Taxing the uninformed
Also posted at Gathering Voices a blog for TheThoughtfulChristian.com
The Obamas and Bidens released their tax returns this week. If you were wondering, President Obama made $1.7 million, well down from last year (I guess e-book sales really are hurting authors these days). The Bidens’ income was $379,000, though their charitable giving of 1.4% of their income is pretty poor if you ask me (including, by the way, $1000 to Westminster Presbyterian Church). In any case, the President and Vice President’s tax returns are now public.
In Norway, all tax returns are published online. All of them — not just those of public officials. I grew up the son of a pastor whose annual salary was posted on the bulletin board in the main hallway of the church. When I was hired as a pastor in Hallock, my salary was approved by the congregation and the presbytery. Openness. Accountability. Transparency.
Though some public positions require one’s salary to be posted for all to see, the general practice in the US is to be very tight-lipped about one’s salary. It’s fine to complain generally about paying too many taxes, but one doesn’t get too specific. In fact, even as a pastor whose salary is pretty darn public, I can’t recall ever having had a conversation with a friend about how much money we make.
With my peers it’s ok to complain about student loans. I’ve playfully fought over who should pay many a bar tab, but talking specifics of salary, charitable donations, retirement savings and that sort of thing. Well, we just wouldn’t do that.
I wish it were different.
I wish we had more open and honest conversations about money, giving, spending, and debt.
I wish we were like those in some spiritual communities who meet annually to hold each other accountable, spending included.
I wish we all posted our salaries on a public bulletin board, or online.
And I wish, when we did that, we might come to understand salvation comes from God not money.
I know it’s not particularly helpful to simply complain and wish for pie-in-the-sky happenings, but I find it difficult to do more when it comes to US conversations about money. Take this CNN poll that recently found Americans so far off in their estimations of US government expenditures that, upon reading the results, you either have to laugh or crawl up in a ball crying.
According to the poll, on average Americans think we spend 10% of the budget on foriegn aid — the actual number is close to 1%. They think we spend 5% on public broacasting while the real percentage is a tenth of 1%. They also mistakenly assume we spend many more times the actual dollar on low income housing and food programs.
So what is a thoughtful Christian to do? Well, first of all, one could check out the cool Federal Tax Receipt program at the White House website. Put in how much you paid in taxes this year and out pops the proportion of what went where. Pretty spiffy, really.
After posting the tax recepit calculator to my Facebook page this week, a pastor friend commented wondering if congregations should make similar recepts for stewardship campaign season. I thought that was a brilliant ideal. I’ll add it to my list of wishes. How much to buy three?
image by brainloc
Additional Resources from www.TheThoughtfulChristian.com
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“Should Churches Pay Taxes?” by Edward Leroy Long Jr. (Adult Study)
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“Why We Pay Taxes,” by Brent Waters (Adult Study)
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“The Tea Party Movement: A Return to Basic American Principles or a Radical Departure?” by Aaron Hoffmann (Adult Study)
A Quick Gender Analysis of President Obama’s Libya Speech
This post was supposed to be on President’s Obama lack of inclusive language in his Libya speech last week. After many years of President Bush using “man” to mean “human” and “mankind” to supposedly include women, I had become sick and tired of hearing such male-dominated rhetoric from presidents. So, after I heard President Obama using several similar phrases last week, I planned to write a post complaining about Obama’s continuation of Bush’s exclusivity. As I looked into the matter more carefully, however, I found that perhaps I was oversensitive. In fact, President Obama’s Libya speech included fairly consistent inclusive language, only straying on two occasions.
The speech begins by thanking our “men and women in uniform.” Obama used this inclusive phrase three times. Though it could be argued that the “in uniform” descriptor tends to dehumanize the soldiers — emphasizing the uniformity of their clothing rather than their humanity — I’ll take the “and women” part for certain. Thanks, Mr. President.
Next, Obama used “human” instead of “man” several times. For instance, the phrase “our responsibilities to our fellow human beings” could easily have ended with “fellow man.” But it didn’t. Similarly he refrained from including “all men” in the following construction, “challenges that threaten our common humanity and our common security.”
