SOCIALISM: RICH CLASS, POOR CLASS, NO MIDDLE CLASS
By Betty Freauf
April
16, 2010
NewsWithViews.com
In Luke 16: 19-31 there is this story in the King James Bible about Lazarus the beggar and the rich man. This parable suggests it has to do with the way the rich man spends his money. He enjoyed life. He lived it up while Lazarus for some reason not explained in scripture was placed at the rich man’s gate. Apparently feeling responsible for this beggar in some way, the rich man let the beggar have the crumbs from his table. We read the dogs licked the beggar’s sores while the rich man “fared sumptuously” How many rich men today would have taken the “crumbs” off as a deductible to charity on their income tax?
A cartoon back in January 1994 showed Bill and Hillary Clinton appearing before the I.R.S. agent who asked, “Let me get this straight, you neglected to deduct a sixty-nine thousand dollar business loss, but you’re claiming a two dollar donation of used underwear?” The ghost of Vincent Foster, the Clinton’s personal lawyer who had allegedly put a bullet through his head the summer before just seemed to hang around. William Safire wrote on January 7, 1994 when he questioned Clinton aides they blamed Foster’s state of mind on the cruel, mean-spirited Washington press corps. Questions about a lawyer with a guilty conscience were denounced as ghoulish, the product of a conspiratorial mind-set.
Safire said we subsequently learned that there was indeed a scandal brewing that involved the Clintons, a go-go banker crony who financed their Whitewater real estate deal and an S&L failure that cost taxpayers $60 million. Foster improperly kept the potentially damaging records of that deal in his White House office and when the existence of the hidden file came to light, the Clintons stonewalled and, of course, Clinton’s Attorney General Janet Reno, who gave the order to incinerate the 17 little children and adults at the Branch Davidian, was conveniently neglecting to appoint an independent counsel to investigate President Clinton’s possible links to a failed savings and loan firm in Arkansas. How quickly people forget. That was also the time the bimbos started coming forward and Hillary had a “travelgate” problem. In June 1994 the New York Times said the White House was asking Americans to help with Clintons’ mounting legal costs.
Today we are finding panhandlers at many intersections in our city and probably in yours as well. I often wonder if they are begging because they spent money on drugs, did they lose their job due to no fault of their own, disillusioned vets, did some unexpected high hospital costs cause bankruptcy for them because they didn’t have any insurance or do they find pandhandling more lucrative and no taxes to pay? They situate themselves at stop signs. I try to have some green stuff in a salvation Bible tract to hand to them and I pray the money won’t be used for drugs. Some day I’d like to take the time to talk to them. We also support a homeless shelter and in the past have had elderly parents live with us.
Income tax was due recently. We’re hearing that 47% of U.S. households will pay no taxes to the federal government this year so why did our 19-year-old grand daughter have to pay $51 to the feds and $18 to the state of Oregon from her all-expense paid trip for two to Los Angeles last November to the American Music Award which she won from a Portland radio station? She also cashed a few savings bonds. The radio station sent her a 1099 and the bank sent her a 1099 for the interest on the bonds. This was “unearned income.” Maybe we should start handing a 1099 to the panhandlers. She graduated last year from high school. She still has not found any meaningful regular employment. She lives at home. Our tax preparer says in Oregon many Indian casinos send checks to Indians of all ages that must be reported. It’s a “Casino” tax write off.
Since the government relies heavily on the cooperation of a trusting public to calculate and submit a specified portion of its income in the form of taxes, I.R.S. is concerned millions of people have refused to file. Could it be many people are finally recognizing that the graduated income tax is the second plank of the Communist Manifesto or are people simply following the reputation of our elected leaders and becoming more corrupt?
Like so many others states, Oregon is broke and its Secretary of State Kate Brown, a Democrat, is announcing tax collections could be increased by adding 15 more positions in the Department of Revenue to boost collection of taxes. (More government workers). She believes “We should all be playing by the same rules. In a fair tax system, everyone pays their fair share.” So Oregon state auditors are going to compare Oregon tax records with IRS records of about 223,000 federal filers with Oregon addresses and adjusted gross income of at least $12,000. (Source: 4/13/2010 Statesman Journal)
Why did the wealthiest Americans support the Sixteenth Amendment? Well, initially they were told the taxes would be very small and some of the super rich promoted the income tax out of altruism but there were others who supported the Sixteenth Amendment because they knew they could permanently avoid both the income taxes and subsequent inheritance taxes by what the accountants call “pre-tax planning.” Many have tried to challenge this amendment that was never ratified by the required number of states. Most of them end up in jail or see all their assets forfeited while billionaire George Soros uses his “pre-tax planning” to support left-wing causes with a goal of reducing America to third-world status and making more and more people dependent upon Big Brother.
A caller to a radio station recently was having a “Crisis of Conscience.” He said he and his wife sold their New York home when the price was high and they paid cash for another home in Pennsylvania and were out of debt at age 42. His wife works part time as a nurse. They filed their income tax early showing they had $900 in withholding but the federal government sent them a check for $2800 and he was feeling guilty for taking it. He is on his second round of unemployment checks. They had a catastrophic medical policy and then some bureaucrat contacted them and told them their daughter was eligible through CHIP (Pennsylvania Children’s Health Insurance Program). The guy came from a European family and believed in the work ethic, which was causing him a “Crisis of Conscience.”
