Why shouldn't we be? The vast majority of us are middle income and low income Americans. Those that don't have to worry near as much – but whine about ten times as much – pay less in terms of the percentage of their earnings though that comes to much more individually than the rest of us. As far as how the government spends and accounts for our tax dollars is something we should all be concerned about. By looking at things like waste and unnecessary spending for example we can see tax dollars could be better spent or even put back into people's pockets. Nothing wrong with that.

And Americans could use it more and more. Just look at the statistics for middle income Americans over the last ten years. Regarding a new study cited by CNN regarding middle income Americans, “While the earnings of middle-income Americans have barely budged since the mid 1970s, the new data showed that from 2000 to 2010, they actually regressed.” (http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/21/news/economy/middle_class_income/index.htm)

Lower income Americans haven't fared well either. As the same report from October 14, 2011 points out, “Last week, the government made gloomy headlines when it released the latest census report showing the poverty rate rose to a 17-year high. A whopping 46.2 million people (or 15.1% of the U.S. population) live in poverty and 49.9 million live without health insurance.”

What we hear about most often is the level of money supposedly wasted on social programs and entitlements and granted there are some things that will have to be done to address entitlement programs that we no longer have the tax revenue to pay for. But there are other expenses that we hear less about, such as defense and intelligence spending, vacuuming vast amounts of the money we earn straight out of our pockets without benefitting us at all – not the vast majority of us anyway.

Right now we spend billions annually on our foreign bases and military installations and what are they there to protect? They used to be there to head off the old Soviet Empire, but that collapsed in 1989. Whenever a person has the temerity to point that out to some corporate funded think tank lapdog on some cable news network, the think tank flunkey always brings up the protection of American interests. By that of course they mean companies owned by American corporations.

But those companies hire few if any Americans over there, in many cases that's why those companies are located there - for the cheap labor they don't have to pay living wages to in America. Yet we are forced to pay for them to have military protection and the US military as an intimidating force putting anyone that dares to mess with those companies on notice. But why should we have to pay for their protection? They aren't located in America and the money is not going to Americans. If I set up a souvenir shop in Italy and get threatened by “local competition” is the US military going to come to my aid? Should they?

In a free market we pay our own way. You don't want government interference then don't be asking for it out of the other side of your mouth. Don't want to contribute to the pool and want to have special tax exemptions the rest of us don't get? Then don't ask the rest of us to pay for your private security force to protect your oil field, factory, mining operation etc.

The intelligence community is as bad if not worse than the military expenses. They get two forms of tax revenue. The official budget and then their off the books “black budget” allowed them by the CIA Act of 1949. Through this in addition to their normally allocated budget the CIA is given carte blanche to take funding with no restrictions from any other government agency without reporting it and they do this not only for themselves but for other intelligence services – including military intelligence services. So they can take money from Health and Human Services – millions - and HHS has to say “oops we don't know where the money went.”

That is constitutionally illegal as all govt expenditures have to be accounted for. But you can see the power of it yourself and watch them guard it when you look at the form for filing a Freedom of Information request with the CIA and they specifically state that asking about anything growing out of the CIA Act of 1949 is forbidden. (http://www.foia.cia.gov/txt/Annual_Report_2007.pdf) The intelligence services have grown and with them a related industry that, like a revolving door, trains people with tax dollars, then sends them to private intelligence contracting companies usually run and owned by former CIA employees or former employees of other branches of US intelligence and pays them two and three times what they would get paid for the same job as govt employees.

Budget shortfall? Meh. No need to worry, just take it out of the Department of Education, HUD, the Department of Transportation, Medicare, Social Security, Homeland Security, etc. They won't miss it. The funding also goes to R & D and that in turn goes to big defense contractors all off the books. It could be for all manner of fleecing scams. It ain't like we'll find out right? But we should. If not what it's spent on, then how much was looted, from what agencies, and what companies outside the govt got the funds. That's fair.

While people like John McCain have been decrying large scale pork barrel projects they say not word one about this boondoggle. They are well aware of it though. So politicians, corporations and those entrusted with our protection have been complicit in this and when people start questioning such practices and what's going on with our money they get eviscerated and publicly marginalized or ruined. They don't like it and act as if we have no right to want to know what's going on with our tax dollars.

They reacted poorly to the grassroots segment of the Tea Party and co-opted and diluted the message marginalizing the grassroots segment in the process and muddling the themes. The Occupy Wall Street movement was infiltrated, and destroyed from the inside and then destroyed from the outside by police in riot gear. In other countries people doing the same thing were heroes in our media. The media treated those doing the same thing here as misguided anarchists, smelly hippies and thugs. They were in many ways protesting the same things as the grassroots Tea Party, at least with regards to the big picture.

But they were threats and the big fat boys got used to not being challenged from Americans saying things like they wanted to know what they were doing with their money. It seems strange that folks would assume it could have lasted so long, but guys... it had to happen sooner or later. And it will in all likelihood continue. Get used to it.

To read about my inspiration for this article go to www.lawsuitagainstuconn.com.