posted on March 1, 2003 11:27:40 AM new
....in the church and state debate.
Professor Puts Religion in Tax Debate
By JAY REEVES
Associated Press Writer
March 1, 2003, 1:29 PM EST
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Could a Bible Belt state where so many people claim to follow Christianity really be taxing personal incomes as low as $4,600 annually for a family of four -- the lowest threshold of any state -- while letting wealthy timber owners pay less than $1 per acre in property taxes?
Susan Pace Hamill, a former Internal Revenue Service attorney, couldn't believe what she was reading.
"I looked at it and said, `That's got to be a misprint,'" said Hamill, recalling a newspaper article two years ago. "I began checking and found out within two hours it wasn't."
She is now on a crusade to force the state to change, arguing that its tax structure is immoral and Christians have a moral duty to do something about it. One supporter calls her an "accidental prophet."
.........
posted on March 1, 2003 01:46:49 PM new
Conservative christian fundamentalists justify their greed based on their self serving interpretation of the bible. The fact that they believe that taxing poor people is moral doesn't surprise me. May they all go to the hell in which they also believe.
posted on March 1, 2003 01:55:57 PM newMay they all go to the hell in which they also believe. Boy...looks like someone's in a good mood today.......again.
posted on March 1, 2003 03:05:17 PM new
From the PDF link by...Susan Hamill
The harsh consequences of Alabama's constitution does not stop there. The burdensome constitutional amendment process severely obstructs the ability of the Legislature to amend the tax structure for fairness. As a result Alabama's tax structure immorally oppresses the poorest Alabamians while greatly benefitting the wealthiest Alabamians. The income tax structure taxes the poorest Alabamians deep in poverty, at income levels starting at as low as $4,600 a year. The constitutionally mandated deductions and the low assesment ratios for property taxes allow the wealthiest Alabamians to escape with the lightest tax burden. For example, timber property, which covers 71% of Alabama's real property and earns substantial profits accounts for less than 2% of Alabama's property taxes, averaging less than $1 an acre per year.
The constitutional limitations on property taxes result in Alabama's property tax and overall revenues being the lowest per person in nation. As a result Alabama cannot fund minimum needs such as public education, thereby immorally denying the poorest Alabamians a mimimum opportunity to improve their lives. In addition, these dollar limitations on property taxes force local governments to raise sales tax rates to levels among the highest in the nation, causing Alabama to rely on sales taxes for more than fifty percent of its revenue. These sales taxes, which can be raised under the less cumbersome procedures of the legislative process, fail to exempt even the most basic necessities such as food, and harshly burden the poorest Alabamians.
Alabama’s constitution always was and continues to be an immoral document. The purpose
behind many of the provisions, including the property tax limitations, of the 1901 Constitution
was to deny black Alabamians basic rights and protections, such as the right to vote as well as
minimum education and health care. To this day Alabama’s constitution oppresses the poorest
Alabamians and stands as a barrier keeping Alabama at or near the bottom in all measurements
of minimum well being. The act of defending Alabama’s constitution is as illegitimate today as
the creation of it was a century ago.
posted on March 1, 2003 05:01:58 PM new
>May they all go to the hell in which they also believe. Boy...looks like someone's in a good mood today.......again.
I second the notion that they should all go to Hell for taxing the super-poor people! *SHAME* on Alabama! Shame on religious hypocrits!
posted on March 1, 2003 09:57:19 PM new
Such actions are the reason my wife and I don't even like to drive through Alabama. It is a depressing, run down, dirt poor state.
The sad thing is the rich in this country want to make the entire nation to be modeled closer on the third world nations where the seperation between the rich and the poor is wider. They have failed to see how the rich in those countries have a lower quality of life by having to live in isolated compounds and spend lavishly on security to seperate and protect themselves from an angry and hostile population that will assault an individual based on an appearance of affluence.
