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Entry: Greenspan's Gambits Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/greenspans_gambits#5608 Post contents: The old Church tax was a tithe, or a flat 10% of income, not a graduated or progressive levy. To find the origins of the graduated income tax one must look in "The Communist Manifesto." If the state could handle all social welfare expenses for a flat 10% tax and pay for the upkeep of buildings and personnel to administer it, that would be a better deal than we have now. Even if this were true, the compulsory support of the Church by taxation (which continued in Britain after the Reformation, by the way) was based on the Donation of Constantine, which we now know to have been forged. State churches lead to clergy who are, in Jefferson's words, "more concerned for their emoluments than with their duties." Christianity is almost dead in Europe, where it was historically supported by taxes, leading to the resentment expressed in the lyrics to the old English song "Harvest Home": "We've cheated the parson, We'll cheat him again, For why should a blockhead Have one part in ten?" The comparative vigor of Christianity in the United States is precisely due to the voluntary nature of its economic support here. Clergy have to persuade their congregations that they are receiving value for their money, as opposed to collecting a check from the state as they still do in many European countries. John Ball, you are merely recycling Mark Twain's old witticism that the only native-born American criminal class is Congress. Joe Populist, if the employer's contribution to social insurance is "just an accounting triviality," then why did the politicians who invented it, stress the employer's contribution? FDR and his New Dealers carefully emphasized that the employer would pay half of the Social Security levy; Lloyd George boasted that his National Insurance act would be paid at a rate of ninepence from the employer and fourpence from the employee, respectively, for each pound of wages.Somehow the architects of these policies did not understand that all the cost of social insurance comes out of the employee's pocket. I have taken them at their word. You appear to maintain that they were either ignorant or lying. As far as what religious attitudes toward income redistribution ought to be, I direct you to Prov. 23:21: "For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags." Also to Prov. 25:30-43: "I went by the filed of the slothful, and the vineyard of the man void of understanding; "And, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down. "Then I saw, and considered it well: I looked upon it, and received instruction. "Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: "So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth; and thy want as an armed man." It is not the proper purpose of charity to ease the lot of people who have come to ruin through their own improvidence or vicious habits. I'm against income taxation generally. It would suit me fine if the Sixteenth Amendment was repealed, and the cost of the Federal government cut back to the 5% of GDP it was before the First World War. Sent at: 2008 11 22