Taxes violate freedom of religion?
The laudable goal of increasing recognition for the right to religious freedom takes a strange twist in an editorial in the newspaper of the Diocese of Brooklyn, which links the issue to taxes. The newspaper makes the argument that high taxes prevent people from donating money to religious charities, including the annual bishop’s appeal. “Personal income is eroded through taxation, therefore freedom to practice one’s religion is also limited,” the editorial states.
I am aghast at this reasoning, especially since I am aware that the publisher of The Tablet, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, appointed a panel from outside the paper’s regular staff to weigh these editorial stances carefully. According to the editorial board:
When over 50% of federal spending goes to entitlements or social services and the total tax burden is rising to the highest level in history, we are confronted with a situation in which the role of the state reaches so deeply into the everyday lives of citizens that it is affecting our ability even to support our religious institutions.
The Tablet’s focus on spending for social services contradicts the budget analysis the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued. It says: “The nation needs to substantially reduce future deficits, but not at the expense of hungry and poor people. Funding focused on reducing poverty should not be cut.” The Tablet blames such spending for taxation at “the highest level in history” – which is factually wrong – to say nothing of whether it is wrong for the church to stoke resentment against those who rely on social services the government provides.
Rather than recommend the bishops’ conference as a source of information, The Tablet refers readers to the Web site of the Heritage Foundation, which has nothing to say about the poor in its briefing on tax policy.
It is unfortunate – I’ll leave it at that - that the diocese, launching its annual appeal this week, is complaining that government spending on social services is depriving its parishioners of the freedom to donate money to the church. Aren’t my donations tax-exempt?
The largest burden to the tax base is the prodigious collection of church property which adds zero to the public treasure while charging market rents. Except for a privileged few they are the poorest paying employers. Italy is seriously considering taxing churches as the economy erodes the contribution of taxes for community welfare. The Tablet has no idea what can of worms it is opening. There are many churches which feed the hungry and clothe the poor. For the most part churches do not do this as they build fiefdoms on the backs of the people. While many people are limited in their travels it is rare to find a pastor who is not well traveled. National Geographic, among secular non profits, has always been well heeled while avoiding taxes. Likely the New York Times which is taxed does more for the public good than National Geographic. Meanwhile Benny Hinn, without missing a step, tells us that he needs his jet to relax while he can’t count his money fast enough.
This is why the political clamor by the American bishops and other right wing groups may strongly remind the public that this group might well pay its share of taxes.
Paul ==
Enter the Heritage Foundation? Hmm. I used to think that our super-conservative bishops were in league with the upper echelon of the Republican Party. Now that the Republican Party doesn’t seem to *have* an upper echelon, I suppose I should look at the conservative foundations as the strange bedfellows of those bishops. Catholicism according to von Mies, Hayek and Milton Friedman?
Paul, you seem to know more than you are letting on. Can you tell astonished observers here in the hinterland who is on the super editorial board that tilts the Tablet? I am not surprised to find the philo/theo logy of Ayn Rand creeping into a Catholic paper, since it seems to be even on the place mats in fast food restaurants these days, but this wild swing of the analytical meat ax has to come directly from a true believer without mediation.
I’ll make a note not to get sick in Brooklyn.
How ridiculous – my father still talks about paying 79% tax rate in the 1970′s. DiMarzio continues to do and say things that only reveal his ignorance; his living in denial; and his constant biases which do little to support catholics who try to understand or who seek to implement in their own lives – “faith seeking understanding”.
When does he reach the age of 75? Hope springs eternal.
Let me see if I’ve got this right. A tax exempt institution is now claiming yet another threat to religious freedom that comes from paying taxes. And so said institution would like more money from its members who are inhibited from donating because that have to pay taxes. The religious freedom of Catholics to be charitable is now threatened by taxation. So an institution that has shown that it cannot responsibly manage the donations of its members wants more money from them, with the blessing of the US government, so that they can waste it on their religious freedom campaigns. Have the bishops hired people to sit in dark corners and think up new threats to religious freedom? What is next? Apple pie?
