08-05-2017, 11:47 AM
The idea of not taxing churches dates back prior to the formation of this country. As George H.W. Bush called them, "The thousand points of light" made sure that the poor were fed and cared for. People lined up at the soup kitchens and in exchange for listening to the church's scripture, they got a free meal. It wasn't just churches that were exempt, it was hospitals, fire departments, and others who's expenditures performing vital services serving the community cost more than donations (or profits) earmarked for such services, exempting them from taxes made sense.
Fast forward to the future (enter the Nanny State): The government doesn't want it's population to see 43 million people lined up to get food, so they provide an invisible way to receive food so that nobody knows how bad things really are. Now the "thousand points of light" is also invisible and sometimes irrelevant. Maybe the tax-exempt status needs to follow suit where appropriate.
There are 323 million people in this country, and 43 million of them are on food stamps. Can you imagine 43 million people lining up at soup kitchens 2 or 3 times per day to get a meal? How long would those lines stretch? The food stamp program works because the money to finance it is borrowed into existence from other countries. Eventually China and others will lose faith in the dollar and decide to start feeding it's own people instead, and then those 1000 points of light will have lines and relevancy again. When that happens, restore their tax-exempt status.
If you want to give $10 worth of food to feed the hungry, give your money or food to organizations to feed the hungry. The government doesn't accept food to feed the hungry. Only taxes. If you "give" $10 in taxes to feed the hungry, $10 will disappear into the bureaucracy, $50 will be borrowed from China to fund an ethanol subsidy, another $25 (funded from your social security payroll tax) will disappear into studying why dairy cows are polluting the environment, and the hungry will get a program that encourages them to load their carts full of mac and cheese, diet coke, and other foods with negative nutritional value.
An interesting read: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/tehistory.pdf
Fast forward to the future (enter the Nanny State): The government doesn't want it's population to see 43 million people lined up to get food, so they provide an invisible way to receive food so that nobody knows how bad things really are. Now the "thousand points of light" is also invisible and sometimes irrelevant. Maybe the tax-exempt status needs to follow suit where appropriate.
There are 323 million people in this country, and 43 million of them are on food stamps. Can you imagine 43 million people lining up at soup kitchens 2 or 3 times per day to get a meal? How long would those lines stretch? The food stamp program works because the money to finance it is borrowed into existence from other countries. Eventually China and others will lose faith in the dollar and decide to start feeding it's own people instead, and then those 1000 points of light will have lines and relevancy again. When that happens, restore their tax-exempt status.
If you want to give $10 worth of food to feed the hungry, give your money or food to organizations to feed the hungry. The government doesn't accept food to feed the hungry. Only taxes. If you "give" $10 in taxes to feed the hungry, $10 will disappear into the bureaucracy, $50 will be borrowed from China to fund an ethanol subsidy, another $25 (funded from your social security payroll tax) will disappear into studying why dairy cows are polluting the environment, and the hungry will get a program that encourages them to load their carts full of mac and cheese, diet coke, and other foods with negative nutritional value.
An interesting read: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/tehistory.pdf