The National Debtby William Edelen Hey . . . Newt Gingrich, have I got a deal for you; and Sonny Bono, pay attention now. Here is your chance to make history and become a real-life hero. I am going to tell you how to balance the national checkbook while saving most of the very valuable social programs and continue supporting the arts, remembering that the arts are the soul of a living culture. If you have the guts and the integrity to bite the big bullet, do it! Read again our Founding Fathers on taxing church property. The biggest rip-off in America is churches and religious groups getting a free ride, especially since the majority are also operating as political action groups involved in every political issue from abortion to capital punishment to civil rights. President James Madison, author of our Bill of Rights and the major contributor to our Constitution, spoke and wrote passionately against the exemption for churches, and also against the incorporation of religious bodies with the power of acquiring property in perpetuity. Madison also, by the way, blasted the idea of paying military chaplains out of public funds. He also, with Jefferson, opposed the idea of having an official chaplain to offer prayers before sessions of the Senate and the House. Since most of the official prayers that I have read belong in the comic books (such as the prayer for OJ.), Madison must be crying in his grave, or wherever he is. President Ulysses Grant put the same thought in these words in his State of the Union message in 1875: "In a growing country, where real estate enhances rapidly with time, as in the United States, there is scarcely a limit to the wealth that may be acquired by corporations, religious or otherwise, if allowed to retain real estate without taxation." What would he think today if he could see the billions of dollars of real estate owned by the Mormon and Roman Catholic organizations, as well as Pat Robertson and the other television shysters, combined with the thousands of others calling themselves "churches?" Never has this ludicrous situation been seen so vividly for the rip-off it is than through the words of U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. In the 1969 Walz case, Douglas wrote the following dissent: "The question in the case is whether believers, organized in church groups, can be made exempt from real estate taxes merely because they are believers, while non-believers, whether organized or not, must pay the real estate tax." And then he added the line that is the real bottom line, as they say: "One of the best ways to establish one or more religions is to subsidize them, which a tax exemption does." Along with the giant religious/political organizations (churches) in this country ripping you and the government off are the thousands of smaller groups calling themselves churches who are involved in this same free ride at your expense. The vast majority are also operating as political power groups, which makes tax exemption for them even more obscene. Fundamentalist churches are up to their ears in political power plays, from trying to control school boards and city councils to threatening or bombing abortion clinics. A tax exemption is obviously a subsidy. That means that you and I are paying for the free ride these religious organizations are getting. The Founding Fathers of this nation would not believe it if they could see it. They saw the outrageous injustice of this situation years and years ago. And so, Newt, and President Clinton, do you want to really cut the deficit? Stop this rip-off and you will find yourself in the company of giants, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. And you will be remembered as a historical giant. And by the way, Newt, one last suggestion, if I have your attention. Tell your Republican Presidential candidate buddies to stop B.S.ing the American people with your phony family values rhetoric. Every one of you has been divorced. I'm not against divorce, Newt. What I am against is hypocrisy and the phony B.S. in your political agenda.
Table of Contents | 1995 Issues | Subscribe Credit card Orders call: 800-321-9054 or fax: (619)676-0433 Truth Seeker is published by Truth Seeker Co., Inc. (ISSN 0041-3712) © 1996 |