Anti-IRS Rant Linked to Austin Crash Pilot

Joe Stack apparently left email post to be read after crash
By Caroline Miller,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 18, 2010 12:53 PM CST
Anti-IRS Rant Linked to Austin Crash Pilot
Smoke billows from a seven-story building after a small private plane crashed into a building that houses an office of the federal tax agency in Austin, Texas on Thursday Feb. 18, 2010.   (AP Photo/Harry Cabluck)

"Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well." Those words appear near the end of a long email rant written by someone named Joe Stack, thought to be the man whose private plane crashed into an office building in Austin, Texas, this afternoon, injuring at least two people. The plane struck the building near the area where IRS offices are located. The writer takes pains to lay out a long, rambling beef with the IRS, which he says is difficult to write "in light of the storm raging in my head."

The post, fielded by the Austin American-Statesman, was apparently written to be read after the crash. Stack, an engineer who says he had serious financial problems, complains that the government serves the interests of corporations and fat cats, not ordinary citizens. "I can say with a great degree of certainty that there has never been a politician cast a vote on any matter with the likes of me or my interests in mind. Nor, for that matter, are they the least bit interested in me or anything I have to say." Stack notes the alacrity with which the banks and automakers were given a bailout, while Congress couldn't find the political will to fix "the joke that is our medical system."
(More Austin stories.)

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