What a waste! What a waste!

Reinstate some sanity,

Spend taxes for humanity,

Invest in peace! Invest in peace!

Let’s build schools instead of bombs,

We need jobs! We need jobs!

Don’t spend all our taxes

To fight the “evil axis.”

Invest in peace! Invest in peace!

Missile shields and drones and bombers –

What a waste! What a waste!

While we’re busy making war

We’re neglecting our own poor!

Invest in peace!  Invest in peace!

It’s time to end these wars of terror.

Bring ’em home! Bring ’em home!

How many more of us must die

In bloody wars all based on lies?

Invest in peace! Invest in peace!

For wars and corporate bailouts

And the banks so poorly run?

But we never have the money

For the urgent needs at home,

Like jobs and schools and health care

And homes for everyone?

Chorus:

   Wh – ere do our taxes go then?

   Wh – ere do our taxes go then?

   Forty-seven cents of each tax dollar

   Goes to fund the wars!

   And that’s got to stop right now!

We can help turn things around now

If we only will decide

To join together and elect

Officials on our side

Who will work to save our planet

And build roads and bridges, too,

To build and not destroy!

Repeat chorus

So call your Senators and Reps

And just be sure they know

That the way they’re spending our tax dollars

Simply has to go.

Be sure they get the message

That we want our taxes back

To build and not destroy!

Repeat chorus

To fund the Afghanistan war,

But our taxes are urgently needed

Right here for the jobless and poor.

         CHORUS:

         Bring back, bring back,

         Oh bring back those taxes and spend them here.

         Bring ‘em back, yes bring ‘em back, 

         And then how we Grannies will cheer!

Our bridges and highways are crumbling,

Our teachers and schools need support.

The money that’s now spent on killing,

Should be used to wage peace and not war.

REPEAT CHORUS

We should be supporting our students

Who struggle to pay for their loans,

And we should be supporting our families,

While the banks just foreclose on their homes.

REPEAT CHORUS

We’ve worked mighty hard for the money

That we pay every year to the Feds,

And we don’t want it paying for warfare,

When we all could have healthcare instead.

REPEAT CHORUS

We’ve paid them right on time.

We never, ever cheated;

We coughed up every dime.

But we’re sick of always paying for these

Endless, bloody wars

Especially when the payment comes

From the pockets of the poor.

We don’t mind paying taxes

When they pay for things we need

Like schools and jobs and health care

And other worthy deeds.

But when we know our dollars go

To bailouts, bombs and guns

We’ll tell you true, it makes us blue

To see what they have done.

Those greedy corporations

Find loopholes by the score;

They hardly pay a single dime,

While we pay more and more.

Republicans say, “That’s okay,

‘Cause biz’ness needs a break,

So let them be, they ride for free.”

Now don’t that take the cake?

When Uncle Sam gets our tax dollars

We hope that he will heed

These Grannies when we say that they should

Pay for things we need.

We don’t need war and killing,

Or drilling off our shores.

Oh, my! Good grief! We’d get relief

If we stopped these God-damned wars!

Montana ruled against it.
Wisconnies will protest it.
We loved our democracy,
Don’t want this plutocracy!

What is that you ask?
While the wealthy all bask,
In favors their PACs bought,
While we are distraught.

Think of a happy ending,
While this message we’re sending.
We’ll Move to Amend,
Don’t doubt it, my friend!

On the second day of taxes
my government said to me,
Clean drinking water, and
for Schools, Police and Fire Protection.

On the third day of taxes
my government said to me,
Food that’s safe to eat,
Clean drinking water, and
for Schools, Police and Fire Protection.

On the fourth day of taxes
my government said to me,
Emergency health workers,
Food that’s safe to eat,
Clean drinking water, and
for Schools, Police and Fire Protection.

On the fifth day of taxes
my government said to me,
Clean air to breathe,
Emergency health workers,
Food that’s safe to eat,
Clean drinking water, and
for Schools, Police and Fire Protection.

On the sixth day of taxes
my government said to me,
Good roads to drive on,
Clean air to breathe,
Emergency health workers,
Food that’s safe to eat,
Clean drinking water, and
for Schools, Police and Fire Protection.

On the seventh day of taxes
my government said to me,
Sewers to take waste,
Good roads to drive on,
Clean air to breathe,
Emergency health workers,
Food that’s safe to eat,
Clean drinking water, and
for Schools, Police and Fire Protection.

On the eighth day of taxes
my government said to me,
Prisons to hold felons,
Sewers to take waste,
Good roads to drive on,
Clean air to breathe,
Emergency health workers,
Food that’s safe to eat,
Clean drinking water, and
for Schools, Police and Fire Protection.

On the ninth day of taxes
my government said to me,
Parks for play and picnics,
Prisons to hold felons,
Sewers to take waste,
Good roads to drive on,
Clean air to breathe,
Emergency health workers,
Food that’s safe to eat,
Clean drinking water, and
for Schools, Police and Fire Protection.

On the tenth day of taxes
my government said to me,
Libraries for all,
Parks for play and picnics,
Prisons to hold felons,
Sewers to take waste,
Good roads to drive on,
Clean air to breathe,
Emergency health workers,
Food that’s safe to eat,
Clean drinking water, and
for Schools, Police and Fire Protection.

On the eleventh day of taxes
my government said to me,
Health care for our elders,
Libraries for all,
Parks for play and picnics,
Prisons to hold felons,
Sewers to take waste,
Good roads to drive on,
Clean air to breathe,
Emergency health workers,
Food that’s safe to eat,
Clean drinking water, and
for Schools, Police and Fire Protection.

On the twelfth day of taxes
my government said to me,
Help for our veterans,
Health care for our elders,
Libraries for all,
Parks for play and picnics,
Prisons to hold felons,
Sewers to take waste,
Good roads to drive on,
Clean air to breathe,
Emergency health workers,
Food that’s safe to eat,
Clean drinking water, and
for Schools, Police and Fire Protection.

Pearl Jam and Jackson Browne

And Rage Against the Machine
They put the F.O.I.A. request together

They’re the writers

And they are pissed . . . because . . .

Enhanced interrogators played their songs
At painful volume all day and night long
For information whether truth or lie
Who paid the bills
Who paid the bills
We’re the taxpayers, and WE paid the bills

Patrick Dorismond, killed for refusing
An undercover cop’s request for drugs
Shawn Bell, never got to his wedding
The cops’ 50 gunshots got to him first

Remember Diallo, armed with a wallet
Clifford Glover, only 10 years old
Timothy Stansbury, on his way to a party
So many more whose names we don’t know

Abner Louima was raped in a precinct
He’s still alive so the criminal’s in jail
Because Louima was able to counter
The slanders and smears that came his way

If you are white, please take a moment
A brief speculation, and then you may know
Imagine your children, their skin a bit darker
What will you tell them, when outside, they go

Will you tell them, police are their friends
With a mission to serve and protect
Or will you beg them to give cops a wide berth
Because the black and the brown never know who’ll be next