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June 09, 2005
Really Left Behind: Scorning the Least of Thee
by Faithful Progressive
On my own Blog, I’ve posted many times about the scary hard-right ideology and bizarre theology behind the Left Behind series of books. (see: Part 6-B Tim La Haye's Paranoid Politics) But almost as scary is the American economy under President Bush, which is leaving 95 percent of Americans truly Left Behind. There is a relationship between the the focus of these books, with their titillating and mean-spirited stories of liberals and UN officials getting their comeuppance, and the plight of the poor. I believe with all my heart that American Christians need to stop reading these kind of silly End Times fantasies and that they should instead start the hard work of responding to the real Gospel message of Jesus.
In the Gospels, Jesus rarely minces words. When a lawyer tried to trick him with a question about the commandments, Jesus deftly summarized both his preaching and the Law: love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. One of the most beautiful and demanding aspects of his Gospel message is his forceful statement of our obligations to the poor and other social outcasts, the people he called the Least of Thee.
”I was hungry, and you gave me food. I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink. I was alone and away from home, and you invited me into your house. I was without clothes, and you gave me something to wear. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.' "Then the good people will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and give you food, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you alone and away from home and invite you into our house? When did we see you without clothes and give you something to wear? When did we see you sick or in prison and care for you?' "Then the King will answer, 'I tell you the truth, anything you did for even the least of my people here, you also did for me.'
Christians are thus always faced with this fundamental moral question: what are we doing for the least among us? An in-depth New York Times report out this week provides chilling proof that we are failing this test as individuals and as a society. The recent New York Times series paints a picture of a Robin-Hood-in-reverse economy under President Bush. The series was very neatly summarized in this NYT June 7, 2005 Editorial.
The Bush Economy
With all of the debate about taxes, the economy and domestic spending, it is hard to imagine anyone supporting the notion of taking money from programs like Medicaid and college-tuition assistance, increasing the tax burden of the vast majority of working Americans, sending the country into crushing debt - and giving the proceeds to people who are so fantastically rich that they don't know what to do with the money they already have. Yet that is just what is happening under the Bush administration. Forget the middle class and the upper-middle class. Even the merely wealthy are being left behind in the dust by the small slice of super-rich Americans.
In last Sunday's Times, David Cay Johnston reported that from 1980 to 2002, the latest year of available data, the share of total income earned by the top 0.1 percent of earners more than doubled, while the share earned by everyone else in the top 10 percent rose far less. The share of the bottom 90 percent declined.
President Bush did not create the income gap. But the unheralded effect of his tax policy is its unequal impact on the modestly well to do. By 2015, those making between $80,000 and $400,000 will pay as much as 13.9 percentage points more of their income in federal taxes than those making more than $400,000, assuming the tax cuts are made permanent. Below $80,000, most taxpayers will see their share of taxes rise slightly or stay the same.
Whether they are people of faith or not, moderates, progressives and liberals believe that one role of government is to make things relatively more fair, whether in economics (tax policy/minimum wage/EITC ) or in relative social advantage (anti-discrimination/affirmative action). Meanwhile conservatives tend to "assume a level-playing field" and then leave it to the market to let benefits "trickle down" to the less fortunate. They also leave it up to the efforts of the individual to overcome major obstacles such as poverty and discrimination. There is some merit to both points of view. But only radical ideologues would intentionally try to advantage the rich at the expense of the poor--to assume that what is good for the rich is good for all. Yet this assumption seems to inform a lot of Bush economic policy. If you don't believe this, check out this revealing and shocking NYT graphic on Bush Tax Cuts.
This is quite simply immoral, and the tax policy of President Bush is largely to blame for this appalling new concentration of wealth among the super-rich. This problem is likely to get much worse before it gets better, given the elimination of the estate tax that has always served to prevent creation of an aristocracy in this country. The Bush tax policy will do a lot more for the super-rich than for the poor, who are scorned over and over again. The Book of Proverbs says that He who scorns the poor insults the Lord. As it says elsewhere on this website:
Tax breaks for the richest underpin ever-growing public debt. To preserve these tax cuts, public investment in education, health care, and housing is labeled "wasteful" and reduced or eliminated. So "the least of these" - children, the aged, the poor - are asked to bear the burden of controlling the public debt. This is an injustice. It is unfair, unchristian, and un-American.
Most Christians understand this. Some conservative evangelical Christians are teaming up with moderates like Jim Wallis to support A Call to Renewal to address poverty issues. British Christians have been central to the Make Poverty History campaign. But there is much more to be done. This weekend a group of progressive Christians begin a bus tour to get the Gospel message out. Jesus has set the bar pretty high, but we need to keep trying if we would call ourselves Christians.
Posted by Faithful Progressive at June 9, 2005 11:33 PM
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