I am eager to see the rad-trads posting on this site to defend this one. Who will be first?
Don’t be aghast, take the point. Both bishops and newspaper are right. The highest-ever tax spending the paper refers to is no doubt the social diversion of tax money. It’s huge – Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, now Obamacare. And clearly the percentage of tax money spent on the elderly, the sick, and the poor will only increase.
Catholics, like all taxpayers, are well aware of this. They realize, when asked to give to Catholic causes, that most of their federal and state taxes are already going to charity.
The U.S bishops voted overwhelmingly at November’s meeting to give 3% of their diocesan revenues to the newly established ad hoc committee on religious liberty.
Thanks, David. You do not disappoint. Predictably.
Nothing new here. This is classic ‘trickle-down’ theory. The Church has historically aligned with the wealthy who, in turn, would support the Church. The government supporting the poor directly is not the natural order of things. The rich support the church; the church supports (a bit) the poor.
There’s no need to be aghast at the Tablet’s reasoning. The Tablet is concerned about the growth in entitlement spending, as who is not? – cf. the Simpson-Bowles commission or even Paul Krugman. But entitlement spending, which goes to the Rockefellers and the Buffetts as long as there is no means-testing, is not the same as spending to reduce poverty. It’s entirely possible, I would say praiseworthy, to oppose increases in entitlements and to increase spending to reduce poverty. One can embrace the Bishops’ goal regarding the reduction of poverty and at the same time raise alarms about entitlements. In fact, it is arguable that the best way to protect anti-poverty programs is to restrain entitlement growth. In other and simpler words, don’t subsidize the non-needy.
The Tablet cites the Heritage Foundation and repeats their claim that
the “Total Tax Burden Is Rising to Highest Level in History…
Taxes are projected to increase rapidly under various policy scenarios.”
The relevant chart at the Heritage site specifies the year when the “rise to highest level in history” is to take place as 2020, 2023 or 2035, depending on tax policy choices. It does not say that point has been or will be reached in a year or two, which would be alarmist, and therefore is not factually wrong as the post claims. In fact the chart points out that the year 2000 marks the highest level for taxes thus far and we are currently below the level of that year.
If you are afraid of the Heritage Foundation look at the projections from other sources and you will find that at some point in the not too distant future we will reach the highest levels of taxation in history. Of course, Some people will accept that kind of projection only if it comes from the Brookings Foundation but not from Heritage. Regardless, the prospect is worth worrying about (again, even Krugman worries about it;just not right now) Is it too much to hope that those embracing “ecclesiastical economics” would not shrink in horror from the warnings of multiple Cassandras? We’ve experienced housing and high-tech bubbles. We have no excuse to ignore entitlement bubbles. The more Paul Reveres the better.
http://www.heritage.org/budgetchartbook/total-tax-burden
You’re welcome, Alan. I didn’t see your invitation before writing but must have felt it.
Wow .. watch all the 1% move to Brooklyn.. NOT
I agree with much of Patrick Molloy’s thinking except that it has been my experience in the NYC non-profit sector that when there are any cuts in government spending, the charitable organizations get hit first and they get hit hardest. I would welcome entitlement cuts to the wealthy, with the savings redirected to those in need; I just don’t see it happening.
I wonder how Brooklyn Catholic Charities feels about the Bishop’s editorial; they must depend a lot on government funding.
Also, maybe other non-profit employees could weigh in on this: when income tax cuts were initiated in the past, it had no effect at all on the level of individual contributions my organization received. Did anyone else at a nonprofit see an increase in individual giving after tax cuts?
In 2011, the CBO estimated that federal taxes would take up 14.8 percent of the GDP — the lowest percentage since 1950. Under Reagan that figure averaged 18.2 percent and never got below 17.3. The estimated corporate tax increase for 2011 is 1.3 percent of GDP, roughly one-third of what it was in the 1950s. As of 2010, the United States had the lowest corporate tax burden in the developed world (1.8 percent of GDP). There is a difference between the statutory and effective tax rates. Read all about it.
