GROUPS USE TAX DEADLINE DAY TO PROMOTE THEIR VIEWPOINTS

Members of the Cape Girardeau area Taxpayer's Action Network gathered Wednesday outside the Cape Girardeau post office to tell last-minute income tax filers of wasteful government spending.

Julie Kridelbaugh, Taxpayer's Action Network (TAN) executive director for Southeast Missouri, said the group hoped to garner grass-roots support for a national protest against government waste and financial mismanagement.

"What we're doing out here today is talking to taxpayers to let them know just how much of their tax dollars are wasted by the government," Kridelbaugh said.

"They know they're paying a lot of taxes, but many don't realize how much of it goes for ridiculous, pork-barrel projects, like $942,000 for fishing rod entanglement research."

TAN is affiliated with Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW). Kridelbaugh said the founder of CAGW, J. Peter Grace, Tuesday addressed the Advertising Club of New York, where he scolded Congress for its "flagrant abuse" of tax dollars.

According to Grace, $167 billion of the $479 billion collected in individual income tax will be "wasted" on unnecessary research and projects.

"That's $167 billion being wasted on extravagant, frivolous, pork-barrel programs; congressional pay raises; congressional perks the list goes on and on," said Kridelbaugh. "That's 34 percent of the individual income taxes that are paid. It's staggering.

"The working families of Southeast Missouri have tightened and tightened their belts, and yet for every $1 of taxes that go in, government turns around and spends $2."

Kridelbaugh said Grace told advertising and media executives at the advertising club that the interest on the national debt last year was $286 billion, or 61 percent of individual tax revenues.

"If we let this go, we could be paying 102 percent of all personal taxes by the year 2000 just for interest on the national debt," she said.

Kridelbaugh said CAGW also advocates a number of tax breaks for citizens and uses a "waste rating" to rank national politicians according to their voting record.

"The ones who are being good waste watchers are getting very good ratings," she said. "But it doesn't make the others too happy when they see they've been rated wasteful."

Cape Girardeau was one of about 200 locations across the nation where CAGW members staged rallies. The local group, TAN, meets at 7 p.m. on the third Thursday of each month at the Jackson Public Library.

TAN wasn't the only group rallying Wednesday at the Cape Girardeau post office.

The Fellowship of Reconciliation also distributed to people filing taxes flyers that advocated new government spending priorities.

The group is affiliated with the Common Agenda Coalition of Boston, Mass, which objects to tax dollars being spent on defense.

Common Agenda's leaflet showed 14 ways $1 billion in tax dollars could be spent. One column listed seven defense programs that cost $1 billion each and the another column compared those projects with social and environmental programs of equal cost.