleness, and to keep it away from things that you don’t believe in, like the Supreme Court, the postal conspiracy, and evolution “science.”

And you can’t just not pay taxes, even if the Sixteenth Amendment was not lawfully ratified and is therefore null and void and you have a pamphlet that proves it beyond a reasonable doubt. Trust us. We have friends who’ve tried this. They’re in jail.

But you can still keep your money out of the government’s greedy paws…to a point.

If you’re not maxed out for 2003, why not make a last-minute tax-deductable donation to The Dartmouth Review?

The Dartmouth Review shares your values: it has always been vociferously anti-Communist, a fierce defender of freedom and free expression, a bulwark against change in uncertain times, and a powerful opponent of anything more than just a misting of Vermouth. The Dartmouth Review is perhaps the only voice on Dartmouth’s campus today speaking in favor of virtue, morality, and privilege. As you may know, the Tucker Foundation isn’t what it once was.

And neither is the College. It may shock you to learn that several faculty members on campus agreed with Democrat Howard Dean‘s assertion that the capture of Saddam Hussein made our great country less safe. Such sentiments are, unfortunately, prevalent on college campuses today. That’s why The Dartmouth Review needs your support more than ever.

As I recall from my days doing it, running the Review is an expensive proposition, what with publishing costs, postage, rent, computers, and the ever-increasing prices of the premium Scotches. Every little bit you can spare helps to defray these expenses. Every donation counts. Especially larger ones.

Best of all, it’s now easy to contribute. The paper has shrugged off the complexity of checkbooks, indelible inks, and proper postage, and now allows donations to be completed online, instantly. You can even elect to have the Review withdrawal a donation every month from your credit account automatically, if you choose to become a sponsor.

Remember, the government’s just going to waste your money anyway. So if it’s going to be wasted, why not let someone you trust do it?

Help The Dartmouth Review save Western civilization. Just click here.