On Thursday morning, President Obama spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast, a gathering of Christian-minded political, social, and business leaders held annually in Washington, D.C. during his speech, Obama claimed that his plans to raise taxes on wealthy Americans were based, in part, on his faith, saying that Jesus’s teachings have shaped that conclusion.
Jennifer Epstein reported on Obama's comments on Politico.com:
The rich should pay more not only because “I actually think that is going to make economic sense, but for me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus’s teaching that ‘for unto whom much is given, much shall be required,’” Obama said.
As is often the case in politics, especially in times of economic turmoil, taxes have been at the forefront of the public consciousness recently. There has been much talk about Republican candidate Mitt Romney's financial status as an elite, wealthy businessman, and his seemingly disproportionate tax "burden."
I recently saw an political ad posted on Facebook that originated from the non-profit group, The Other 98%. The poster featured two images. The first was a black and white photo, purportedly from 1984, of a young Mitt Romney and (I assume) several business associates clowning around with paper money of unspecified denomination. This was juxtaposed with a color photo of a "School Teacher" surrounded by adoring children. The text read as follows:
Mitt Romney, Tax Rate: 13.9%
School Teacher, Tax Rate: 25%
THERE IS SOMETHING DEEPLY WRONG HERE
I reacted rather strongly to this very deceptive piece of political propaganda and posted an aggravated soapbox-style rant in response (which I will reiterate in less volatile verbiage below). But existence of the poster in the first place is strong evidence of how strongly we are very concerned about taxation in general, and inequalities (perceived or real) in particular, in the taxation process.
Obama's echoes the sentiment of the ad above, contending that since the wealthy have more, they should be taxed more, and he uses the biblical injunction "where much is given, much is required," to validate why this should be so. I have several problems with his argument, though.
I believe this ignores two very basic elements of Christian doctrine. First, God already has a financial plan for procuring funds, if you will, and it's a flat tax. It's called tithing. The term itself defines what a tithe is, as it is an etymological descendant of the Old English word, teogoþa, meaning "tenth." The concept that a tithe was a "tenth" goes back as least as far as the time of Abraham in the Old Testament. As far as I am aware, no where in either the Old or New Testament are there any instructions saying that the percentage of what you give as a tithe should be greater or less than a tenth depending on how wealthy you were.
(Now there is much argument about the place of tithing in modern Christianity: what a tithe is, how much should be given, by whom, and when. But for the sake of this discussion I will stick with the traditional definition.)
For his argument as to why the rich should be taxed more, Obama cites this phrase from the Parable of the Faithful Servant in Luke 12:48: "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required..." This counsel has traditionally been interpreted as meaning that we are accountable for the knowledge, resources, abilities, etc. that God has blessed us with. If we have been given much, then He expects that much more from us.
However, this is not the same thing as the tithe that God has commanded we return to him. These blessings, freely given from God, are meant to then be freely shared again by those who have been blessed. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not based on coercion, but the principle of agency. Even the required tithe itself is ultimately given freely, by choosing to keep the commandment given.
Which brings us back to Mitt Romney and his taxes. I will quote directly from Philip Klein's editorial of Jan. 12, 2012, in The Washingon Examiner :
"Liberals have seized on the fact that [Romney's] effective tax rate was 13.9 percent in 2010 and estimated at 15.4 percent for 2011. The reason is that he earned most of his money from investments held in blind trusts, which is taxed at a lower rate of 15 percent. However, the capital gains tax rate takes into account the fact that income earned by investments is already subjected to a 35 percent corporate tax rate... By all accounts, he paid what he owed under the law."
So how about that "where much is given, much is required" element. What else do Romney do, of his own free will, with all that money he was earning? Klein explains, "In addition to his taxes, Romney has given around 16.4 percent of his income over the past two years to charity through his family charity, the Tyler Foundation. In addition to donations to the Mormon church, here’s where else Romney and his wife Ann donated money: the Boys and Girls Club of Boston, the Center for the Treatment of Pediatric MS, the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Homes for Our Troops, and the Inner-City Scholarship Fund, among others."
As Jennifer Rubin summarized in the Washington Post, Romney paid out 42 percent of his income in taxes and charity.
Now isn't that the way it should be? Romney paid his taxes according to the law, but on top of that, he paid out twice again as much as he was legally required in charitable donations. I would say that he fulfilled both his legal and moral obligations as both a Christian and a humanitarian.
The main problem here is not a matter of who bears the greater tax burden. Rather, it is our societal tendency toward materialism and greed, and that affects all strata of society, from the least to the most affluent. The poor want what they don't have, the rich want to keep what they do have, and most everyone seems to want more than the other person has.
The scripture we should be thinking about here is the story of the widow's mite (Mark 12:41-44 , Luke 21:1-4). In the story, a widow donates two small coins, while wealthy people donate much more. Witnessing the donations made by the rich men, Jesus highlights how a poor widow donates only two mites, the least valuable coins available at the time. But, Jesus observes, this sum was everything she had to her name, while the other people give only a small portion of their own wealth.
The point is that rather than trying to accumulate as much wealth and as many unnecessary and extravagant toys as we can, we should practice provident living. Use what money we need to subsist, even perhaps comfortable so, but be generous with the rest. If we all faced life with the attitude of making sure the needs of those around us were met as well as our own, then we would truly be living in a equitable society. The cure to our economic ills comes not from the government playing Robin Hood, but rather from us, as individuals, freely giving to others of that which we have already been blessed with from God.
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A Comment on Propaganda:
The political poster mentioned above is an example of the egregiously misleading information so commonly used in promotion of numerous causes. In this case, the argument presented is blatantly fallacious. I will point out two.
Argumentum ad populum, (or appeal to pity) is an argument aimed to sway popular support by appealing to sentimental weakness rather than facts and reasons. The presentation of the argument in question, both in its composition and choice of subjects, is intended to sway the viewer on an emotional level. The viewer is supposed to identify and sympathize with the adored but over-burdened common person in the form of the teacher, while feeling antipathy for the elite business man apparently flaunting his wealth.
This feeling of pity is reinforced by the inclusion of two seemingly inequitable figures. However, this is an example of fallacy of conflation (or apples to oranges), where two different concepts are treated as one. In this case, two tax numbers are presented, but they are not the same number. The first number, 13.9%, is an effective tax rate, which is the percentage of total income actually paid in taxes. The figure 25% is merely a tax bracket, which is the nominal rate at which certain income levels are taxed before deductions and credits are applied. This has very little to do with the actual effective tax rate. For instance, at my income level--which in my industry is quite similar to the salary rates of public school teachers--and depending on whether I file as Single or Head of Household, I fall into either the 15% or 25% tax bracket. Yet my effective tax rate was only 3.9%.
Regarding the effective marginal rate, Jim Pethokoukis writes in The Enterprise Blog::
“While Romney’s tax rate is — in his own words — ‘probably closer to 15 percent than anything,’ that’s still higher than the 8.2 percent average effective income tax rate (as of 2010) of U.S. households (once you factor in various tax credits). Indeed, nearly half of U.S. households pay no income tax at all. Their average effective tax rate is actually negative. Even if you add in the payroll tax, the effective tax rate of the middle fifth of U.S. taxpayers is 12.8 percent.”
In essence, be sparing in your credulity. Many things out there do not deserve being taken at face value.