In the Phillipeans, for example, if you have any money to speak of you have to live behind a high wall with broken glass set on top, with guards and dogs. When out driving you have to keep your windows rolled up tight and be aware of the constant danger of ambush. You can't go have a picnic or an outing unless it is to a secure area where the public is excluded. It's just a difficult way to live. The way we see political figures and celebrities go to open public areas such as restaurants here will become as impossible and outdated as it is now for the President to walk down Pennsylvania Ave. to buy a cigar.
posted on March 1, 2003 10:15:49 PM new
The religious aspects shouldn't be in that debate about taxes at all. The results she's looking for are good.. Her reasonings for getting there are very bad.
posted on March 1, 2003 10:21:04 PM new
I agree.
She did get attention about the problem though, that I don't think she would have gotten without the religion. A sign of the times I guess.
posted on March 1, 2003 10:21:14 PM new
gravid, the super-rich already live in a dream world. What's a few more extra sets of barbed wire?
In the meantime, so long as people have enough to live on, to eat, to house and to clothe themselves, who needs all of that money? It isn't worth it. I mean, who would want to kidnap me or mine? I sure don't have to worry about it.
posted on March 3, 2003 11:12:07 AM new
I think that almost everyone who is capable of introspection has been asking the same questions. Greed, or Avarice, was one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Even taken out of a specifically religious context, we can see clearly today how greed can become deadly. The word greed is not synonymous with self-interest or economic success.
This is a good analysis of what is beginning to change.
It is a belated triumph for the anti-corporate campaigners of the late 1990s (although arguable whether they can claim the credit). Their agenda of tackling corporate greed, corruption and inequality is recruiting unexpected allies - from the very heart of the beast. It is the disillusioned corporate man, the stock analyst, the entrepreneur - in short, the wealthy - who are asking: "What is it all for?" It recasts old questions of social justice into issues of personal ethics. Just what made Andrew Fastow of Enron quite so greedy? asks the lead article in the current issue of Harvard Business Review (HBR). It goes on to quote the judgment of Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, to Congress, that "infectious greed" had contaminated US business. What makes it such an important development to track is that it will have some impact - who knows how much or when - on the political will to tackle what will be the most striking characteristic of developed economies in this century: sharply accelerating inequality. This weekend will be a key moment, when the fledgling Responsible Wealth campaign co-founded by Bill Gates Snr, holds its annual convention in Seattle - on a platform of opposing the repeal of inheritance tax proposed by George Bush, and pledging to pay living wages to its employees. This campaign turns political assumptions upside down; its membership is exclusively drawn from the top 5% wealthiest Americans. Such is their embarrassment of riches they want to pay more tax not less, and they want a more egalitarian America.
posted on March 3, 2003 12:16:32 PM new
> - in short, the wealthy - who are asking: "What is it all for?"
Exactly. What is the point of having five houses to live in, fourteen automobiles, three jet aircraft for leisure travel, etc.? People spend thier entire lives srewing everyone that they have to in order to get to that point and then once they're there, they wonder what the big deal was.
I have some multi-millionaire friends. They aren't ever happy. I'm one of the few people they can try to count on as a friend because they can't trust anyone to be a friend when they have that much money. I always suggest philanthropy as a good answer to "what next". Beyond keeping enough money in the bank in order to life comforably off of the interest, the rest is being wasted - why not do a little bit of extra Good in your lives?
I do know that many have seen the truth of that and have done pennance for their wealth. Who will ever forget Andrew Carnagie, who was every bit as mean, cruel, and nasty climbing all of the way up, only to discover what a monster he was and it was all for nothing. So he then dedicated the rest of his life to philanthropic enterprises of his choosing and because of that, he was forgiven by history - the cruelist mirror of all.
posted on March 3, 2003 08:28:26 PM new
Adjusting for reduced circumstances is something that everyone should anticipate if the "The Project For The New American Century" continues unabated. Well maybe except for the ruling elite and state-sponsored corporations. But there appears to be no coherent plan, other than a fuzzy sort of faith, for its implementation, and the rest of the world looks with increasing disfavor on being relegated to a second-class citizen or slave status, so if we can slow the usurption at home and prevent a nuclear holocaust in the short term, we may be able to salvage a fairly decent future for ourselves and work together once again to solve some of our most pressing problems.
