This issue is not heavily tax related, but is interesting nonetheless.  It is also interesting to note that the White House has increased the number of signatures required to respond to a petition to 100,000 from 25,000 since this petition was responded to.

There was recently a petition placed on the white house petition board requesting that the government secure funding and begin building a death star.   The petition has received at least 34,000 signatures.  The president generally responds to any petition which receives more than 25,000 signatures.   It has been rejected by the President who had the chief of the Science and Space Branch at the White House Office of Management and Budget, Paul Shawcross, respond to the petition.

Mr. Shawcross pointed out that a group of Lehigh University students determined the estimated cost at $850,000,000,000,000,000.  That is $850 Quadrillion.  And that is only for the necessary steel.  It does not count construction or transportation costs.  This is about 13,000 times the gross domestic product of the world.    The white house has for once said that we are trying to reduce the deficit, so did not think it appropriate to undertake this additional debt.

Some of the comments of Mr. Shawcross were fun to read.  They included:

“This is not the petition response you’re looking for”.

“The Obama Administration does not support blowing up planets”.

“Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a death star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship”?