Taxes, Authority, and Control

Taxes are usually a pretty controversial issue, which few people seem to give much thought to beyond "higher" or "lower."  What are the purpose of taxes?  And how should they be levied.  Originally, taxes were created to fund the government.  In modern times, they have become one of the main tools for the government to encourage or discourage behavior.  IRAs encourage retirement saving, alcohol taxes discourage drinking, etc.  Recently the Supreme Court upheld the fundamental parts of Obamacare, because it was only enforced through taxation.  That explicitly endorsed this method of implementing change, and got around the existing constitutional limitations on government power.  But how should we be taxed?

Mathematically, there will be an optimal tax rate that generates the most revenue for the government, but not one can accurately determine what that is, due to the complexity of the equation, and the numerous variables involved.  The conservative claim that lowering taxes stimulates the economy enough to increase total revenues is not always true, nor is the liberal claim that raising taxes is a good idea.  A 0% tax rate raises zero revenue, as does a 100% tax rate. (Removing all incentive for a currency economy.)  If we were to graph that, it would give us a Y-value of 0 for input values of 0 and 100, and various positive results in between, forming a curve.  The peak of that curve would be the tax rate that returns the highest total revenue to the government, but the precise shape of that curve is impossible to know with certainty.  Conservatives usually believe that we are past it, while liberals believe we have not yet reached it.

That leads to the next question, which is should the government be trying to receive the maximum possible revenue.  On principle I would say no, only enough to cover the necessary expenses.  But given the $16Trillion debt, I think that at this point that is a reasonable point to aim for.  I don't claim to know what the ideal rate is, I just want to hear a decent debate about it, which would never include the phrases "(raising/lowering) taxes ALWAYS (increases/decreases) tax revenue," which is never a true statement.

Personally, I'd like to pay less in taxes, but I am not opposed to paying "my fair share," whatever that in reality actually is.  But I oppose expanding government, which would lead me to advocate lower rates if it weren't for the fact that the US government never hesitates to borrow money to cover whatever expansion the existing tax revenues don't cover.

But there is one area in particular where I have been examining the effect of the level of authority taxation gives the government.  Churches have traditionally been tax exempt in America, to prevent the government from using excessive taxes as a way of influencing of controlling churches.  But as taxes have become more extensive and valuable, that has had some interesting side effects.  Typically, church donations are tax deductions for the donor, income tax free for the church, which also doesn't pay property taxes, sales taxes, or employment taxes to ministers, who are exempt from income tax as well.  There is nothing necessarily inherently wrong with this, but it leads to an interesting paradox.

The value of these exempted taxes is quite high, and if the government was to change the rules, that would alter the budgets of churches drastically.  The threat to revoke certain church's tax exempt status is now being used by the government to exert authority over them.  I consider this to be a huge threat to the independence of the church, and the separation between church and state.  All anyone needs to do is look to Europe to see the result of that line being blurred.  The Queen of England appoints the leaders of the Church of England, without regard for God or any other spiritual factors.  So how can we remove this threat to the independence of churches?

Ironically the answers seem to be to make what is threatened actually happen.  The original threat appeals to the greed of the church leadership, who don't want to see their church growth limited by tax expenses.  But if churches were already paying the same taxes as everyone else, this wouldn't be a potential threat.  I am not advocating getting rid of tax deductions for donations, just the tax exemptions that churches have.  They could pay property taxes, and sales tax, and employment tax just like everyone else.  There shouldn't necessarily be an income tax for it as a non-profit institution, but it wouldn't be unreasonable for ministers could pay income taxes.  They receive the same citizenship benefits as everyone else does.

I was very opposed to this idea when I first heard it suggested, since it doesn't initially appear to promote church independence from government intervention.  But after pondering it for a while, I began to see the wisdom in it.  And Mark 12:17 could be used to support it from a Biblical perspective.  Now what if the government tries to abuse this power we give them to collect taxes from churches, to influence or control the church?  Well then we fight it as a violation of the separation of church and state, just like we would fight anything else.  But our case would be much clearer in that situation, and it is not like they aren't already trying to abuse the current exempt status to influence churches and their leaders, so we would be no worse off in that regard.  But any abuse of churches would be much more obvious if churches were on the same playing field as all other non-profit entities.

Healthcare and Freedom

The American Revolution was started under the slogan "give me liberty or give me death."  So we can safely conclude that our country was founded on the idea that freedom is more important than survival itself.  But freedom inherently entails a certain level of responsibility for one's self, and one's decisions freely made.