But there were a few slip-ups, some more justifiable than others. First, Obama used the historic “airmen” and “Coast Guardsmen” appellations several times. I get it — just like the word “freshman” for college first-years — the habit of using old important phrases that were once accurate is a difficult habit to break. Perhaps I should cut the president some slack on this one. Rome wasn’t built in a day, after all. 20% of the military is made up of women, but they don’t fly combat missions. OK, point taken — but I still think there’s room for improvement next time, Mr. President. Repeat after me: “Guardsmen, Guardswomen….”
The only inclusive language stunner came in the speech’s final moments. Obama said, “We have [protected people] because we know that our own future is safer, our own future is brighter, if more of mankind can live with the bright light of freedom and dignity.”
On a final reading, this is the only egregious non-inclusive phrase I can find (by quickly scanning and searching, at least). In fact, it’s sort of hard to figure why, after so many times using careful inclusive language, he slips into “mankind” instead of “humankind” at the close. Was he just getting tired? Did he intentionally leave it in to keep people like me on their toes? Did he mean to appeal to some old-fashioned voters — or just sound presidential? Who knows.
So it turns out I should not have been so quick to judge. While leaving room for improvement, Obama’s inclusivity should be noted and appreciated (to say nothing of the fine speech as a whole). So I’ll give the guy his due. Thanks, Mr. President, you sure know when to man-up.
image by Edwin Pijpe
Barack Obama is not a Muslim (well, it depends who you ask)
A Pew research poll yesterday found that only 34% of Americans can correctly identify President Obama as a Christian. This number is down 17 percentage points from those who identified his Christian faith correctly during the 2008 campaign (apparently folks are forgetful about their leader’s faith?). 24% of Americans incorrectly believe Obama is Muslim. (And the Pew poll was conducted before Obama weighed in on the Park51/Cordoba House project question. Here is a similar TIME poll.)
Before I go further, let me follow Amy Sullivan’s lead (here) and note what must be said at this point. Sullivan writes:
Let me pause for a moment here to say that it is of course not a smear to call someone a Muslim. It is, however, obnoxious to say someone is a member of a religious faith when he’s not–and to insist that he is not a member of the tradition he does claim. It would also be foolish and naive to pretend that conservatives who call Obama a Muslim are doing it in a neutral way and that their intention is not to raise questions about his “otherness.”
By the way, for those who actually want to think deeply on Obama’s faith, pick up a copy of The Faith of Barack Obama by Stephen Mansfield. But here’s what this outrageous poll data causes me to ponder:
First, I’m struck by the fact that though I interact with hundreds of people personally and professionally, I’d be hard-pressed to name more than a handful who might believe President Obama is Muslim. But, according to the poll, 1 in 4 Americans believe so. This reminds me of my sheltered nature, of the cliquishness of American life, and my self-selected friends and relations. Additionally, since Obama’s faith practically never comes up in regular conversation, I wonder if perhaps I’m just way off presuming my friends and relations have accurate understandings of Obama’s faith.
Second, who knows how really to delve into such things via a poll, but I wonder how much the faith poll numbers would correspond to more overt racism if pollsters asked the right question. My guess is that many of those who believe Obama is Muslim might also be very uncomfortable with those of other faiths and those of other skin colors in general. (For example, the TIME poll finds, “Nearly one-third of the country thinks adherents of Islam should be barred from running for President.”) Perhaps it’s the case that maligning Islam is somehow culturally okay, while overtly using racial epithets crosses a time-honored line.
Finally, I profoundly disagree with Sullivan’s statement in her analysis that, “In a perfect world, nobody would give a hoot whether the president went to church or said grace before meals or ever uttered one word publicly about his religious beliefs.” Religious belief is hugely important to me, as is any moral underpinnings or claims about the end times, or belief in divine interventionism, or God’s loving nature, or God’s non-existence, etc.. I will happily vote for candidates of many religious faiths (or none), but I will always seek to do so considering a candidate’s faith, thoughtfulness, and positions on the issues. I appreciate Sullivan’s reporting, but I’ll go to my grave professing that faith matters matter. And that’s what’s awesome about the US and the First Amendment — and very scary about this poll data.
