Church and State

Franklin Graham, son and heir to evangelist Billy Graham, says that "progressive" is just another word for "godless;" and that what godless progressives want most is to take away the tax-exempt status of religious organizations.  In the real world, of course, you're unlikely to find any politician willing to endorse ending religious tax breaks; but that doesn't make it a bad idea.

Religion and politics are inseparable.  Both are systems of social control, evolved to limit certain individualistic behaviors by defining them as deviance: the immoral and the illegal largely overlap.  It follows that every sermon is political speech: no clear line ever has separated Church and State.  Religion has been integral to American politics since the arrival of the Puritans, entangled in every major political debate.  Inevitably, a contribution to a church is a political contribution.

Property tax exemptions for religious organizations deprive local governments of revenue, subsidizing church members at the expense of everybody else, irrespective of need; and the deductibility of donations lets individuals use government funds to advance sectarian ideologies.  Granted, the only feasible path to reform is to make all charitable contributions non-deductible, but given the political abuse of 503(c) corporations and similar manipulations, the time for genuine "tax simplification" has arrived.  Donors will have to give out of genuine altruism; religious donors, perhaps, to avoid joining godless progressives, and anybody else who doubts their "truth," in Hell.

Housing Deductions

Yes, I take the deductions for mortgage interest and property taxes.  Just the same, I think we all can live without either of them, and probably should — in time.

Most important, they're not fair.   Renters pay their landlords'  mortgage interest and property taxes, but the landlords get the tax advantages.  Those who can afford the biggest, most expensive homes get the greatest benefit, and those who can afford multiple homes get even more.  Change has to happen — but given the popularity of of the mortgage and property tax deductions, the big question is how to get those particular loopholes closed.

As Lord Robert Baden-Powell, homosexual hero of the Siege of Mafeking in the Boer War and founder of the Boy Scouts is reputed to have said, "Softly, softly, catchee monkey."  (Damn, those Brit colonialists were so attuned to those they conquered and oppressed.  Nevertheless...)

"Softly, softly" means not all at once.   That makes a lot of sense.  People (with encouragement from their realtors) factor in tax savings when they buy.  Realtors are able to convince them they can afford houses far larger and fancier than they really ought to be considering.  Granted, if they lost their mortgage interest deductions all at once, there would be a hell of a lot more foreclosures.

The obvious answer is to cap the mortgage interest deduction — so only mortgagees of relatively expensive houses would be screwed.  After that, we could drop the cap, year by year.  After ten or fifteen years, the deduction would be gone.  Housing prices would fall, gradually, and families would stop buying more house than they really could afford.  Since mortgage interest is front-loaded, current homeowners should feel little financial impact year to year.  New buyers should be able to predict how the phase-out of the deduction would impact them, and let that help guide their home buying decisions.

The property tax deduction could be phased out in much the same way, only faster.  The greatest impact would be in wealthier, higher-tax areas — and the change might create political pressure for the states to take on more of the burden of funding education, which might create greater equity among school districts.

By the way, I believe the phase-out of any and all deductions should be accompanied by higher tax rates, because when government takes money out of people's pockets, it has an obligation to put some back by providing better services and benefits — but for all, not just for some.

Charitable deductions

Now that there's serious talk of capping deductions from both sides of the aisle, all sorts of interest groups are up in arms trying to carve out exceptions.  I'm not privy to which K Street firms are collecting the largest fees from whom, but I hear an awful lot of noise about the impact on charities.

Donations to organizations that are ideological in nature are not tax deductible — except when they are.  I am not allowed to deduct my contributions to the ACLU, for example, because defending First Amendment rights is, presumably, "political."  Okay, I can live with that.  We ACLU members cannot deduct our contributions, but guess what?  We keep on giving.

One third of all deductible contributions in the United States go to religious organizations.  I imagine some portion of those contributions goes towards feeding the hungry and clothing the naked and such like.  I know that a substantial part goes to proselytizing and missionary work, and I can't see how converting a sucker from one set of cockamamie beliefs to another is any sort of public good.  Tax deductible contributions also are used for agitating on political issues like abortion, contraception, gay marriage, suppression of competing religious practices, etc.

Will members stop donating to their religious organizations if their contributions no longer are tax deductible?  I doubt it — not if they want that afterlife they've been promised.

Then there are the religiously and ethnically affiliated "social welfare" organizations, many of which operate commercial enterprises like bars, bowling alleys, and catering halls.  Paying your tax deductable dues to those gets you cut-rate booze, a convenient place for your Thursday night poker game, and a less expensive venue for your daughter's wedding.  Similar non-sectarian groups provide many of the same benefits, but serve primarily to provide ocassions where local businessmen can hobnob and arrange business transactions.  Yes, such groups do involve themselves in charitable work, but nobody joins for the tax advantage.

People who donate to medical charities usually are motivated by having known someone who suffered with the illness to which the charity is dedicated, not by a tax deduction.  Also, I'm pretty sure rich people will continue to pay to see their names featured on bronze plaques in the lobby of the ballet or outside the hospital emergency room, not to mention engraved on the lintels of university buildings.

Frankly, I don't think capping (or even eliminating) the deduction for charitable contributions would have much impact at all — but if charities having a little less to spend means I'll stop getting all those useless address labels, it's okay with me.

Totally nutzzz

I was just watching the news about the craziness surrounding the Petraeus debacle, and it keeps getting more and more crazy.  I cannot pretend to understand what in hell is going on, except for the undenyable fact that men who exercise power have a hard time keeping their dicks in their pants.  Is that why Mitt Romney lost?  Not enough testosterone?