I’m not even sure how to respond to the editorial’s suggestion that U.S. tax policy constitutes a rejection of the Incarnation.
That someone else’s taxes are higher than mine doesn’t prove I’m paying too little.
A couple of thoughts occurred to me last night. 1) My insurance company raised my homeowners rate by 33%. That is money out of my church contributions. I have never filed a claim, but it needs more profits. Will the Tablet editorialize about that? Please.
2) Gasoline prices are going through the roof. Industry experts make it sound as if the reasons are very complicated. But the Tablet can explain, editorially, the most complex economic issues in language anyone can understand. So, will The Tablet please explain my $4 gas, who is getting the $4 and why that doesn’t affect giving to the Diocese of Brooklyn? Thank you.
somewhere in the back of my brain is a memory of reading (and the context, I think, was 19th century England) that there were those who claimed that the scriptural statement “the poor you will always have with you” (Mt. 26:11) meant that it was not only impossible but actually sinful to try to eliminate poverty.
Maybe the Brooklyn Tablet (as opposed to the Catholic Tablet from London) has been seized by the Social Darwinists.
The dioicese of Brooklyn does not acknowledge the military spending– higher than the next 27 nations of the world combined???? The expenditures which we truly owe to the veterans who served– one third with PTSD and and the estimate of 3 trillion to be spent in a lifetime of care for those wounded and other costs from this ill begotten war. The diocese has no credibility at all. The bishops have truly become Republican pawns.
A study this morning indicates most Americans thinkl the fredom of religio nargument etc. is about politics, not princile.
I agree and the bring on board of the highly partisan American heritage foundation underscores that.
Another chick in episcopal credibility they should be”clubbed” with.
Perhaps the Tablet is reacting to government budgets which show falling revenue and increasing demand at the most inopportune times: recessions. The quote below raises an interesting aspect of our tax policy which creates a pernicious problem, one that many people might at first blush consider a positive
In 2011, the CBO estimated that federal taxes would take up 14.8 percent of the GDP…
The problem has partly to do with our steeply progressive income taxes. First, we have come to rely on an ever-smaller group of people to fund an ever larger share of the government’s budget. This group is the very wealthy. Now why is this a problem and why should we care. Its a problem because this group has a highly variable income. With progressive rates, the governments tax revenue becomes even more highly variable. The result is a dramatic decrease in government revenue from 18.5 of GDP in 2007 to 14.8 in 2009. Any one who cares about spending for the poor needs to think long and hard about this for the simple reason that just when the poor need the governments help the most, the government’s revenue is falling dramatically, making cuts in social services highly likely. This ‘progressive’ tax policy is falling on the backs of the needy, the group least able to deal with it. The only way to reduce this problem is to make more people taxpayers. Right now, more than half of all wage earners pay no income tax.
California’s Legislative Analyst Office has been aware of this problem in that state and regularly makes statements like these: Has California become overly dependent on the PIT(Personal Income Tax), given that it is a somewhat volatile revenue source and now accounts for over half of the state’s General Fund total?
Way back in the wee small hours (5:25 a.m.) Irene Baldwin raised a question I hoped to see answered by other employees of non-profits — how much, if any, tax cuts in the past added to the income of their organizations.
The question is still out there. From the giver side, I know that the biggest factor in our giving has been the number of dependent children in the house. At the moment we are near our all-time high in giving, but when Obamacare is abolished and Medicare is “saved” by replacing it with do-it-yourself, I suspect that medical expenses will take over the role children once had. I can’t remember or foresee a time when taxes had anything to do with our giving.
Anyway, if there’s someone out there with actual non-profit receiving experience, please weigh in.
Commonweal is a 501(c)(3). Our donations have been increasing for years.
