[Dialogue] Spong on taxes

[KroegerD@aol.com]

April 20, 2005 
Dear Friends,  
The College of Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church has made its decision  
in the election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to the See of Rome. That action  
occurred after the deadline for this column, so I simply take note of it today 
 and will comment next week on both the pontificate of John Paul II and the  
direction indicated by the choice of the one who will be known as Benedict 
XVI.  
-John Shelby Spong  
Whose Money Is It? A  Meditation on April 15th 
"It is time for the government to give you back some of your own money."  
These were the words of President George W. Bush when he was campaigning for a  
massive tax cut that Congress voted into law during his first term.  
"I am very much in favor of our youngest workers having the ability to set  
aside a small portion of their own money to invest in a personal account that  
will build equity for them and a sense of ownership in America." These were 
the  words of President Bush at a press conference in March of 2005 as he sought 
 support for his proposed plan to reform Social Security.  
April 15 each year is the due date for tax payments to the Federal and State  
Governments based on the previous year's income. We have just gone through 
it.  It is a day dreaded by many, looked forward to by few. Taxation is the 
place  where citizens feel the burden of citizenship. In listening to political  
figures, however, one gets the impression that some of them believe that no one 
 ought to pay any taxes. It is certainly politically popular to lower rather 
than  to raise taxes. This nation, guided by this mentality, has moved 
significantly  to lessen that burden in recent years. The tax rates on dividends and 
capital  gains have both been cut substantially. The percentage of the total 
amount of  all taxes collected from the wealthiest citizens of this nation has 
decreased  notably in the last 50 years. The amount of inheritance tax due 
upon the death  of those citizens, whose wealth is in the tens of millions, is on 
a schedule to  be phased out completely over the next few years. These are 
popular strategies  until the nation begins to understand that the quality of 
life is impaired when  we move too far in that direction. As part of the 
campaign for tax cuts the  claim is always made that the money collected in taxes is 
really 'your own  money.' The government is therefore guilty of 'confiscating' 
your property. It  is an interesting argument. It sounds fair to allow those 
whose money it is to  retain more of it. No one seems to notice or perhaps to 
care that while these  wonderful tax breaks have been received, the budget 
deficit of this country has  risen to an all time high and is growing daily. That 
deficit does not yet  include the cost of the Iraqi war, nor is there any 
amount included to offset  the new deficit that will be established if private 
accounts are taken out of  the Social Security system. It is in the 
juxtaposition of these realities that  an enormous moral question must be raised. There is 
no better time to do it than  while the April 15, 2005, tax due date is still 
fresh in our minds.  
"Whose money is it?" Is there a claim that the whole society has a right to  
make on an individual's wealth that is the legitimate basis for taxation? 
Where  is the line to be drawn between private wealth and public good? Is it a  
patriotic act to avoid legitimate taxation by sending your corporate  
headquarters to Bermuda? Is there not a basic legitimacy for the payment of fair  and 
equitable taxes on the part of every citizen? Do we not realize that America  is 
still today the least taxed country in the developed world? Is it not also  
the nation with the highest percentage of people without health care? Are these 
 things not related? Does it matter?  
If we receive benefits for our tax dollars that none of us would be willing  
to sacrifice, then are not our taxes something we owe? Can it then be said to 
be  'our money'? Do any of us want to live in a nation that has no parks for 
its  citizens, that does not guarantee the quality of the water we drink, the 
air we  breathe, the food we eat or the medicine we take? No citizen can 
provide these  things for himself or herself and yet our individual lives are 
dependent on each  of them. Do any of us want to live in a nation that has no feder
al or state  roads, highways, bridges or tunnels over which or under which we 
may travel in  our cars to pursue business or to see family and friends? Do any 
of us want to  live in a nation that has no regulations governing airline 
security and no way  to guarantee the safety of the planes on which we fly? Do we 
want to live in a  nation that cannot secure its people from enemies, whether 
that be by providing  our armed forces against those who might wish to harm 
us from abroad or by  giving us adequate police and fire protection against 
people or events that  might harm us internally. All of those things cost money 
but all of them are in  my mind worth whatever they cost. Since our lives 
depend on our government to  provide these basic services to us, are the taxes we 
are required to pay really  'my' money or do they represent the natural and 
normal cost required for our  lives to be lived, a legitimate expense that 
guarantees to us a quality of life  that we want and desire?  
I, for one, do want our seniors or our parents who worked and saved all of  
their lives to have a government that will guarantee them a pension called  
Social Security, designed to provide them with a floor of security and dignity  
in the final years of their lives. I do want a government that will provide for 
 me and for my family basic security from terrorists who seek to enter this  
nation. I do want a government that will guarantee the solvency of my savings 
in  banks and the honesty of the financial industry that issues stocks and 
bonds. I  do want a government that will certify that when the pump says I have 
received a  gallon of gas that I have actually received a full gallon. I want a 
government  that will support education, make it possible for my children to 
attend public  schools and, if their ability allows it, to receive a 
university education at a  cost that an average person can afford. I want a government 
that will encourage  the unbounded human spirit to press new frontiers, to 
explore space, to fund the  search to find cures for cancer, heart disease, 
diabetes and thousands of other  diseases that snuff out life for many and affect 
the quality of life for all. I  want the opportunity of choosing to live in 
this kind of world so should I not  also expect to pay for it? Does that make my 
taxes, "my money?"  
I believe that the taxes I pay in this country are the best bargain in my  
entire budget. I would not trade the benefits I receive in order to get back the 
 taxes I pay and I think it is time for someone to say so publicly. Taxes are 
not  "my money" that some alien government seeks to extort from one of its 
citizens.  Taxes are the price I pay for the privilege of living in this land of 
freedom  and opportunity. I treasure my citizenship in the United States. 
