Bridget Mary's Response: For me this budget is a moral document that betrays every value I hold dear as a person of faith. How can we give more tax cuts to the wealthy and continue to ignore the needs of the majority of our country especially the workers struggling to make a living and the poor who have nothing? According to Matthew 25, Jesus said "Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers and sisters, you do unto me ." This shameful tax plan turns this justice mandate upside down to take care of the wealthiest among us. It is a moral travesty that violates the common good of the majority of the people . Bridget Mary Meehan ARCWP
"I frankly don’t know whether the Democrats and their allies are willing to call out a perfect example of class warfare waged by the overclass against the rest of us. In my view, far too many Democrats are entirely comfortable with neoliberal economics: they fully accept the thesis that a corporate-friendly regime of deregulation and low taxes is good for everyone. Far too many Dems depend on Wall Street and the 1% to fund their campaigns. Far too many are perfectly happy to campaign as culture liberals while remaining complacent, even welcoming, in respect to the rule of wealth.
As to whether everyday people would even respond to a passionate justice-centered critique of the appalling gluttony epitomized in the GOP plan: I believe they could and would respond to a full-on attack on a plan that so glaringly exacerbates already-soaring inequality. For what other reason would Bernie Sanders be the nation’s most popular politician… repeatedly? And despite what Democratic moderates (and their pundits) would have you believe, the U.S. is not a “center-right” nation; if anything, we are a “center-left” nation, especially when it comes to opposing tax cuts for the wealthy.
Faith leaders who say they care about the most vulnerable have a real opportunity here in relation to their own messaging and advocacy. As I’ve written before in these pages, tax plans are moral documents—as much, or more so, than budgets.
Faith leaders presumably take the long view. The long view here is that if this tax plan—with its unprecedented permanent cuts—were to go through, we won’t have to wait even ten years to see acute new suffering among people with disabilities, the elderly, vulnerable children, etc. Because as sure as the sun rises in the east, GOP leaders will use the new deficits their own plan creates to demand huge cuts in the social safety net: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and everything else.
Oh, and did I mention Fun Fact #3: the GOP plan, for all the pro-worker verbiage attached to it, actually raises taxes for the lowest-income workers? Hey, somebody’s got to pay."
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