Comments about ‘Pope needs lesson on how taxes work’

I would say Mr. Williams needs a lesson in charity and compassion for others.

From the article linked to:

"He called on the West to promote an equitable world economic system based on social justice rather than profit."

I despise that term "social justice." Whenever you see an adjective appended to a virtue, rest assured that a political agenda is being pressed.

It's just "justice", not "social justice" or any other kind. "Social justice" is just a way of dressing up one's statist political preferences to make them sound like a universal, absolute virtue.

I admire Pope Benedict, but he needs to remember that the kingdom of the Lord whose Vicar he purports to be is not of this world. It is precisely this communalist, anti-profit thinking that has rendered so much of the Catholic world (especially Latin America) an economic basket case. The profit motive has proven over and over again to be a far better help to the general welfare than even the best-intentioned communalist utopian theories.

Dr. Williams column is brilliant and perceptive. Charity and compassion cannot rationally be equated with confiscation and redistribution. Alan Colmes once argued that governments, like individuals, should be Christian, meaning in his mind taking care of the poor through government programs. But there is no Christian injunction for government confiscation. The doctrine is for individuals and voluntary contributions. If governments truly want to help the poor, a tax credit, rather than a limited deduction, for private charties would stimulate genuine chartiable giving. Williams is right on.

C.Lane, Williams needs to learn charity and compassion for others? Are you saying this because he wants to end forcible government theft of its citizens to give to others who didn't earn it?

Are there down & out who need our help? YES! But it should be VOLUNTARY, and we should all contribute without expecting others to be forced to do so.

Funny how the "conservative" new pope is suddenly so liberal. :-)

It's funny how Williams describes tax avoidance as "legal conduct."

The last I checked, religious leaders don't say "it's legal, so it's fine with me." Does legality equal morality now?

Do conservatives even listen to themselves anymore?

LegalDude, Williams' argument isn't that you should do something moral, it's that you should protect your property as best you can, and that's something that's been considered moral since the dawn of man.

I'll go this far with Williams: the pope is a poor source of tax advice just as the president is a poor source of information on buying produce. But then the Doc goes off on his usual tangent - taxation equals theft, blah, blah. It doesn't even have to do with charity. Does Williams drive on a public street? Call 911 for a police emergency? Have a relative in a public school? Have another in a public prison? Go to a public park? Drink publicly provided water? Borrow books from a public library? If so, doesn't he (we) have an obligation to keep these services running, or improve them? That's taxes! The argument that you're being robbed by taxes is so dopey that Williams would never dare use it in a venue where people had an actual chance to RESPOND - it wouldn't even fly with his Scrooge-like economist cronies. But he feeds it to us every week and we think he's somehow brilliant because it seems to validate our "hate" of government while the REAL government is having our rights for lunch. Regarding that part, he has nothing to say, knowing full well that his paycheck comes totally from wealthy people. That's his real audience.

If the Pope wants to learn how to be a CEO of a religion, travel to SLC. At least the Pope speaks out against torture.

Mark B, the problem with your argument is that 70 years of government growth have made it utterly impossible to live in this country without using the services so graciously and magnanimously provided by our great benefactor, Uncle Sam.

Please answer the following questions for me...

1) Have schools always been public?
2) Is the private sector incapable of building a road?
3) Does the government have a monopoly on providing water?
4) Is it possible that sales tax (voluntary tax) could provide the most essential services?
5) Do you believe that government of, by, and for the people implies that big brother has a right to take anything you earn by threat of force/imprisonment and redistribute it to those who have not earned it? This is called communism, by the way.

Riley R-- Are there no work houses? Are there no prisons?

It's pretty tough to call your sales tax "voluntary" when Utahns pay it even for groceries. If you favor it, you should also know that it's the most regressive - that's a term Williams would know. Could we ask your question #1 this way: What country on earth relies on private education exclusively? I know Jefferson envisioned the University of Virginia to be free to all its students. Don't you get it? We showed the world the way with public education when it was a closely guarded privilege everywhere else. WE left them in the dust, not with tuition fees, but by opening the doors to all using, yes, taxes. Your ideal would be closer to Czarist Russia, Batista's Cuba or China in the 20's. "Pay the fee or hit the road". How did those countries make out? I'm not choosing communism, but your "rugged individualist America" never existed. If my road crosses a bridge, I feel better knowing the builders had no incentive to cut corners in order to add to someone's bottom line.

Mark, it is definitely voluntary. If someone refuses to buy groceries and instead chooses to grow a garden or raise livestock that is their choice. It's not a common choice, but one nevertheless. To say that sales tax is regressive is partially true but doesn't tell the whole story. If someone makes only 40/yr and wants to buy a car, they probably won't be buying a Mercedes, so while sales tax is regressive when thinking in terms of generic iceberg lettuce (or other basic commodities), in real terms the rich would continue to bear the lion's share of the burden as their buying choices would be a reflection of their incomes, whether you're talking about groceries or automobiles. In other words you forget that people can still make choices about their purchases or make none at all. Your supposition that this system is represented more closely by Czarist Russia is a total straw man. If given the choice between the opposing ideals of "rugged individualist America (with a healthy dose of charity)" or "pound the bourgeouis into a fine dust (and call it 'social justice')", give me the first.

The private sector may be capable of building roads, but if they did, we'd have tolls every two blocks, some roads would be "drive on the left side" and others would be "drive on the right side," you couldn't see the yellow line for all the advertising, and when a bridge collapsed, the corporation that built it would either be looking for a way to blame the government or would suddenly just move to Dubai.

Yeah, privatism sure sounds like a great plan!

Hellooooo...

Most roads are built privately today. Rules governing safety are totally appropriate as they protect life, liberty, property, etc.

Mark B, would you feel better if the builders of a road had no incentive to build the bridge at all? Or rather, an incentive to use as much funding possible and take the longest time possible?
Private enterprises cut corners far less often than government enterprises for the simple reason that to them, the bottom line counts. How many bridge collapses can your company avoid before no one will hire you for a job? As for government, who cares! No competitors means only the most basic attention to the job is paid, nothing more.

Mark B - you forget that clearly any company who makes dodgy businesses will suffer a huge reputation hit and so wouldn't be in business long? And this is clearly a consideration for any business that is planning on actually being around long enough to make profits.

RangerGordon - you seriously underestimate the ability of private companies to work together to deliver a service. Think about the way credit financing works, there are hundreds of different companies who have to learn to accept credit from each other, like your credit card and so on. Not only this, but there is such a thing as private certification and 'industry standard' in things so it's not really that likely that we'd have drive on the left/right confusion. Tolls can be handled via etags/GPS.