Evangelicals Should Consider Taxation a Moral Issue
One of the goals for the American political Left in the 2008 election is to convince the electorate that they care just as much about the things of God as the Evangelical Right. All of the major campaigns for the Democratic Presidential Nomination have hired religious consultants who help the candidates speak the language of Zion on the campaign stump. The problem is when it comes to right to life issues and the protection of the family against radical homosexual activism the language of Zion morphs into the language of Babylon. In the hands of the political Left the Bible is reduced to a call for justice as long as justice is dispensed only for those who are willing to send Biblical standards to the back of the political bus.
The great biblical themes which call for empowering the powerless by understanding the worth of each individual eternal soul are distorted by the Left by confusing true empowerment with entitlement. Once a person becomes addicted to the entitlement mentality they become willing transfer the power of their political support to whoever will promise to maintain their entitlement. This process insures that the worth of the individual will cease to rest in the fact individuals are created by God with their inalienable rights being "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" and will rest in the hands of those who promise to continue whatever program perpetuates the entitlement.
One passage of Scripture the Left seems to identify with is Luke 2:1-3 which says "And it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. This taxing was first made while Cyrenius was Governor of Syria. And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city" (KJV). The idea of taxing the whole world is a Biblical concept that fits in well with the Left. I am surprised they haven't suggested we all return to our city of origin so that the taxing could be justified as an act of interstate commerce. That way, our journey to be taxed could be taxed. But then, if the whole of the government takes a left turn after the next election traveling to our city of origin will probably involve the use of both a donkey and a cave.
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Just in case you haven't been keeping a running total of the proposed tax increases coming from the Left this political season if they all eventually are backed by the force of law the tax bill will be $700 billion over four years and that doesn't include the 50 cent per gallon tax on gasoline proposed by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.). Congressman Dingell would also like to take away your home mortgage tax deduction if you live in a house that has over 3000 square feet of living space. Since that size home would definitely make you a greedy, green defying, resource hogging, Capitalist you will have to pay through the nose (or would that be "though the snout" since you would be considered a resource hog).
The $700 billion does include anywhere from $50 billion to $145 billion for a Leftist health care system (which has failed everywhere in the world It has been tried) and a college tuition program that will cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 billion per year. When you add these whopping numbers to a hodgepodge of promised federally funded education, roads and bridges, and energy programs that will require massive tax increases you have a tax burden that, according to Nate Bailey of the non-partisan Tax Foundation, will require a boosting of the individual tax rates above the 50 percent mark for the first time since the Reagan Administration. A draconian change in the tax code of this magnitude would vault the United States from 21st in the world in tax burdens born by its citizens to 7th place. But the Left should "fear not" that their tax policies would merely land us in the top ten because if they get re-elected in 2012 we will be number one by 2014 in individual tax burdens.
Please keep in mind none of these numbers include the 2010 expiration date that is stamped on the Bush Administration tax cuts. Failing to extend those cuts beyond 2010 would add another $188 billion a year in taxes. In addition, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) who chairs the powerful House Ways and Means Committee announced recently that he was planning "the mother of all tax reforms" just as soon as President Bush's veto pen gets locked in the desk. When the king of the Left wing begins talking about the mother of all tax reforms it's time for average Americans to start thinking about offshore banking. Just one example of Rep. Rangel's idea of reform is a 4-percent surtax on families making more than $200,000 per year. Why….simply because people who make over $200,000 a year are just too successful and must be forced to be charitable.
Rep. Jim McCrery (R-LA) who also serves on the House Ways and Means Committee has calculated that the repeal of the Bush tax cuts combined with a 4-percent surtax would result in a $3.5 trillion tax hike over 10 years.
Evangelicals need to wake up and realize while our primary concern must be for the unborn and the protection of the family oppressive taxation will drain the life out of our economy and leave families at the mercy of the government.
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Dr. Tony Beam is Vice-President for Student Services and Director of the Christian Worldview Center at North Greenville University in Tigerville, South Carolina.
