I'll Pay Taxes...with My Meme Coin
Fake money will be going to our fake government.
If you were to ask how someone with my personality could stay married to the same person for almost 25 years, I would point to this exchange with Secret Service last night.
ME: “We are NOT paying taxes to Elon Effing Musk this year. I refuse.”
HE: “Well, we could make up our own money and pay with that.”
Wit. It’s everything.
If you are not familiar with cryptocurrency, aka “made up money,” allow me first to congratulate you. But you may not get my husband’s quip.
This is the definition of crypto from the Reserve Bank of Australia:
Cryptocurrencies are digital tokens. They are a type of digital currency that allows people to make payments directly to each other through an online system. Cryptocurrencies have no legislated or intrinsic value; they are simply worth what people are willing to pay for them in the market.
Think of it as an old-fashioned Swiss Bank that doesn’t exist, then add stockbrokers who are smoking a lot of meth. That’s crypto.
Also of note: there’s no way to consistently regulate crypto, because different regions and nations have different rules surrounding it.
Meme coins are even worse. From Investopedia:
A meme coin is a cryptocurrency named after characters, individuals, animals, artwork, or anything else in an attempt to be humorous, light-hearted, and attract a user base by promising a fun community.
Ridiculous, right?
Just before he was sworn into office, President Trump rolled out his own meme coin. It made over a hundred million dollars in trading fees. Even after the stock fell in price by half, it made him billions of dollars.
Seven or eight years ago, I made a bit of money with crypto. I have always been fond of the underworld, and I understand the investing principle of “buy low, sell high.”
I made most of my money on something called blockchain, which powers cryptocurrency.
Blockchain became so hot, an iced tea company added “blockchain” to their logo so it would sell more.
Their stock price went up 200%.
This is telling. It lets you in on something about investing in crypto, although honestly the same thing occurs with the regular stock market. Once a stock starts skyrocketing, investors might purchase it with little knowledge or care about what they’re buying.
The reason I made money on blockchain isn’t because I’m an expert on cryptocurrency, but because I understand human nature.
It takes a lot of energy, this cryptocurrency thing. It’s terrible for the environment. At the time I was unaware.
Turns out I was unaware of quite a bit, and at this point I sincerely wish I were still unaware. When I think about the razor’s edge on which our nation is perched, it is impossible not to feel terror.
But listen, people. Now is not the time for learned helplessness. We need each other, because we the people need to take some action.
Perhaps the action is a collective refusal to fund Elon Musk’s government.
Shortly after the election in November, President Trump announced that there was going to be a Department of Government Efficiency, overseen by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Ramaswamy has since bowed out, leaving Musk alone in charge. The department was to oversee the reduction of waste in federal funds.
Its acronym is DOGE, which is also the name of Musk’s favorite meme coin.
There’s a cute dog as DOGE’s mascot. The most popular meme coins tend to have catchy artwork.
If you are my age or older you may begin to hear strains of The Twilight Zone theme, but here we are, folks. I didn’t make it up. Sadly, these are facts.
The good news: anyone can make a meme coin. You can, I can, we can all make up our own imaginary money. It won’t be worth anything unless people buy it, but we can make it, maybe it will strike the fancy of someone, and we’ll get rich.
Here’s a link to instructions for doing so.
When I told Secret Service I didn’t want to pay taxes to Musk, this is the joke. We can pay in our own meme coins.
I think it’s a brilliant idea. I worry that I’ll cave out of fear and end up paying. This way I can pay Elon’s way.
Fake money for his fake government.
It’s exhausting. All of it.
But here’s something I feel with certainty. The federal government as we know it doesn’t exist anymore. It would be unethical for me to put money into a system that no longer supports democracy.
Trump just made Musk a special government employee. There is absolutely nothing stopping Musk from putting our Social Security money in Trump Coin, or DOGE Coin, or anything else which strikes his fancy. There is nothing we can imagine that he won’t do.
If you think I’m exaggerating, ask yourself something.
Imagine you are the richest person alive with a net worth of over $421 billion.
If this were you, would your first act in government be the destruction of USAID, which provides, among other things, mosquito netting to mothers and children in Africa? Would you call such an agency a “criminal organization?”
As the wealthiest man alive, his first act was to defund food and healthcare for the poorest people on earth.
Consider this pathology. The kind of cruel, horrific ugliness can only be rooted in Musk’s past as a white person growing up in what was then an apartheid nation, South Africa. He knows his actions will kill Black Africans.
He’s doing it with intent.
For those who think, oh, good, we shouldn’t give other nations aid, we should “take care of our own…”
Two things to keep in mind. Keeping people healthy and fed in certain regions is a tremendous part of our national security. So even if you don’t care how many people die, it weakens our security as a nation to abandon them.
Secondly, the impoverished people of the United States aren’t going to see a dime of that money. These tax breaks will reduce corporate tax to 18% from 21%, according to Project 2025, the playbook for this nightmare. It also eliminates deductions, which hurts the middle class.
Everything he’s doing is rooted in white supremacy. And newsflash to the MAGA nation:
They. Don’t. Care. About. You.
You’ve served your purpose. Happy now?
And by the way…
Congress appropriated funds for USAID. It’s illegal to misappropriate funds.
Musk is doing it anyway, and exactly no one is stopping him.
We no longer live in a democracy.
Once in office, Trump overtook the digital strike agency and renamed it DOGE in an attempt to get a veneer of legitimacy.
This does not make it legitimate. There is virtually no oversight and our representatives in Congress have nothing to do with it. The only person Musk answers to is Trump.
It’s a fake agency named after fake money.
Musk has installed six young men between the ages of 19-24 for help in mining the Treasury Department for data.
Here’s a question. Do a single one of them have a security clearance?
I am serious about taxes. I can’t pay them unless my meme coin is launched by April 15th.
This is difficult, because I pay my taxes with my husband in a joint filing. I haven’t talked with him in depth, but if he wants to pay taxes, he’s going to have to do it alone. It is the only act of protest I have.
There is a part of me that worries I’ll cave, or get put in jail, or any number of things that come with not paying taxes.
But I’m an American, and I hope my patriotism will hold fast. I do not support the overthrow of our government.
If Musk is in charge, a case could be made that funding his government is funding domestic terrorism.
I get in danger of having hope.
There isn’t a Republican alive who wants to pay taxes in a year when we have a regular government, never mind this lunacy.
If I were a Democratic leader, I would suggest none of us pay. I would reach out across the aisle and come to an agreement called hashtag,
#DefundMusk.
Bravo Liz !! 👍