As you file your taxes, try not to think too hard about the revelation that your hard-earned money is helping someone achieve their dream of becoming a clown. Because, apparently becoming a clown requires going to college, and going to college requires taxpayers footing the bill. Next time you’re at the circus, demand a “thank you” from a clown.

CNS News provides more information about the bad news regarding the gross misuse of our taxes: “The federal government is funding a clown school located in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco-based congressional district that has classes and workshops on ‘Precision Idiocy’ and how to act like a ‘Buffoon,'” CNS wrote. “The school, which is called the ‘Clown Conservatory’ and is part of the nonprofit Circus Center, received a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts that runs from June 2017 through May 2018.” Clown Conservatory claims to be “the United States’ only professional training program for clowns and physical comedians.”

The Clown Conservatory is split into two sessions over 24 weeks. Tuition is $6,000. While much cheaper than many colleges, I’m not sure if the return on investment is quite the same.

Although, I may not be treating the Clown Conservatory fairly. As my editor pointed out, I may just be jealous. It’s true that I have taken mime classes and had to pay for them out of my pocket; I received no federal financial aid to help pay for my mime classes. So, in the issue of full disclosure, I may simply be bitter that I’m now having to pay for other people’s mime classes via my tax dollars.

With that in mind, maybe we should allow some of the student testimonials offer a defense of the school’s value:

“The SF Clown Conservatory is the most important springboard into the world of clown I’ve received.”

“The program helped me to realize how to work the funny bones I’ve always had. If I wouldn’t have found the Clown Conservatory, I wouldn’t have found myself.”

“Sara Moore [the school’s director] is simply the greatest thing to have happened to me. She taught a clowning master class when I was 19 years old, and within those three hours she had given me the key to unlock the door to The Silly inside, and helped me train it and use it to the fullest.”

Nope.

The testimonials have only made it worse. I’m still angry, if not angrier, that my idiotic government thinks that paying people’s tuition to clown college is an efficient use of my tax dollars. I mean, the person who “wouldn’t have found [them self]” if it weren’t for the Clown Conservatory makes me wonder if I shouldn’t ship my kids off to military school before it’s too late and they end up clowns.

Tax day is almost upon us. Every year, as the amount of money I am forced to turn over to the government becomes larger and larger, the more irritated I get at my liberal “friends” who insist that they know better how to spend my money than I do—and the more fiscally conservative I become. This nonsense about tax dollars financing people’s dreams to become clowns is only going to make April 15 that much harder. If liberals want to pay for people’s clown college tuition, nothing is stopping them from writing a check to the Clown Conservatory. But it’s flat-out theft for the government to forcibly take my money so that someone can take a class called, “Human Cartoon: The Art of Elastic.”