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The government is now reporting that tax breaks enacted last year are causing confusion for taxpayers and enforcement problems at the I.R.S. The treasury inspector says, “If anyone received an erroneous tax credit from the I.R.S. they shouldn’t even think about keeping it. The I.R.S. is being extraordinarily thorough in terms of addressing many of the Recovery Act dollars to ensure that the money that is being wasted is accounted for.” The I.R.S. erroneously gave out $24.2 million. The Tennessee caller can sleep well now.
Which brings me back to the rich man and Lazarus. A cursory reading of James 5 might give the impression that James is teaching a socialistic doctrine of “soak the rich” or “let’s divide the wealth” like President Obama told Joe the Plumber when the he was a candidate for the presidency and, of course, this is what we later learned was Marxist Liberation Theology and which President Obama’s current “spiritual leader” Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners, supports.
But a careful reading of these verses reveals that James is not teaching socialism. He was instructing believers about their attitude and action in a world that was going to the dogs, a world filled with injustice, where freedom was only a dream. J. Vernon McGee in his Through the Bible sermons says the Roman world of James’ day was not like the modern world in which we lived at the time of the sermon. (McGee died in 1988). The life-styles were entirely different. There was no middle class in the days of James. There were the very rich, the filthy rich, and the very poor, the filthy poor. The majority of the Christians of that day came from the very poor and slave classes. But please let it be known that James was not condemning riches. Riches in themselves are not immoral; they are not moral, either. They are just amoral. The problem is not in the coin; the problem is in the hearts of men and women, said McGee. I was once a treasurer in a tax-exempt ecumenical church. The biggest checks came in near the end of the year for income tax purposes. The rest of the time I found mostly tightly folded $1 bills.
During the period of James there was no middle class in Rome; today we are seeing this developing in America. We have been seeing unprecedented, unsustainable growth in government and unsupportable consumer debt. Even the well-paid professionals over-leveraged themselves during the Federal Reserve created credit glut. Maybe we should be asking, “Is the Federal Reserve preparing to reduce the middle class to utter serfdom as was the case in Rome before it fell?
Ron and Anil Hira, internationally recognized experts on economic policy, in their 236 page book Outsourcing America: What’s Behind Our National Crisis and How We Can Reclaim American Jobs said even before the creation of our constitutional republic, America was recognized in Europe as the incubator of a new kind of society built on what is now called the “Middle Class.” It was the aspiration and realistic hope of every American that he could become self-sufficient, improve his economic standing and provide his children the means to enjoy an even better standard of living. For decades the American elite determined to undermine its moral foundation and a political ruling class bent on destroying the economic base that sustains it. The strip mining of America’s manufacturing and hi-tech sectors through “outsourcing” is the most visible front of that ongoing war against the middle class.
Because government schools were no longer teaching the Constitution and so-called Christians already had one foot in Egypt they were easily deceived. The October 2001 Media Bypass had an article entitled The Great Betrayal and described how churches agreed to the New World Order on March 16, 1942 when 375 appointed representatives of 30-odd denominational churches met at Ohio Wesley University and among other things they voted to approve the following:
•
A world government of delegated power
• Complete abandonment of U.S. isolationism
• Strong immediate limitations on national sovereignty
• International control of all armies and navies
• A universal system of money
• Elimination of tariffs and quota restrictions
on world trade
• Worldwide freedom on immigration
Many of the attending conferees didn’t realize the Federal Council of Churches and its acting Board of Directors were actually talking treason when they suggested, “duties now performed by local and national governments can now be effectively carried out only by international authority” or when they held that, “a new order of economic life is both imminent and imperative…a new order that is sure to come either through voluntary cooperation within the framework of democracy or through explosive political revolution” or when they declared their ultimate goal was, “A duty constituted world government of delegated power, an international legislative body, an international court with adequate jurisdiction, international administrative bodies with necessary powers and an adequate international police force with provision for enforcing its worldwide economic authority” and the 1942 conferees were urged to cooperate as “Christian citizens.”
These United Nations administrative bodies of unelected officials at every level in government now completely control us. A church in a small town wanted to install a community reader board hoping to have it completed by Easter. They are still waiting for a county permit. A Salem, Oregon owner of a cigar and wine shop is still waiting for a renewal of his license because someone doesn’t like people smoking.
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Is it possible someone doesn’t like Christians and is holding up the church permit and why does a church need a permit in the first place except, of course, if it is tax exempt? When the churches in 1942 got in bed with dogs, sooner or later they were bound to get fleas. After the church gave its approval in 1942, the United Nations was created in 1945 to be mankind’s best hope for peace and Utopia but it has turned into a nightmare and putting Christianity at risk. While God will always have a remnant, we see persecution beginning to lift its ugly head.
� 2010 Betty Freauf - All Rights Reserved
