ALLIANCE
FOR CITIZENS RIGHTS
ALLIANCE
FOR CITIZENS RIGHTS
PULPIT PROVOCATEUR
by Ken FreemanWhen you start mixing religious fervor with political enforcement you’re past "what would Jesus say" and rapidly approaching "what does the government command."
This vital difference especially applies to UA Professor Susan Pace-Hamill’s "Repent and Get Under The Tent" approach to reforming our taxes. However, I warn you that much more is at stake here than just higher taxes. She represents a so-called group of "reformers" seeking to destroy our rights by pushing us into a socialistic form of government. Hamill is pushing for a total rewrite of our constitution and our tax code.
Judge for yourself. Hamill’s half-truths for tax reform do not withstand simple scrutiny.
Hamill, who has been touring Alabama churches, argues for tax reform in the name of Christian charity, which I contend should be based on compassion and freewill. There is a great difference between tithing and taking.
Hamill’s group, the ACCR, is abusing government power to extort money through taxation. When government takes from one individual against his will and gives to another, based solely upon income levels, this is not charity. This is legalized extortion. This is abusive government. Americans and Christians do not operate that way. Totalitarian dictators and socialist elitists do.
Taxation can be a powerful weapon. Our founding fathers said: "the power to tax is the power to destroy." Ask yourself how many of our churches have been fixed by the serpent’s eye and paralyzed into immobility by threats against their tax-exempt status?
I believe Hamill, like most of the elitists in our tax-supported institutions of higher learning, knows the two greatest impediments to implementing socialistic government are our churches and our Alabama 1901 Constitution. Christians defeated the lottery and other anti-family programs, and fought to preserve our constitution. These "reformers" know they must turn church against church to move our state and nation into European-style socialism.
They will use our good hearts and our charity against us. They will attack us even from our pulpits -- bearing false witness. But then, to some people, the end justifies the means.
According to a Wall Street Journal interview, Hamill believes "she’s called by God to the battle." She came to this epiphany by way of a career as an IRS attorney, an activist in the feminist movement and as a strong promoter of NARAL (The National Abortion Rights Activist League). Recently, she attended the Beeson Divinity School at Sanford University, where Thomas Corts, who chairs the ACCR, also happens to be the school’s president.
Hamill contends we just aren’t paying our fair share of taxes, especially timberland owners and corporations. Most people believe we are already paying enough to support big government, which consumes nearly 50 cents of very dollar spent in America. This tax burden forces fathers to work two jobs or mothers to leave their children in daycare to satisfy big government’s insatiable appetite for taxes.
The upper half of America’s income earners pay 96.1 percent of all federal taxes collected; the other half pay only 3.9 percent of this revenue. Yet more than 90 percent of all federal benefits that flow into welfare, food stamps, school lunches and other social programs goes to the lower half of income earners. Who do you think is paying their fair share of the Federal tax?
Despite Hamill’s mistruths about taxation, Alabama is not at the bottom on all property taxes. Alabama is 12th in state property taxes based on income and 13th based on population. We are lowest in only one area - local property taxes. Another way to look at this is that we are No. 1 in local property tax relief. Our 1901 Constitution guarantees our citizens the right to vote on local tax increases. Because they exercise this right, property taxes have been kept under control by a vote of the people. Hamill wishes to take that vote away by rewriting the tax codes and our constitution.
Property taxes are the most unfair and dangerous of all taxes because one pays over and over again on the same property whether it produces income or not. Poor people, like most of the rest of society, fear property taxes above all others because they know that government can take the roof from over their children’s heads for as little as $1 owed in taxes. Sales taxes are less threatening and can be paid incrementally. They are also fairer to all since one pays according to his or her spending level.
Hamill contends our schools are under funded and need more tax money to help the poor. The truth is Alabama increased education funding to $4.2 billion this year, which is $1 billion higher than six years ago. Teacher numbers rose from 41,000 to 47,150 in that same period despite having fewer students (the total dropped by 9,000). Teacher pay ranks 19th in the nation. Our administrators are also among some of the best paid. State Superintendent Ed Richardson’s salary is the second highest in America. State workers are paid generously, too, averaging $44,500 a year.
Do you earn this much a year? The average Alabama citizen earns only $25,200 per year. All this and they want more, but the truth is we’re paying our fair share of taxes already.
Check this out
Ø According to the American Legislative Exchange, Alabama ranks 34th in the nation for state and local taxes paid based on ability to pay. We rank above every other state in the Southeast except Mississippi. (Figures from 1995 to 2000)
Ø Nationally, state and local property taxes have increased by 8.5% in the last ten years while Alabama taxes increased by 11.2 percent. (Figures are from 1995 to 2000).
Ø Alabama ranked 15th nationally for tax rate increases in 2002.
Ø During the last ten years Alabama’s county ad valorem taxes increased dramatically. Two-thirds of our counties increased property taxes more than 100 percent while 10 percent of them increased more than 150 percent. Yet, Alabama ranks 43rd in the nation for average personal income.
Ø Most forest and farmland is actually owned by small farmers who will also be subject to these tax increases.
Ø In most instances, corporations don’t really pays taxes. Businesses only collect taxes for governments. To a business, taxes are just another business expense to be passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices for their products. So who pays the tax? We do!
According to The Taxpayers Network, a national foundation that studies taxes and state budget health, in 2003 Alabama’s financial situation is listed as 18th best in the nation with only a 4.4% shortfall in state funding. Is there 4.4% of our inefficient state budget that could be trimmed without hurting state services or raising taxes? A blind man with a dull knife could trim that much fat. Why can’t our state government do it? Could it be that it is easier to raise taxes than to run an efficient government. Or do politicians just like the power that "big government" brings?
The truth speaks for itself and will keep us free. Hamill represents a group of elitists with "taxation tunnel vision" whose response to every government failure is always the same, "more money." Hamill and other collegiate "big spenders" have joined with the AEA leadership to force new tax increases upon our citizens and push us into a socialistic government that would destroy our freedom. We must not let them do this and especially not by turning church against church. We must remain united to preserve our freedom and our property.
Ken Freeman
Chairman, Alliance for Citizens' Rights
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