H O W A R D S B E N D

I pay federal taxes. I do it every year, on time, without drama. In return, I expect the government I fund to honor the promises made through our representative democracy — promises debated in Congress, voted into law, and signed under oath. I expect the cars we drive to be safe because regulators are empowered to regulate. I expect the planes we board to be safe because trained professionals are monitoring the skies. I expect the water I drink and the air I breathe to be protected by science, not sidelined by politics. I expect the food on my table to be inspected by qualified experts. I expect scientific research to move forward. I expect the next generation to be educated in a nation that calls itself the wealthiest on Earth. I expect that the elderly, the disabled, and the vulnerable are not treated as expendable.

But this is not just about expectations. It is about structure. It is about the Constitution.

Article I of the Constitution vests the power of the purse in Congress. Not the President. Not an agency head. Not an unelected advisor. Congress writes the laws. Congress appropriates the funds. Congress decides what programs exist and how they are financed. That is not a suggestion. It is the architecture of our republic.

Article II charges the President with a different duty: to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” Faithfully executed — not selectively delayed, not quietly dismantled, not reinterpreted out of existence. The executive branch is not empowered to rewrite budgets by neglect, nor to nullify statutes by attrition.

When programs enacted by Congress are hollowed out, when appropriated funds are withheld or redirected, when key administrative functions are stripped of personnel necessary to carry out the law, that is not efficiency. That is not reform. That is a direct strain on the constitutional balance designed to prevent exactly this kind of unilateral power.

This is not a partisan complaint. It is a structural alarm. If Article I is ignored and Article II is untethered from its obligation, then representation becomes theater and taxation becomes extraction without accountability.

And that is not the republic we were promised.

We have tried the polite methods. We have marched in the streets with handmade signs and clever slogans. We have filled public squares and listened to speeches about “norms” and “institutions.” We have boycotted Tesla dealerships. We have watched panels of television commentators gravely debate the erosion of democratic guardrails as if it were a weather pattern drifting in from offshore. We have written letters to our representatives, signed petitions, posted statements, and waited for someone in power to rediscover their spine. And yet the machinery grinds forward.

If passive outrage were enough, we would have solved this already. If visibility alone were power, democracy would not feel so brittle. Protest without leverage becomes background noise. Commentary without consequence becomes theater. So, this moment demands something more disciplined, more coordinated, more structural.

Here is a plan. We pay taxes supposedly to get certain government services. These services have been passed into law by previous Congresses and funding has been allocated for their execution for this year and subsequent years. We are not getting what we paid for. We are being ripped off. WE MUST STOP PAYING TAXES until the government commits and begins funding programs that were previously funded by Congress.

We cannot do this individually. There were 165 million individual tax returns filed last year. We need a massive protest and coordinated effort to end this current government. The Last No Kings Protest drew between 7 and 10 million people. The next NO Kings Rally scheduled for March 28is expected to draw up to 20 million people. This is good starting point. Speakers at these rallies should remind people to hold back on filing their returns this year. Let’s deny this government trillions of our hard-earned dollars so they can no longer ignore established funding laws and do what they wish with our tax dollars.

WE STOP PAYING ALL TAXES BEGINNING APRIL 15, 2026. This is the Resistance Movement to this corrupt and illegal government. This only works if millions of Americans who oppose the current administration join forces and collectively stop paying taxes. One person stops paying taxes and they get fined. Several people stop paying taxes and they get rounded up. Millions stop paying taxes and we have a movement. We cheer the Colonialists for 250 years who in Boston threw the tea into the sea because they had no representation. Let future generations cheer us as they learn that we stopped paying taxes to a corrupt regime and brought them to their knees by refusing to pay our taxes until we were represented in this government.