This does not  mean that I am now, or have been in the past, supportive of every 
decision that  a particular government of my nation might make. Individual 
political decisions  are issues that I as a citizen can fight in the appropriate 
political arena.  Some of those decisions are major, life-altering decisions. 
I think the decision  not to provide health care for all is wrong. I grieve at 
the plight of the poor  when illness strikes. I think Social Security should 
be fully funded not  dismantled. Social Security, which was created only in 
1935, kept my family  afloat when my father died in 1943 and I was not 12 years 
old. He had paid into  that fund for only eight years. Yet it supported my 
mother and her three young  children when there was nothing else on which to 
depend. I also think that  giving tax reductions to our wealthiest citizens while 
refusing to raise the  minimum wage for our poorest citizens is quite simply 
immoral. I think the  "contract with America" that removed many government 
restrictions that  guaranteed the honesty of American business practices is what 
has given us the  corruption found in the Enrons, the World Coms, the AIG's, 
the Quests and the  Health Souths of recent years. I think there are some things 
so basic to life  that they ought to be federalized, not so that they are 
profitable but so that  the citizens may be well served. Even when I list all of 
my complaints about the  way this nation has been and is now being 
administered, even as I fight and lose  on some of these issues, I still would not swap 
America for any other nation I  know in the world. Since that is so I count it 
an incredible privilege to pay  the taxes that I am required to pay to my 
city, to my state and to my federal  government.  
Patriotism takes many forms. To me it is far more than saluting the flag or  
observing the Fourth of July. It is more than supporting our troops who are  
deployed in faraway places. Patriotism means that I place the common good of my 
 nation on a par with my assessment of my own personal good. It means that I  
rejoice in my annual opportunity on April 15 to do my part to keep my nation  
free and strong. It means that I must constantly recognize that my security 
has  no meaning outside the security of my nation. My well-being has no meaning 
 outside the well being of my country. Patriotism also means opposing a  
militaristic foreign policy that diminishes the reputation of my country among  
the nations of the world. Patriotism certainly does not mean seeking to destroy  
the common good in order to enhance my personal worth. That is why I am 
always  amazed at the number of our citizens, who speak as super patriots, and yet 
who  seem to believe that patriotism does not include the willingness to pay 
one's  share of a fair and equitable taxation program that makes it possible 
for this  great nation to be what it is.  
When I wrote my check to the Internal Revenue Service of the United States, I 
 did so thinking of the great things that my taxes bring me. I did so as one  
still privileged to be critical of the political decisions of this particular 
 government. I did so hopeful that a war in Iraq that I thought was not only  
disastrous but morally wrong, might still turn out to bring freedom to the  
Middle East, to allow a Palestinian state to be developed and may yet still  
guarantee the security of Israel for centuries to come. I wrote that check with  
the hope that politicians may yet come to understand that one does not gut 
the  public good in order to give tax breaks to the wealthiest citizens. I did 
so  with the conscious awareness that my taxes will inevitably have to be 
raised at  some point in the not so far distant future to address the deficit and 
protect  our nation's financial competence in that future. When that day comes, 
the  patriotic thing to do will be to vote to raise those taxes. Then we will 
see the  difference between the patriots of conviction and the patriots of 
rhetoric. It  costs money to live in the United States. I treasure that 
privilege so I  willingly pay the price required. April 15th was my time to give 
thanks for the  joy of citizenship in this land! 
-- John Shelby Spong 
Question and Answer
With John  Shelby Spong 
Katy from York, PA, writes:  
I recently read intently your article about God and the tsunami. Yes, you are 
 so correct that we are in the process of a "God" revolution. I studied Job 
at  the Lancaster Theological Seminary and at last realized that we humans are 
just  that - human. God is God and we have little comprehension of who God is 
or what  God's purpose is. Job was not patient as was commonly believed but 
suffered  mightily in spite of his "good" deeds and godly life. I don't care for 
the magic  ending; however theologically the book offered many insights into 
the age-old  question of what kind of God could allow the tsunami to occur. 
Perhaps if we  view life as a Pollyanna, we can say that the world has come 
together to assist  the suffering people and that the lives lost were martyred to 
that cause.  Perhaps the disaster points into the direction that the hideous 
war in Iraq has  no meaning and should end immediately.  
Dear Katy:  
Like you I regard Job as one of the special and insightful books of the  
entire Bible. However, I do not think that Job addresses the theological issues  
raised by the tsunami. Job and his comforters are still stuck in a theistic  
definition of God so they seek to make sense out of life's tragedies without  
sacrificing theism. I no longer think that is a possibility. Once you define God 
 as a being, supernatural in power, dwelling outside the world but capable of 
 intervening from time to time to reward or punish, then you must spend great 
 amounts of time seeking to explain why God did this or did not do that. That 
is  the Job debate and it ends about where your letter does. You say we will 
never  understand "because we humans are just that, human."  
It may be both real and comforting to contemplate that God is present in the  
human response of coming together to address the need. But that does not 
really  answer the question raised by the tsunami. That question is, "Is God in 
charge?"  Is there a Being who has the power to direct the affairs of history? 
If your  answer to that question is no, as I believe most contemporary 
theologians are  prone to say, then people assume you are saying that at worst, there 
is no God  or if there is, it doesn't matter because God has no power. That is 
what drives  us to recognize that theism, as a definition of God, is a human 
creation and  that the time has come for us to lay our creation aside and to 
move beyond it  into a radically new theological quest. I am working on a 
column now that should  appear before June, on a question addressed to me several 
years ago: Can one be  a Christian without being a Theist? My answer is a 
resounding yes, but I will  try to put more flesh on those bare bones later.  
Thank you for continuing the probe.  
--John Shelby Spong