Update: Amy Sullivan reflects a bit more on 8/20/10 in “Are One-Quarter of Americans Freakin’ Morons”
Creative Commons image by Alex Johnson
Praying (or not?), "O God of Our Many Understandings"
image by Dez Pain
Thanks to Mary and TellingSecrets, I paste below Bishop Gene Robinson’s prayer at the inaugural festivities yesterday. He did, as he said, and prayed to the “God of our many understandings.” I respect Bishop Robinson for many a personal trait and a theological stance, but I differ with him on this decision.
From my point of view, Bishop Robinson, an Episcopal priest, was asked to pray because of who is he is: a religious figure, yes, but one particularly of the Episcopal tradition. This tradition brings with it certain theological claims, like, um, “Jesus is Lord” and “God is Triune.” It’s a tradition that leaves plenty of room for the Spirit to reveal to us more knowledge of God and God’s work in the world, but it’s a tradition that has clear creeds, makes clear claims about God who we understand in a particular way.
I’m from the school of thought — and, I confess, at a seminary that tends to lean towards this school — that inter-religious dialogue is cheapened when we try to make God into a common denominator like “God of our many understandings.” Instead, coming to the inter-religious table knowing much about your own faith, making clear claims about the God in whom you believe, I think, leads to richer, deeper, more honest conversation. Instead of some fluffy unknown unrevealed God, we can address the God we know and understand, tell others about that God, and our faith may be deepened and our knowledge expanded by the conversations that follow.
On his blog, Robinson writes, “I have received a lot of critical email since announcing that my prayer would not be overtly or aggressively Christian, as most of the inaugural prayers of the last 30 years have been. My plan is to address this prayer to the “God of our many understandings,” acknowledging that no one Christian denomination nor no one faith tradition knows all there is to know about God. Each of us is privy to a piece of God, as experienced in our faith tradition. My hope is to pray a prayer that ALL people of faith can join me in.”
What if my “understanding of God” is that God only helps those who help themselves, or hates people with blue eyes, or damns those who fail to recycle? Did Bishop Robinson lead me in prayer too? I guess so.
I don’t understand how one can have such an open-ended address to God, and then pray for so many particular things. It seems to me that if one is consistent about such a stance one would need to just leave a time of silence for everyone to lift up their own particular understandings of what the prayer should include. As soon as you start to make everyone happy in a prayer, or invite all to join, you’re surely leaving out others by the very nature of that invitation in the first place.
I’ll put the full prayer up below. I’ll definitely give him props for the line, “our new president is a human being, not a messiah” and the two-fold nature of the prayer for big-picture justice and then for Obama in particular is nice. Inter-religious stuff is HARD to do with integrity and I’m totally not looking forward to my first experiences. But, when I have them, I’ll bring to the table who I am, what I believe in, and testify to the God in whom I trust.
Bishop Gene Robinson’s Prayer:
O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.
Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.
Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.
Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.
Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.
Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.
And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.
Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.
Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.
Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.
Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.
Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.
Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.
And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.
AMEN.
I'm a Georgia Voter
I voted on Friday. It took an hour. It was amazing. When we arrived at the Dekalb County Office we saw plenty of cars in the parking lot and figured we’d probably have to wait a bit in line, so we weren’t too surprised to see the line, once we got inside, went a good ways down the hallway. So we picked up our forms and started following it.
And following it.
And following….
We walked all the way down a long hallway and turned, only to walk a long way down the next hallway. At the end of that we ended up in an old warehouse-feeling part of the building and the line just kept going.
Here’s some pictures.
It was a great civic moment, or hour actually. People of all races and socio-economic classes. Gay couples and straight. Moms with babies and single men who had never voted before.
When we finally got to the end of the line we arrived at the room with about 30 voting machines. I popped in my electronic card and used the (silly) touchscreen voting machine. My vote went off into the ether. I sure hope it was counted because I don’t have any proof that it was made.
But I’ll remember that line forever. Yes it should be shorter and easier to vote. But, who knows, maybe one day I’ll tell my grandchildren about the day when I helped elect a remarkable leader, a true patriot, a paradigm-changing figure, the first black President of the United States.
