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April 06, 2006
"To Whom Much is Given, Much is Required:" Christians Challenge Unethical Tax Cuts
by Faithful Progressive
Over the last five years, taxes were slashed for the top two percent of Americans--this is the major reason that the Clinton Budget Surplus is now the huge Bush Budget Deficit. The Me Generation of wealthy Republicans feel no need to pay taxes to contribute to the public good. The tax debate needs to be re-framed to expose the selfish ethic that guides the low taxes for the rich mentality that will force our kids to pay the debts of the Me First Bush Presidency. Does the Bible offer a values-based rationale for progressive taxation? This article in the most recent issue of the Milwaukee weekly the Shepherd Express suggests that it does. And law prof Susan Pace Hamill of the University of Alabama has already shown that this ethic has the power to change policy. (Scroll down below Walker story.)
How Would Jesus Tax and Spend? Christian perspectives on taxes and wealth:
By Lisa Kaiser
Budget making is usually left to politicians, economists, tax analysts and policy wonks. But another group wants to participate—Christians.
“I believe, personally, that only a spiritual, faith-based approach has a chance of challenging the sin of greed,” said Professor Susan Pace Hamill of the University of Alabama, a tax expert with a degree in theology who attempted to change Alabama’s tax code so that it would be more in line with Judeo-Christian principles. Hamill will be in Milwaukee on April 7 to speak about her Christian-based critique of tax cuts that favor the wealthy as part of a forum on the proposed Taxpayers Protection Amendment.
"Taxes as a Moral Obligation
Hamill has developed a devastating critique of Bush’s tax cuts from both fiscal and theological perspectives. She argues that based on the principles of biblical justice, all citizens—not just those who were born to wealthy families—deserve a reasonable opportunity to develop their potential. She feels that it’s immoral to cut taxes for the wealthy while slashing funding for education, health care and basic social services.
Hamill explained that paying taxes is a moral obligation, especially for the wealthy.
“Taxes are essential because of our greed,” she said. “Under the biblical principles of ‘to whom much is given, much is required’ there must be a moderately progressive sharing of that burden.”
Hamill said charity isn’t enough. “I believe that with a few exceptions, the wealthier you get, the more of a problem greed is,” she said. “You don’t get naturally more generous, you get naturally more stingy.”
She said that even though Bush is an evangelical Christian, his tax policy is based on an atheistic set of values—Ayn Rand’s objectivism, which favors the individual over the community.
“This whole business of ‘what’s mine is mine’—where’s God in that picture?” she said.
“On the other hand, there is a mysterious balance of individuality and communal obligation in the biblical imperatives of justice.”
The article also mentions the story that we broke here first: the Wisconsin Christian Alliance for Progress letter to the state's US House delegation:
The proposed federal budget for 2007 is getting a Christian critique, too...(T)he Wisconsin chapter of Christian Alliance for Progress..was so disturbed by President Bush’s proposed cuts to the federal budget that it sent a letter to Wisconsin’s delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives. In the letter, the group urges our lawmakers to protect programs such as Head Start and housing assistance for the elderly and disabled, and to reject Bush’s proposal to kick 300,000 people off of food stamps.
“These cuts have nothing to do with fiscal responsibility,” the letter states. “They are being made so that Congress can enact more tax breaks that are very heavily tilted toward the wealthy and that actually increase the federal deficit.”
Posted by Faithful Progressive at April 6, 2006 11:26 PM
Comments
Thanks for posting this! This is all based on "voodoo economics" which has been debunked for a long time. Trickle down does not work.
Posted by: JP at April 7, 2006 03:05 PM
Exodus 20: 15 do not steal One of the big ten. If you are spending money of people not yet born is that not stealing
Matt on tax 22:17 Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax [a] to Caesar or not?" 18 But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, "You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? 19 Show me the coin used for paying the tax." They brought him a denarius, 20 and he asked them, "Whose image is this? And whose inscription?" 21 "Caesar's," they replied.
Then he said to them, "Give back to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."
Posted by: Monte Schlarman at April 7, 2006 06:55 PM
Deuteronomy 14 Tithes
22 Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year. 23 Eat the tithe of your grain, new wine and olive oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the presence of the LORD your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name, so that you may learn to revere the LORD your God always. 24 But if that place is too distant and you have been blessed by the LORD your God and cannot carry your tithe (because the place where the LORD will choose to put his Name is so far away), 25 then exchange your tithe for silver, and take the silver with you and go to the place the LORD your God will choose. 26 Use the silver to buy whatever you like: cattle, sheep, wine or other fermented drink, or anything you wish. Then you and your household shall eat there in the presence of the LORD your God and rejoice. 27 And do not neglect the Levites living in your towns, for they have no allotment or inheritance of their own. 28 At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year's produce and store it in your towns, 29 so that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.
Please note it dose not say to give third year tithes to a church but to the town to store you know like your government. Just think how much three and a third of the NGP is.
Remember that only ten percent that’s 10% of all your charities reach the one who need it the other 90% is used up in administration collecting. And then there is the crooked ones where not one red cent reaches the advertised cause.
Posted by: Monte Schlarman at April 7, 2006 07:43 PM
What people does a tax cut hurt and how does it hurt them?
