“Prosperity Gospel” televangelists – greasy little parasites on the body of Christ – prey on the gullible to make big bucks.
In response, John Oliver – a greasy evangelist for the Big State – calls for Government to intervene by defining religion.
Which greasy televangelist does more damage?
Just talking about opening that can of worms makes Obama’s BFF Al Sharpton quake in his Bruno Magli’s.
Obviously the parable of the talents was about spiritual gifts, not cold hard cash.
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.”
But I think you can infer from the parable that Jesus had nothing against capital gains per se.
Abuse of exemptions for “Non Profits” is rampant. The solution is not more regulations. The fool proof and complete solution is to eliminate the income tax.
Removing the tax-exempt status from churches will soon become a political chit – if it’s not already. The Founding Fathers have no high rpm setting in their graves. What will we do?
I agree there is a lot of fraud around non-profit status. Its a tough call though. If I ran the country, the NAACP would be classified as a political group, not a civil rights group. But same for Tea party type organizations.
But a gov’t that has declared war on the Little Sisters of the Poor, would also go after mainstream Christian churches over tax exempt status.
The income tax has two purposes neither of which is to raise money for the Federal government:
1. Redistribution of wealth.
2. A means to control the population.
Before there was an income tax, there was no charitable contribution deduction. The deduction came with the tax, during WW I, because Congress knew that without it, contributions to charities would dry up and the poor would suffer. The deduction furthered the public purpose of poor relief.
Nowadays, charities don’t provide poor relief, government does. Money going to charity inhibits the public purpose of poor relief so obviously, we should eliminate the charitable contribution deduction and use the extra tax revenue to provide even more government poor relief.
OR . . . government could get out of the business of poor relief, then it wouldn’t need the money. If your taxes were cut in half, you could afford to give more to the charities you prefer to support. The poor would have greater incentive to get off the dole. Nobody would immigrate to get onto welfare. It would be a giant economic upheaval but, if The Iron Lady was correct about running out of other people’s money, the upheaval is coming sooner or later; the question is whether we want to voluntarily manage it or be swept over the cliff, helpless to affect our destiny.
The same people who don’t see a connection between Islam and terrorism are now going to define religion? Oliver is funny fellow, but not the way that he thinks he is funny.
OR . . . government could get out of the business of poor relief, then it wouldn’t need the money. If your taxes were cut in half, you could afford to give more to the charities you prefer to support. The poor would have greater incentive to get off the dole. Nobody would immigrate to get onto welfare.
That will never happen as long as the statists have any say in the matter. Quite simply, it would reduce both of DMA’s points above.
I would be fine with eliminating the tax-exempt status for all organizations across the board. Charity like religion and education has become a business and if we’re going to have taxes to fund government then the rates should be as low as possible with the taxable base as broad as possible.
Churches ought to be in the charity business. When did charity become the province of government?
The Big Stink wrote:
“Churches ought to be in the charity business. When did charity become the province of government?”
Up until the late 19th century, in Britain, charity was funneled through churches by parish members to other parish members. The industrial revolution, especially its late period, destroyed the parish charity system by severing the link between parish members and their village of birth. The fabled workhouses of Victorian England were run by contractors who charged parishes for taking care of parish members.
Poor relief comes in two forms: charity, which is a religious obligation, and entitlement, which is a societal right.
There are always more hands out than money to fill them, so every monastery had an almoner – the monk in charge of giving alms to the deserving poor but denying them to fakers, slackers and unrepentant sinners.
That’s the concept missing from the entitlement theory of poor relief – the notion that some people do not deserve to be relieved of their poverty because they came by it honestly, through years of effort to undermine their own success, rather than by misfortune.
That’s the concept missing from the entitlement theory of poor relief – the notion that some people do not deserve to be relieved of their poverty because they came by it honestly, through years of effort to undermine their own success, rather than by misfortune.
Thus the problem (albeit some see this as a feature, not a bug) with government (at least our government…..the way it was INTENDED to run) giving out “charity”. Government is not supposed to say “no, you don’t deserve charity” due in part to the concept of equal protection under the law.
I should also mention that while the English poor relief via the parish system paradigm was in place, the English church was an arm of the English state. It had the right to levy a tax (I forget what it was called) to carry out church functions. This was mostly in disuse by the Victorian era. The closeness of the Anglican Church and the British State may have made it intellectually easier for them to transition to an entitlement system.