Three years agoo I wrote to ask you to support the Religious Freedom Peace Tax
Fund bill, which died in the Ways and Means Committee.  This bill has again
been introduced in the current congress as HR 2631, with 38 co-sponsors,
and has again been referred to the Ways and Means Committee.  I hope that
you'll agree that the current situation in Iraq makes passage of a peace tax
mechanism all the more imperative, and I hope that you'll make co-sponsorship
of this bill part of your strategy of opposition to the war.

The Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act would create a means for conscientious
objectors to keep their tax payments from funding the military.  The New
York Times of 3 August 2002 reported on the heavy burden being suffered
by Americans who are morally opposed to funding war: many of these people
are living in perpetual poverty because it is the only way to avoid paying
taxes that would support military purposes.  The United States' war in Iraq,
begun to eliminate fictional weapons of mass destruction and now continued
at terrible personal and economic cost, has only magnified this situation.

The diversion of conscientious objectors' tax payments to non-military
activities would have no significant effect on the United States' ability to
maintain its military, since the number of conscientious objectors is so small
relative to the number of non-objectors.  Passage of this bill would improve
the United States' ability to collect revenue, and would dramatically improve
the lives of the conscientious objectors who are now suffering economically.