Enter modern healthcare, which has become increasingly expensive, as newer treatments and drugs are developed.  Higher prices have made healthcare prohibitively expensive without insurance.  Inflated prices allow companies to overcharge each other for "out of network" services.  Individual consumers are always "out-of network" and therefore always overcharged.  On top of this, insurance costs have gone through the roof, both for patients, and doctors who fear massive lawsuits if they make a mistake.

So what is to be done about the problem?  One approach is to look to the government to solve the problem.  Now this is necessary to an extent, since they are part of the existing problem, but that doesn't make them the solution.  We do need some changes in regulation that will bring down the cost of healthcare, not just health insurance.  I wouldn't be opposed to banning health insurance for regular preventative care. (Only covering injury and catastrophic illness)  Limiting the costs of liability litigation would be helpful as well.

Instead we see a solution being brought about where the government is being looked to to pay for the costs of healthcare.  This idea is kind of ludicrous since the US government is already the most indebted entity in the history of the world.  So what is the rest of the world doing to solve this problem?  Many have implemented a socialized medicine solution, where the government manages and pays for the entire healthcare system.  So why not do that here?

Because none of those are free countries, not a single one.  How do I know this?  It is impossible for a country to be free if the government runs the health care system.  If the government is paying for your healthcare, they control your healthcare.  If they control your healthcare, they control you.  And therefore, you are no longer free.  Being a free citizen will inherently require that you take responsibility for your own health and healthcare.  And this is why we see such fierce debate about Obamacare and the ACA.  Something much more important than healthcare is at stake here.  Because so many Americans have been willing to die for freedom, we see that freedom is more valuable than health, and it would dishonor their sacrifice to give up our freedom to improve our healthcare.   It's really very simple.

God's Favor Resting on his Followers

I heard an interesting teaching a while back, which isn't explicitly biblical, but that doesn't make it untrue.  It is difficult to prove, and may be self fulfilling at the anecdotal level, but still worth examining.  It relates to God's favor, and how it rests on his followers and is shared by them.  Traditionally certain aspects of God's favor and calling have been shared with others through prayer, and direct contact through the laying on of hands.  But can that favor be shared in other ways?

Someone proposed the idea that we can bring that favor to places we go to, or where we do certain things.  The basic claim was that choosing one option over another either led to, or was a result of, God's favor of that option.  If you are travelling, and stop to get something to eat, there are usually multiple fast food options in a given area.  Besides habitual preference, which one do you choose?  And then what happens?  Have you ever showed up at a business that was totally devoid of customers, and gotten served at once?  And then as you were receiving service looked behind you to find that a line had formed?  The intuitive and natural response to that is: "wow, I got here just in time, before it got busy."  But that assumes that you have no effect on the world around you.  Is it possible that your conscious choice to go their affected others and their decisions of timing?  You definitely didn't force them to, as that would violate free will, but what determines which options occur to us or feel favorable at any given moment?

Once you have been conscious of this possibility for a few months, you will observe all sorts of possible applications of it, but each individual one could easily have been a coincidence.  But being familiar with the principles of blind probability, I would be inclined to think not, even accounting for the fact that people usually ignore the number of examples that don't illustrate their point.  But the most extreme case happened to me last week.

I needed to get my car smogged, and had no idea where I should get it done.  I had coupons to two places, but was discouraged from one option by a former employee.  In the same conversation, another option was recommended to me, because the owners went to my church.  I think choosing it for that reason may have magnified the effect, if it exists at all.  The same place was recommended on a random FB feed from an unrelated friend the next day, so I figured that might be a good place to check out.

I showed up without an appointment, late in the afternoon, fully prepared to come back later if I needed a prior appointment, but hoping that I could get it taken care of all at once.  When I arrived there were no other customers there, and the employees were all sitting around waiting for something to do.  When I went inside I realized the owners were a couple who usually sit right next to me at church, but we had never really talked past basic introductions.  Within minutes people started arriving, and their cars were lining up.  By the time my car was finished 15 minutes later, at least eight other customers arrived, some of whom had to be deferred to future appointments since it was late in the afternoon.  I don't claim to have caused that to happen, but it seemed like a pretty solid illustration of that idea of God's favor resting on his followers, if there is any truth to it at all.

What is Left Behind

I went to see this movie last weekend, only because I was invited as a family outing.  I normally avoid disaster movies because they tap into a deep seated fear I used to have of the rapture and tribulation.  And that is directly what this claims to be addressing, but I agreed to go anyways.  That aspect wasn't as bad as I feared it would be, but only because the movie was so bad, and disconnected from any real discussion about the rapture.