Posted by: Ice Wolf at April 9, 2006 01:07 AM
IW:
It hurts the people whose programs are cut: say, little kids in Head Start or old people who get Meals on Wheels...It hurts the next generation that has to pay for all the wars and favors for lobbyists that was put on a credit card for them to pay by the ME First crowd. Bush is like a greedy selfish father who buys himself a boat and all kinds of toys on credit and doesn't save a nickel for his kids or help out his parents. It also hurts the social fabric when you don't repair bridges and let the infrastructure go to hell.
That was easy. Next question please.
FP
Posted by: FP at April 9, 2006 05:43 AM
And it hurts YOU, Ice Wolf, if you have any stake in this nation being solvent. Bush cuts taxes for the rich and finances his neverending war on credit... from China!
Posted by: GPope at April 11, 2006 03:11 AM
Tax cuts might have made sense (and I did say MIGHT)if the Bush Administration had kept spending down, but that's not what happened. Republicans used to chide Democrats as being "tax and spend," but that's a heck of a lot better than the untenable "cut taxes and still spend" mentality of today's Republicans.
Posted by: Cathie at April 11, 2006 01:20 PM
Charity is the business of the church. No government can properly administer charity. If each person gave 10% of what he has to God's causes as He commanded us to do, the needs of the poor would be met, and the individual would prosper. Since the average American receives his paycheck minus 25-40% of what he earns, even the most generous of Christians finds it hard to give. It is too bad that we insist that charity be administered by the White House, I would rather receive it from my neighbor.
Posted by: xoxoxo at April 12, 2006 02:17 AM
Cathie, the churches fail worse than the government. They attach strings and demands to their help, they help people who don't really need it (I've SEEN this many times), and they refuse to help those who are in dire straits (we went without electricity for three months one time).
Many of the churches in central Florida demand that you attend their services to get their help. Others demand that you make drastic changes to your life- to THEIR ideas of what your life should be. Such as attending services 5 times a week, etc.
The worst problem with church help is that they expect a one-time "help" will fix everything, and they DON'T have the resources to help someone who is chronically ill or in chronic pain (my situation).
The governmental situation as it is now offends me very deeply, because the rich are getting freebies, and the support systems for the poor are being systematically being dismantled, in the name of "tough love" and greed.
Posted by: Bob Bowers at April 14, 2006 03:42 PM
"IW:
It hurts the people whose programs are cut: say, little kids in Head Start or old people who get Meals on Wheels...It hurts the next generation that has to pay for all the wars and favors for lobbyists that was put on a credit card for them to pay by the ME First crowd. Bush is like a greedy selfish father who buys himself a boat and all kinds of toys on credit and doesn't save a nickel for his kids or help out his parents. It also hurts the social fabric when you don't repair bridges and let the infrastructure go to hell.
That was easy. Next question please.
FP"
How is any of that stuff begotten by a tax cut?
Posted by: Ice Wolf at April 28, 2006 03:24 AM
Hooweee, this thread is so unbelievably slanted, with such an unbelievably lopsided perspective it's truly sad.
The "wealthy" need to pay their fair share? Of Course!
Of the entire federal tax revenue, HALF of it is paid by the top 2% of income earners
The remaining 98% pay the other half, and 30-40% don't pay anything (nor is it suggested that they should)
Somebody please take a break from all the indignant moralizing for a minute, and explain to me how
the top 2% of income earners paying HALF of the entire federal budget is not "paying their fair share."
Calm down from all the whining and moralizing, explain please, I'm listening!
With Walter Heller one of his key economic advisors, John F Kennedy cut individual marginal rates, and guess what? Government tax revenues INCREASED, because of the stimulating effect tax cuts have on the economy as a whole.
With the Bush tax cuts, the highest income earners are STILL PAYING A BUNDLE, but the recession ended earlier, the Dow climbed back up to near record levels recently, and UNEMPLOYMENT has been under 5% practically the entire current Bush administration.
Remember the mainstream media constantly mentioning the great economy under Clinton, with the unemployment rate very healthy/low at just over 5? Curious how there's rarely a mention of it being even better the entire Bush administration?
I will never defend BUSH/REPUBLICAN recent spending excesses, but granting that, what happend after the BUSH tax cuts? Tax revenues took a noticeable spike upwards, and the deficit is accordingly currently shrinking much more quickly than the moralizing critics projected.
Do Christians have an important duty as citizens to advocate reasonable fairness in society? Absolutely. It's also important to do so with at least a little bit of balanced, better informed perspective.
Oh, by the way. What groups have been shown to contribute the most to charitable causes?
Liberals, "progressives" ? NOPE.
Religious conservatives, who usually do it quietly, often in accord with Biblical principles, while the whiny moralizing center and left make all the indignant noise.
Posted by: WhitemoonG at December 8, 2006 03:53 PM
Oh, I suppose now the old canard about the highest income earners evading taxes due to shelters is going to be trotted out? Guess again. If that were the case, the math wouldn't be what it is.
Maybe Leona Helmsley can give guest commentary on her time in the Federal POKY (well deserved if you ask me!) for thinking she could illegally try something like it.
Posted by: WhitemoonG at December 8, 2006 03:59 PM
