Jesus tells a parable about an unnamed, comfortable rich man living sumptuously behind the gates of his luxurious home, while his neighbor, a beggar named Lazarus, lay at his gate "longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table." The moral to the story is that God does not approve.
One thing that is clear from any fair reading of the Scriptures is God holds us responsible for the care of the poor and vulnerable. The Scriptures demand the ruling authorities care for the poor and the rich give from their wealth to relieve the poor. Jesus' parable about Lazarus and the poor man ends with a threatening warning to those who ignore this moral absolute.
The recent session of the Arkansas Legislature ignored Lazarus and made the comfortable rich man even more comfortable.
In Arkansas, poor working families like Lazarus' pay more than twice the overall tax rate as the rich man's family. A family earning $17,000 a year pays more than 13 percent of its income state in taxes--sales tax, income, property and other taxes combined. Our wealthiest families with income over $250,000 pay just 6 percent in taxes--less than half the poor folks' rate. And it just got better for rich.
In this legislative session, everybody got a bit of a tax break except the working poor (under $21,000) who actually pay the highest tax rates. Gov. Asa Hutchinson's $102 million tax reduction was modest good news for the middle class--the average Arkansan will see less than $40 in savings.
The wealthy got a 33 percent reduction in the top tax rate on capital gains.
But the wealthiest got a complete exemption on their profits above $10 million.
There was a bill by Rep. Warwick Sabin to give the working poor a bit of relief. He introduced one of Ronald Reagan's favorite tax policies, the Earned Income Tax Credit, which lowers taxes in a graduated way for the working poor, especially those with children. It is a tax policy that encourages work and stimulates the economy. The tax credit has enjoyed bipartisan national support. But not in this Legislature. While the wealthiest gained millions, the poorest "longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table" gained not a cent.
And if poor Lazarus loses his job, the lawmakers cut back unemployment benefits and the number of weeks he could claim them.
It's just another year where the tax code and the economic system was tweaked to concentrate more money in the hands of fewer people and to undermine some more of the tattered safety net protecting the poorest and most vulnerable. We've been doing this for 30 years now. "Woe to you who join house to house, who add field to field until there is room for no one but you." (Isaiah 5:8)
This Legislature's record looks even more ironic when viewed through the lens of some of the odd things they passed in the name of God. The Legislature limited any compassionate Arkansas community's desire to expand civil rights beyond whatever the state now covers. They made it legal to discriminate against your neighbor on religious grounds. And to assert their commitment to God's law, they authorized the erection of a monument of the Ten Commandments on the Capitol grounds. "This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me." (Matthew 15:8 and Isaiah 29:13) "You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!" (Matthew 23:24)
The Arkansas Legislature has "neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith." (Matthew 23:23)
The values of Jesus and of Scripture are clear and consistent. Care for the poor, the widow, the orphan and the alien among you. Feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, heal the sick, clothe the naked, care for the prisoner. (Matthew 25)
In the 8th century BCE, the prophet Amos spoke to a world like ours, a world of haves and have-nots: "Alas for those who lie on beds of ivory, and lounge on their couches, and eat lambs from the flock, and calves from the stall; who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp..., and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph." (Amos 6)
Take from the poor and give to the rich. It may work politically. But it is spiritual death.
Commentary on 04/28/2015