This is an aside, but connected to the overall topic. Cardinal Dolan’s newest piece on the HHS mandate and the controversy which has developed can be read on his blog:
http://blog.archny.org/?p=2291
Patrick Molloy:
“The relevant chart at the Heritage site specifies the year when the “rise to highest level in history” is to take place as 2020, 2023 or 2035, depending on tax policy choices. It does not say that point has been or will be reached in a year or two, which would be alarmist, and therefore is not factually wrong as the post claims.”
You’re wrong. The original post is correct because it’s referring to the Tablet’s claim.
The Tablet says: “the total tax burden is rising to the highest level in history.” At best this is “mostly false” to use the Politifact’s rubric. As you yourself note the Hertiage foundation doesn’t say it will be reached in a year or two, it attempts to predict the future many years from now. The Tablet, however, implies that the tax burden is “rising to the highest level in history”–as in, currently rising. This is completely false.
Bruce, let me get this straight, the way to make the tax code more progressive is to tax the poor more?
Can someone answer this question for me?
When taxes are raised for public works and the money is spent by the government on those works, it goes back into circulation in the economic system. But what happens to taxes? Is the money put in the Dept. of Treasury pot and used to pay off bonds (thereby re-circulating some of the money if, that is, the bond owners decide to spend it), or are those amounts from the taxpayers simply used to lower the number representing the national debt? (Is there an account in the federal accounting system marked “National Debt” or “Bonds U. S. is Liable for’? If there is, it would seem that there is no immediate effect to raising those taxes.
If the effect of those taxes is only long-term (the money is moved only when the bonds are baid), then it would seem that it is better to raise taxes and spend it on public works if we want to get the economy perking.
Nowhere does Cdl Dolan say he was specifically promised something in the Nov, meeting but only implies that he was disappointed with the mandate. Saul Alinsky always stressed that you get SPECIFIC promises from the ‘target’. Charm is not the most important quality you want from a community organizer. But Goldman Sachs likes charm.
Matt Moses,
The Tablet editorial:
”the total tax burden is rising to the highest level in history”
The Heritage site:
“Total Tax Burden Is Rising to Highest Level in History”
You judge the Heritage claim to be mostly false, the Tablet statement completely false.
IMHO the statements are identical.
BTW, do you know of projections that show that we will never exceed the 20.6% tax burden, currently the highest on record? If not, is it worth worrying about our path, as The Tablet does, or is the tried and true method of kicking the can down the road your preferred alternative?
If anyone wants to consider other scary scenarios, economist Lawrence Kotlikoff supplies one:
“To grasp the magnitude of our nation’s insolvency, consider what tax hikes or spending cuts are needed to eliminate our fiscal gap. The answer is an immediate and permanent 64% increase in all federal revenues or an immediate and permanent 40% cut in all federal noninterest spending.”
http://articles.cnn.com/2011-09-19/opinion/opinion_kotlikoff-us-debt-crisis_1_fiscal-gap-greece-debt?_s=PM:OPINION
While I’m here, I should have noted how refreshing it is to see a post like this one recommending the Bishops’ policies, even if it strains to see opposition between The Tablet and the Bishops. Strange to tell, some Catholic publications have recently been highly critical of the Bishops’ statements and actually side with the Obama administration on a few issues.
I’m guessing The Tablet probably endorses the Bishops’ position re the HHS mandate. If dotcom contributors agree with The Tablet and the Bishops on this issue we have occasion to rejoice. Kudos all around!!!
Are Paul Moses and Matt Moses related?
The Bishop of Brooklyn has a complex view of theo-political economics. Last year, one of his pastors was obliged to return a charitable donation of $50 made to a school. The donor was on the wrong side from DiMarzio in the New York same-sex marriage debate. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michele-somerville/post_2202_b_896334.html
My experience is much like Tom Blackburn’s (11:54am). Many family budget variables and tradeoffs come and go over the years, but I don’t recall or anticipate working on any direct link between changes in taxes and charitable giving. This strikes me as another effort to exploit the current enthusiasm of bishops and politicians for the ill-defined, general-purpose umbrella of religious freedom (pace Thomas Jefferson) on behalf of one’s cause du jour.
