If you paid $2000 in federal income taxes, it took less than a second to spend that money on the Iraq war. The Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice joined Monday's regular Madison Peace Vigil to distribute a locally-developed "war tax calculator" to taxpayers rushing to meet the tax filing deadline.
The simple cardboard calculators were developed by WNPJ Program Coordinator Steve Burns, a former math instructor at Madison Area Technical College, and current Physics instructor at UW Madison. Burns says it's an effort to use mathematics to educate the public about the cost of the war. Burns says volunteers put together about 100 of the calculators over the weekend, and distributed them in about half an hour at the vigil outside the Madison downtown post office. The Peace North group in Hayward did a similar distribution.