I am not convinced that the rapture is going to happen, because the Biblical evidence to support that idea is pretty weak and vague.  And the very idea is not very consistent with most of the other stories and principles found in the Bible.  But I am aware of the fact that what I believe about the rapture has no effect on whether or not it actually may happen at some point in the future.

The movie was widely panned by critics and viewers alike, and I don't disagree with their assessment of its quality and message, but there are a few points that it brings up that I think are worth examining.  First off, all of the children disappear as well as the Christians.  It doesn't get very detailed about where the age cutoff for that is, but the idea is that "all children go to heaven."  This is fairly contrary to the Catholic idea of original sin, but fits with the protestant idea of the "age of reason" being the point at which people are capable of sinning.  It is the "feel good" way of approaching the issue in that context.

It also assumed that most people had no idea what was actually happening, even when it took place in a very dramatic fashion.  I would have assumed that most people have some inkling of the idea of the Christian rapture, but then maybe I am "sheltered" in that regard.  I am aware that based on our education system, there is a lot that most people graduating high school don't know. (Recent example: "What is 4th of July celebrating?")  But I have always assumed that enough people are aware of the idea, that it would quickly become clear what really happened, if it ever took place.  It would be hard to deny that reality if it happened in the way people claim it will, but people find ways to deny all sorts of things regardless of the evidence, and God doesn't usually do things the way we expect he will.  So those two concepts can easily account for the reason why everyone wouldn't necessarily repent immediately after observing the rapture taking place around them.

I was introduced to an incomplete knowledge of those types of ideas at too young of an age, resulting in an overly strong preoccupation with the fear of it happening.  That has eventually faded away over time, for a couple of reasons.  One is more confidence in my own faith in God, while another is a better understanding of various alternate interpretations of prophesy.  Getting older has an interesting effect on one's perspective on that idea as well.  I have talked to some people who look forward to it happening, an attitude I still can't account for.  But others have explained to me that it eventually seems like a positive alternative to dying.  I view the concept with dread because it seems in all practical ways to be identical to dying at a young age, which I am not in favor of.  The older you get, the less you have to lose in that regard, because the more of your life you have already lived.  Having hope of positive things still to come in the existing world is what makes the end of the world such an unattractive proposition.

I read "Win the World or Escape the Earth" a while back, which contends that God probably won't bring the world to an end in the way the church has traditionally expected him to.  Instead he will be refining and purifying it, similar to the way metal is refined in fire, and that the new creation will take place here, in the same way that Christians are made into a new Creation by Jesus, without actually replacing their physical bodies. (At least not immediately)  Basically it foresees the Christians as the ones "Left Behind" as God's Kingdom.  This approach to eschatology is much more conducive to trying to overcome evil in the world we live in, instead of just abandoning it because "it is all going to burn anyway."

Voting to Solve Problems

Reading the ballot guide for November's election was as depressing as usual.  Our government is in terrible shape, and no one has any idea how to even begin to fix it.  This is clearly true at the national level, and some states are worse off than others.  California is larger than most other countries, so with a system of government that doesn't scale well, we naturally are in worse shape than others.  Nearly everything they do seems to pretty clearly be making things worse.  Most of the measures on the ballot are to amend previous measures that have not worked as designed.  And most bills in congress seem to be the same as the state measures.  They are all convoluted combinations of regulations that are designed to be as confusing as possible, either by their creators, or by their detractors who were able to amend them with something that deliberately makes them terrible.  If we want to have measures on the ballot for voters to exercise authority over their representatives, how about requiring that no bill can be over 100 words in length, and all legislative votes are recorded by name and published within 24 hours, so we know what our representatives are actually doing to represent out interests in government.

I am watching the HBO series John Adams this week, for my third time.  It is very good at illustrating the types of negotiating and compromise that are required to successfully lead and govern a free people.  Representatives are held accountable by the people, and are not isolated from the real consequences of their decisions.  And even back then, on that scale, it was still difficult to achieve much, and the biggest complaint was that congress would not act.  Even that level of compromise and negotiation is unheard of today, and it is getting worse as the political landscape gets more polarized.  But that divide is based on the serious divergence of morals and values that has been taking place for quite some time.  And because the political divide is rooted in a moral divide, the opposing side can’t be compromised, and its followers aren't really respected enough to be negotiated with or listened to.  And so nothing ever really gets resolved.  And the country is too big for people to really notice that as it is taking place.