It’s no secret that the Bush tax cuts and our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan played a significant role in moving the United States from budget surplus to deficit.
Nor is it a secret that the United States is currently experiencing the lowest effective personal and corporate tax rates in decades. There’s no doubt that entitlement spending needs to be reined in — that’s what the Affordable Care Act is in part designed to do — but tax burden is not the same as effective tax rates, and it’s the latter, coupled with war spending, that has largely gotten us into this mess. Thanks to President Bush and those who voted with him.
Patrick Molloy,
I guess I was giving the heritage foundation too much credit. I thought they made it clearer that their figures were pure conjecture.
Do I know of projections that we’ll never exceed the 20.6% tax burden? No, I don’t. But the burden of proof is on Chicken Little.
That said, if the issue is the budget deficit, we should indeed be talking about tax raises and making changes to entitlements.
The editorial does make an odd connection between church donations to the Annual Appeal (which I take to be what the editorial is *really* about :-)) and tax rates.
I don’t particularly have a problem with Heritage Foundation slide deck – which, by the way, is available here (I don’t believe either the editorial or the original post provided this link): http://www.heritage.org/budgetchartbook/contents Istm that these charts are as true, or not, as that pie chart of total asset valuation by social class that was making the rounds here a few months ago.
My takeaway is that government deficits are really, really bad. We can cut government spending (all in favor, say aye) or raise taxes (all in favor, say aye), or, as Patrick says, kick the can down the road. The editorial calls for citizens to be informed about this issue because it has moral implications. Who could argue?
Jim: Read the last paragraph. Argue with that. Or do whatever one does when engaging paranoid claptrap.
Deficits are not by definition really really bad. There are times when governments must run deficits in order to avert worse fiscal disaster (like another depression). But it is awfully rich for Republicans to complain about a deficit they helped to create with tax cuts mostly for the wealthy and an unnecessary war.
“It’s no secret that the Bush tax cuts and our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan played a significant role in moving the United States from budget surplus to deficit.”
Correction: It’s no secret many Democrats believe that the Bush tax cuts…
“Are Paul Moses and Matt Moses related?”
The larger question is: which one got possession of the stone tablets?
Not to be confused with the Stoned Tablet quoted from above.
Bruce, let me get this straight, the way to make the tax code more progressive is to tax the poor more?
No. Tax revenues need to be more stable. Over-reliance on a highly progressive income tax makes them unstable. That instability hurts the poor the most.
Grant – I think you should argue with it. For myself, I don’t know what it means!
“Bruce, let me get this straight, the way to make the tax code more progressive is to tax the poor more?”
Just as a point of definition, the *percentage* a given tax bracket is taxed is independent of whether or not (or to what extent) the tax code is *progressive*.
I mention this because, at some point in the future, barring a miraculous run of economic prosperity, tax rates will be raised across all tax brackets. And then, yes, the poor, as well as the middle class and the rich, will be paying more taxes. Note that this can be done without affecting the progressive “slope” of the tax code.
(Actually, I do know what the last paragraph means, in the sense that I am capable of understanding the English language, and it is written in complete sentences. I even, sorta, understand what the author means by “incarnational”: that we’re supposed to live our faith, not just inside our churches, but out in the world, making the kingdom real. But that connection to tax rates is still pretty obscure).
I cannot take people seriously who have mortgages and say that debt is bad.
In response to Jim Pauwels’ question: Yes!
Jimmy Mac – I’m wondering which one was left in a basket of reeds and sent floating down the Nile!
I cannot take people seriously who have mortgage interest payment deductions on their tax returns and say that welfare is bad.
Jim P: don’t ask, don’t tell.