I wonder
I wonder.
I wonder if Michelle Bachmann, R Minn, really does think a significant portion of the US congress is “anti-American.”
I wonder if McCain regrets the tenor of his recent rallies.
I wonder why Palin is so narrow in her definition of true Americans.
I wonder if McCain/Palin would rather win at all costs, or have every American aware of Obama’s Christian faith and patriotism.
I wonder why “spreading the wealth” is socialist if that’s what all taxes do in the first place.
I wonder why we’re so scared of socialists.
I wonder what America would look like if we had more patriots like Colin Powell who served two Bush presidents and said,
Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is no. That’s not America. Is there something wrong with a seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing he or she could be president? Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion that he is a Muslim and might have an association with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America.
I wonder if we can blame things on “silly season” in politics, or if this season just brings out what we already think but usually don’t say.
I wonder why we don’t have more insightful discussions of church and politics like Jan Edminston’s.
I wonder who benefits the US more: a school teacher on the prairie or another DC lawyer.
I wonder if it might just be more patriotic to plant vegetables in our front yards than buy chicken raised in California shipped to China for packaging then shipped back to California to be sent to grocery stores on the east coast.
I wonder how many us will vote.
I wonder.
image by salingpusa
Energy Policy of Stupid
This week’s non-debate debate about energy policy has been fascinating. Neither candidate–except Nader and Gore–really excites me about energy. Here’s why…
I like high gas prices. I don’t want prices to come down, I want them to stay between $4-5 a gallon. Americans drove 3% less these last few months compared to last year, a positive move towards restoring God’s creation. High gas prices will continue this trend. High gas prices give auto makers incentive to make smaller more fuel-efficient cars because they cause consumers to buy them. High gas prices are good.
But, high gas prices hurt the poor, so…. This isn’t rocket science, it’s good policy: as demand decreases and prices fall, I’d support taxes to keep gas prices in the $4-5 range. This will keep consumers making smart choices–for our economy and for creation. Let’s invest the money from these taxes in public transport, in neighborhood development that brings stores within walking distance, in incentives for alternative energy. But this still hurts the poor, I know. So if you make under a certain amount, say family household income of $80k, you get a check at the end of the year that will reimburse you for the difference of said tax. Folks will end up not being out of pocket for gas, but they also end up making better oil and energy choices throughout the year.
McCain’s (and Hillary’s) gas tax holiday is bunk. It would only get folks back about $30 a year. That’s not a policy, it’s a pander.
Drilling offshore is silly because full production takes 10 years to develop, and even then the amount of oil we’ll drill offshore doesn’t amount to anything compared to the rise in consumption by India and China.
But we need to get “American oil” you say? Well, that’s silly too. It’s a world market. We don’t buy “American oil,” oil companies drill oil from one giant pool of oil, and sell it wherever they can make the most profit. If “American oil” can be accessed cheaply, companies will simply ship it to the market with the highest price.
Here’s the big issue: oil production will peak, no matter what, in my lifetime. Estimates differ, but let’s say it’ll peak in the next 20-50 years. If we’re not weaned off the black stuff by then, we will only have ourselves to blame.
And don’t even let me start on ethanol. It not only takes more energy to make it than it supplies, but it also majorly screws up the world food market. I know farmers are suffering under high oil prices, but subsidies for ethanol only make matters worse. Ethanol subsidies are an enormous waste of resources.
What gets me about the oil crisis, is that it’s not like we didn’t see this coming. Remember those solar panels on the roof of the Carter White House? We had the right idea in the 70s, then got lazy and backed off. Stupid.
I don’t hear a truly reasonable comprehensive plan from either McCain or Obama, and certainly not one that embraces the gravity of the crisis. If–as both candidates have now said–increasing our average tire pressure will make a significant difference, then where’s the national plan to have free air pumps at every gas station, court house, and public park? I appreciate the fact that the Democratic Convention will be carbon neutral, but it’s a drop in the bucket (or “oil drum”).
My blood pressure is rising. Rant ends here.
Update: Flush With Energy by THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN in today’s Times addresses the 70s issues and sounds pretty sensible to me.
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