posted on March 4, 2003 08:52:06 PM new
Phase I of neoconservative masterminding at work:
U.S. Budget Deficit Rising Fast
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
WASHINGTON, March 4 — The federal deficit is growing much more quickly than expected, even before Congress takes up President Bush's tax-cutting proposals and without factoring in the costs of a war in Iraq, Congressional analysts have concluded.
Analysts for the Republican-controlled House Budget Committee have raised their estimates of this year's budget shortfall by about $30 billion, some 15 percent beyond the forecast that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office issued only five weeks ago.
posted on March 4, 2003 09:13:42 PM new
The end of what few ethical restraints were left? Using a military bill to slip in tax breaks for congressmen's local business supporters. They've sunk that low.
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 5, 2003; Page A01
Days before the House Ways and Means Committee took up an innocuous military bill last month, Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.) made an offer to other Republican committee members at their weekly luncheon: prepare a wish list of tax breaks under $100 million each, and they could add them to the measure.
"It was Mr. Thomas's idea," said panel member Jim McCrery (R-La.), adding that Democrats declined the same offer. "Everybody in the meeting agreed there were a lot of little tax items we had not [been able to enact] the last couple of years. This was something that was going to move."
For a small cadre of local companies and one trade association, this was the equivalent of the lobbying mother lode.
posted on March 5, 2003 12:06:09 AM new
If pork barrel spending is unethical, pretty nearly every politician, past and present, of both parties, is unethical... wait, what was my point?
Anyway, the examples in that article actually sounded like they made sense and were worthwhile, especially the diesel fuel one.
posted on March 5, 2003 12:17:58 AM new
Doesn't sound like your usual pork barrel to me, giving special tax breaks to companies within your district. Not that I approve of pork barrel either. What I consider particularly unethical is to append them to a military bill during a time of war. And with record budget shortfalls.
posted on March 5, 2003 01:34:02 AM new
Well, it's reverse pork barrel... is there a term for that? If there isn't, there should be.
War's only sacred when you're trying to sell it as a sacred duty to the masses in tv spots with anywhere between one and several dozen flags in the background. Other than that, it's part of business as usual. That's horrible but somehow reassuring at the same time.
We've bought the sacred part, but not the duty part. They should make these messages twice as long so we absorb the whole thing.
posted on March 5, 2003 02:18:49 PM new
I find Alabama's tax scheme disgusting ... almost as disgusting as Florida's, but not quite. Florida gets most of its revenue from the sales tax, which hits poor people much harder than wealthier folks even before you factor in the special-interest exemptions. It's true that food is excluded from the sales tax, but the cruelest of all cruel ironies is that people who can't afford to sign at least a seven-month lease have to pay 12 percent or more resort tax on their pitiful lodgings.
posted on March 7, 2003 02:25:14 PM new
And speaking of twisted...................
Though I may believe that government foreign policy is wrong and argue against misguided wars like Vietnam and this one being created over Iraq, I make the distinction between the politics of war and the men and women whose lives are placed at risk. I have never been the least critical of them and respect their courage and bravery.
But what absolutely disgusts me is the current lack of satisfactory funding for veterans' medical benefits. They've suddenly become too costly and so the promises are broken to many.
Veterans in our local area were interviewed by a local televison station. These were Vietnam vets who had lost their jobs because of the failing economy and the prescription costs for essential medication had become too costly for them. They had never had to ask for one red cent before now, and they were turned away.
These and so many other recent acts make the political posturing of doublespeak politicans and their echos ring hollow.
It may be a cliche that words are cheap. But when a professed value or a moral comes into conflict with a dollar bill, which one wins is a good test of the real values of the speaker, whether the voice represents an individual or a nation.
