Warning: This article may offend you.
I do not apologize in advance.
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On August 4th, the “Show Me State” overwhelmingly rejected a referendum to phase-out state income tax, a devastating 84-17 split which tells me that casual socialism and confiscatory practices masquerading as duty to “the poor” have gripped even the reddest of states.
This does not bode well for the future of America.
One of the leading voices urging voters to oppose this measure was The Catholic Hierarchy, and this disappoints me gravely. I love my Catholic faith, but I wish my Catholic Church were not so… stupid. It often is. I thought Pope Marxis had died… but I guess his spirit of Liberation Theology which rejects the free market and celebrates the state will live on for quite some time.
But, let me tackle one thing at a time. First let me render to Ceasar, then to Church.
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As for Caesar, let us now rename Missouri the “Take Mine” state, and that is what income tax does. We should categorically reject the notion that the state may confiscate from our productivity, let alone third parties be entitled to redistribution from the same. Our founders saw this so clearly, knew that taxing income was so pernicious as well as endless, that they forbade income tax in the U.S. Constitution at the federal level.
Lucky for us, progressives 113 years ago won the votes for the 16th Amendment, modifying the sacred text so that Washington could take from your paycheck. Fret not, for the congressman who authored the nation’s first income tax bill, democrat Cordell Hull, assured us the income tax would ONLY target the “very rich” and it would ONLY be around 1%.
Surprise, surprise, a democrat lied.
Not only did the federal income tax (along with its bastard sibling the 17th Amendment) implode the concept of Federalism, weaken the states, and spawn the demon called “the federal government” but it altered a once healthy understanding of property rights. Now, the government skims from your earnings. Just 1%. Ok, 7%. 15%. Let’s just make it a cool 26% unless you’re “rich” and then we go to 30% or 37%.
BUT NO MORE!
Unless you are Elon Musk. Then, a new proposed tax, a “billionaire’s tax” and to justify the endless appetite of government income tax whores, they bring out to the cameras a fat slob who somehow, for some ungodly reason, got pregnant nine times but claims to be “disabled” and wants a new cell phone. For you see, the poor are because of the rich, and not because of personal choices, and only government taking your wealth fix it.
This was the undercurrent of President Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” program. Government programs and government workers, well-funded through by taxing “the rich” will eliminate poverty in America. Since then, we have spent an estimated $22 trillion on programs to help “the poor” and all we have to show for it is the same level of poverty along with endless “nonprofits” taking tax dollars to help with and paying their executives handsomely.
Charities focused on “the poor” are often run by bored housewives with lavish salaries all paid by our confiscated funds. Example: Governor Gavin Newsom’s own wife, Jennifer Siebel, the “First Partner” (lame) of California makes hundreds of thousands of dollars in non-profits that care about “the poor” and “the children”. Californians must be thrilled knowing their tax dollars go to such “causes”.
This was the “what about the poor” fear-mongering which crushed Missouri’s referendum. The local Bishops said “those with greater resources bear a proportionately greater share of the public burden” while the head of Missouri Catholic Charities told voters to “remember the poor first and foremost”. What utter nonsense. This idea that the poor in America are some perpetual victims of unjust structures and not their own decision making is offensive.
Show me a mother at a food pantry who doesn’t have a $800 tattoo of her children on her breasts. The buses of “poor” arriving at Atlantic City Casinos are full of able-bodied people gambling with EBT cards. I’ve seen “poor” people buy Kerry Gold Butter at $6.99 per lb. with food stamps while I buy Giant’s own brand on sale. And I have a job.
One Christmas some 20 years ago, friends asked me to volunteer at The Mission on 14th Street NW in Washington, DC to distribute toys for the needy, and full of Christmas Cheer I agreed. About 30 minutes into my shift, I helped a woman bring free toys to her car: a double-parked Lexus SUV.
I left. “The Poor”. Give me a break.
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That is my experience of “the poor” in America. Yes, there are poor people who are truly needy and royally f’d, and they need assistance, and I would be in so much a better position to help them if I had more money. I don’t because government has taken half, and once again we shall quote our Lord “The poor you will always have with you”. It’s like He knew something we didn’t.
So long as we have this belief that person A has, but person B does not have, so person C can take and give, we have a major flaw in our thinking. Not just our economic thinking, but sociological, cultural, and even moral. It is quite literally “robbing Peter to pay Paul” and yet the Church has succumbed to it. Tragic.
Of course, I am not an anarchist. I understand we need some government, and that very limited government needs funding. So, when Missouri proponents of the income tax repeal stipulated that the revenue shortfall would come from increase sales tax, I celebrated it.
Why? Because I am cheap.
I don’t have a new phone. In fact, I broke it recently and need a new screen, but it still works fine. My TVs are old but work fine. My truck is a 2018, my better half’s jeep is a 2017. Most of my clothes are from Costco. I have three pairs of nice shoes that are almost 15 years old, which I polish myself and get soled when needed by a local cobbler (yes, they are still around). I don’t go to movies. I prefer to cook at home, and groceries are exempt from sales tax.
So, you tell me, which system should I prefer? The one stipulated on the aforementioned poor who, in all likelihood, get weekly manicures and a daily 4000 calorie, venti, white chocolate mocha hazelnut caramel frappa-diabetes with extra whipped cream paying MORE taxes on her purchases, or me, parsimonious, abstemious, me, keeping all of my own earnings?
It isn’t really a hard choice, is it? It does not make me greedy, for no one is greedier than the government official, or, sadly, the Missouri Catholic Bishop, who thinks he is entitled to my labor. Why am I greedy and selfish wanting to keep what I earned?
The Church has thoroughly disappointed me yet again. Our faith leaders should ENCOURAGE work and DISCOURAGE spending. They should welcome more earning and frown upon more consumerism. Of course, you are going to need a couch or a fridge or a car, and the higher taxes are going to stink. Of course. But maybe, just maybe, your current items aren’t all that bad, and keeping up with the Joneses should have a cost.
Missourians have disappointed me, too. Not just the intellectual failure recognizing many states do not have an income and have lower poverty rates, but the moral failure thinking the government has a right to earnings and will somehow solve poverty with it. Socialism, disguised as Christian Charity, creeping into government, our culture, our churches, and our tax code. I will abide by it, but I will not succumb to it or keep silent on it.
Honor and courage.
Daniel Turner is the founder and executive director of Power The Future, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for American energy jobs. He also runs a sheep and cattle farm in rural Virginia. Contact him at daniel@powerthefuture.com and follow him on Twitter @DanielTurnerPTF
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