Anyway,  this morning's Times confirmed that I'm not the only one thinking that Mitt Romney's idea for a cap on deductions and credits, as mentioned in my previous post, is not such a bad idea.  Needless to say, the cap being considered is more than twice what I (and Romney, at least once) had in mind — $35,000.

So who's against it?  Well, according to the Times, universities and other major recipients of charitable contributions.  Needless to say, they want exemptions, and they'll probably get them — and that makes the whole idea useless.  The biggest beneficiaries, I'd guess, would be religious organizations — the Catholics, the Baptists, the Mormons, the Jews, the Muslims, the Scientologists, and all the other well intentioned scam artists currently enjoying tax favoritism — oh! and let's not forget 501(c)(3) organizations like Crossroads GPS.

Anyway, I guess we'll all just be distracted for a while by the escapades of generals and their lady friends.  Obama met with union and progressive leaders today.  Are they happy?  I doubt it.  Tomorrow he meets with corporate big shots.  Will they be happy?

I sure as hell hope not.

Religious Free(dom?)

While we chew our nails in anticipation of tomorrow's elections in Wisconsin, I thought I might distract you a little by looking at the latest "religious freedom" controversy.  In short, Catholic institutions (as distinguished from most Catholics) don't want to pay for contraception for their various Catholic and non-Catholic employees.  Given that Catholicism in America is a pretty large cartel, there are a lot of women with unwanted pregnancies — both Catholic and not Catholic — who work for that cartel.  The bombastic bishops are being goosed ahead by the evangelical right.

When Obama moved the responsibility for contraception from the religious institutions to their private insurance companies, it was a cop-out, of course.  Our President's 2012 campaign song ought to be Paul Simon's "Slip Sliding Away."  Presumably, he didn't use enough lube, because the bishops are still (sans lube) up his ass (despite the fact that he passed through puberty many years ago.)

Personally, I think there's not nearly enough separation of Church and State.  When the right-wing religious ideologues start yelling about the First Amendment, I am inclined to step back, gather up a few thunderclouds, and shout, "Hypocrites!  Woe be unto you!  Surely, the command from the Lord, thy God, is to go fuck thyself!"

Okay.  Let us zipline down from the mountaintop, and get a little more analytical and less emotional.

Mitt Romney tithes to the Mormon church, and 100% of his tithe is tax deductible (even if he doesn't really need the deduction.  He's got more than ample deductions, rate advantages, and credits just by virtue of being rich.)  How much of his tax-deductible tithe was spent on, for example,

• Baptizing dead people, including dead celebrities, victims of the Holocaust, etc.?
• Converting hapless adherents of other faith systems by sending young missionaries around the world?  (Romney, as you may know, was sent to convert the French.  Sacrebleu!)
• Actions to influence the outcomes of legislative initiatives and/or elections?
• Acquiring real estate and hence making it nontaxable?

There's more, of course, but why belabor the point?  I'm not saying that religious organizations never do valuable and real charitable work, nor that the Mormons are worse than any of the others.  Catholic Charities does a great deal of good for the poor, especially children, so donations that go to that aspect of the Catholic Church certainly should be deductible.  On the other hand, donations that go to projects like gilding the cupola, shuffling kiddie-diddling priests around, and suing the United States government over contraception regulations should not.

In other words, I think charity should be defined as money going to do measurable good to those actually in need — and by that, I mean in this life, not some hypothetical next life.

I'm not allowed to deduct my contributions to the ACLU, because they might go to work that is somehow political.  Well, if you think today's churches, synogogues, mosques, etc. are not political, then your head is up your ass.  Isn't it time to take a look at how tax advantaged religious organizations are using the taxpayer money they gain through their tax advantages?

As a totally secular individual paying taxes to subsidize other people's superstitions, I do.

The Islamic Center

I have a problem with the Islamic Center near "Ground Zero." It's the same problem I have with St. Patrick's Cathedral, Temple Emanu-El, and even the perpetually liberal Riverside Church: none of them pay taxes.

Burlington Coat Factory, the putative but discredited "historic monument" that currently occupies the spot of the new Islamic Center, paid both corporate income taxes and property taxes. The new center, being "religious," will pay neither.

Fully half the tax-deductible "charitable contributions" declared on United States income tax forms are to religious organizations. Some of that money goes to people — people who really need help — but much of it goes to maintaining the institutions, their propaganda, and their denigration of competing religious traditions. (How much of the opposition to the Lower Manhattan Islamic Center, one wonders, is funded by tax-deductible contributions? How much is funded by the tax-deductible ADL, for example?)

Like other religious institutions, the Islamic Center probably will deserve part of its tax-free status. If it provides a food bank, relocation of the homeless, day care, dental clinics, or other non-denominational services, support for those projects ought to be tax-deductible. It is entirely reasonable to give tax preference to organizations that benefit the public at large — but not to those which aggrandize their own agendas at the expense of others.

By the way, as I understand it, the Muslims who are sponsoring the Islamic Center are Sufi — ecstatic, non-political, non-violent Muslims who are pretty much the exact opposite of the Salafists of Al Qaeda. That means nothing to Republican opportunists, Fox News, or Harry Reid (who is in a tough re-election campaign.) For the Great American Public, of course, it's all black and white. Muslims are black. So is Obama.

Too bad.