Christian charity in Alabama… for those who can afford it
Posted on August 18, 2003
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I don’t give a shit about politics in Alabama. I don’t care who wins, who loses… I don’t even care who’s running. But what does get me is stunning, blatant, flagrant hypocrisy.
Alabama Governor Bob Riley is running again. Part of his plaform is a massive tax hike:
The plan would raise the tax threshold from $4,600 to $20,000 for a family of four, and raise the exemption per child from $300 to $2,200, which Riley says would cut or leave income taxes unchanged for two-thirds of the state’s taxpayers. The top third of earners would pay more, as would corporations and large land and timber holders. Alabama’s lowest-in-the-nation property taxes would rise on average to $490 a year on a $100,000 home (a $136 increase) and to $1,540 on a $250,000 home (a $536 increase), according to the governor’s figures. - Alabama Tied in Knots by Tax Vote
That doesn’t sound too bad to me: taxes go up for those who can most afford them, they stay the same for those who can’t. And a $536 per year increase when you’re living in a quarter-million dollar home doesn’t sound particularly crippling. Unfortuntally it’s an extremely radical, unfathombable position for Alabamans (Alabamites? Alabamers?), especially the Christian Right:
But the Christian Coalition of Alabama, which opposes all tax increases, staked out the other side. “We applaud tax relief for the poor. You’ll find most Alabamians have got a charitable heart; they want to do that,” said the group’s president, John Giles. “They just don’t want it coming out of their pocket.”
Thus solidly entrenching yet another paradox in the dogma of fundamentalist Christianity: it’s good to give, it’s just not good to give your own stuff. The mental gymnastics fundamentalists have to go through to keep their world in order boggles my mind.
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