Wait, what is she arguing?
(TIME) — Americans often tell pollsters they yearn for a return to the Christian principles on which the U.S. was founded. If so, they should take a closer look at the Mitt Romney–Paul Ryan ticket. Jesus’ teachings regarding wealth are nowhere to be found in Ryan’s budget proposal.
As near as we can tell, Jesus would advocate a tax rate somewhere between 50% (in the vein of “If you have two coats, give one to the man who has none”) and 100% (if you want to get into heaven, be poor). Mostly, he suggested giving all your money up for the benefit of others. And Jesus made no distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor; his love and generosity applied to all.
What about Ryan? Ryan hasn’t released his tax returns yet, so we don’t know what rate he pays. But under his budget plan, according to a recent analysis in the Atlantic, Romney would pay only 0.8% of his income in federal taxes. That’s right: in Ryan’s budget scenario, one of our wealthiest citizens would pay less than 1% of his income in taxes, or less than $200,000 from a taxable income of almost $22 million. When it comes to paying taxes, Ryan is Romney’s wing man.
Theologically informed individuals are beginning to weigh in on the ethics of Ryan’s budget plan. Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of Network, a Catholic social-justice lobby, has called Ryan’s budget proposal “unpatriotic” and “immoral.” As she notes, Ryan’s budget “rejects church teaching about solidarity, inequality … and the common good.” In a recent address at the Holy Trinity Catholic Church, Campbell observed that it’s the government’s responsibility to control society’s excesses. “In our culture of individualism,” she said, Catholic social teachings can “counter that individualism with a keen knowledge of solidarity.”
HT: The Blaze