I drove friends to the airport just after daybreak today; and noticing the incredibly calm bay on my way back home, I stopped to get a picture of sailboats. I was so busy with appropriate camera settings for early morning light, that I almost fell over a man who was lying face up on the sidewalk where he must have fallen when his wheel chair turned over. He was sleeping... breathing... There were signs that he had been drunk when he fell over. I probably should have considered the photograph an invasion of his privacy; but I was "worked up" by what I was hearing on a morning NPR report about the approval of California's notorious state budget and so moved by the combination of images in front of me that I couldn't resist doing the photographs and the subsequent writing for the BLOG.I’VE FINALLY FIGURED IT OUT.   For years I’ve been looking for the real differences between Republicans and Democrats.  The clue came as I was listening to a prominent Republican exult his party’s triumph over tax and spend Democrats in the budget fight that has being going on in the California legislature for the past six monhs. His final word on the matter was delivered in the style of an evangelical preacher in revival meeting, “No more taxes EVER.”  What I finally understand is this: for many Americans taxation is punishment. In his recent videotaped messages to the faithful, asking them to stand firm, Governor Schwarzenegger assured them that he will do whatever is necessary to get the money his government needs to balance the budget EXCEPT RAISE TAXES.  In his compelling German-accented American English he promises that he will not punish “the people of California.”  To get elected, and then reelected once the first election has been won,  politicians must describe government as evil and taxes as unfair punishment.  Many Americans don’t remember that the Boston Tea Party was a not a protest against taxation, but it was a protest against taxation without representation.  In the two hundred years since the birth of our nation, American political culture has developed around an idea that any taxation is basically bad.  We drive around the potholes in our streets and over crumbling bridges complaining simultaneously about the condition of the roads and our heavy tax burden apparently without making the connection between the two issues.  Our favorite American complaint is that we are overtaxed, and the complaint is usually coupled with our firm belief that there are a bunch of undeserving freeloaders out there who are getting something for nothing... at our expense.  We are easily convinced that if we could cut off the freeloaders we could fix our roads.  

There is a close connection between hatred of taxes and the fundamentalist temperament. I have no way of knowing for sure, but my guess is that neither Republican Terminator Governor Arnold Swartzenegger nor Congresswoman Nancy Pelosir is deeply religious, yet both of them have figured out that the majority of the citizens whom they represent want to hear that they hate taxes the way we are supposed to hate sin. The Republican Governor’s congratulatory responses to California lawmakers on their having “reached agreement” on the budget was full of praise for their having done it “without punishing the people” with higher taxes. The Governor announced that our leaders in Sacramento have settled the matter finally. They will get the money we need to fix potholes and bridges another way. We will keep the state running by cutting programs. They agreed, Republicans and Democrats, to $15 billion in program cuts. The money will be taken mostly from the poor, from children, from the elderly and disabled. In that other political venue, Washington, Democrat Nancy Pelosi is having second thoughts about President Obama’s plan to play for healthcare for Americans by placing a surtax on individuals with adjusted gross incomes of more than $280,000 and couples filing joint returns with incomes over $350,000. Aids to Ms. Pelosi said she wanted to lift the thresholds to $500,000 for individuals and $1,000,000 to joint filers, so the new levy could be described as a tax on millionaires. In other words, limit the “punishment” to millionaires. Let’s not “punish” the poor guy who is having to get along on $400,000 a year.

My complaint isn’t about taxes. I am not in that $350,000 tax bracket that President is considering hitting with a surtax... neither are the vast majority of other Americans. What I am most tired of is this: the good citizens of our country and the citizens of many other countries are continually being jerked around by religious fundamentalists. Fundamentalist Christians, fundamentalist Jews, fundamentalist Muslims, and Fundamentalist Hindus and Buddhists are small minorities in their religious worlds; yet they manage to set the agenda for all of us. My complaint is not about evangelistic people, whatever their religion. If they have something that is good, something that enriches life for others, I say “more power to them.” If, on the other hand, their evangelism is driven by hate and fear, I object. I object to fundamentalist Christians who insist that God hates homosexuals. I deplore the audacity of the fundamentalist Roman Catholic bishop in Brazil who recently excommunicated everyone who had anything to do with the abortion by a nine-year-old girl who was impregnated by her step-father. I am repulsed by fundamentalist Muslims who coerce young men and women into strapping on bombs and walking into places where people are killed when they destroy themselves. I don’t understand and turn away from the images of a Buddhist who sets himself afire.

It is sad but true that fundamentalists invariably come down on the right side of any political continuum. Most fundamentalist Christians in America are Republicans. I hasten to say that there are Republicans with no religious affiliation or with only tenuous ties to religions of their childhood. I suspect that many of those retiring reluctant non-religious Republicans tend to hold onto the central notion of fundamentalist theology that there is a god who punishes people. The illogic of righteous retribution, even in the criminal justice system, can be the subject of another day’s blogging. For today, I would simply like to suggest that raising taxes, even on people in my income bracket, would be more consistent with the Christian Gospel than the wholesale elimination of basic health and safety services for the poor, the powerless in our state and in our country. As a Christian citizen I am embarrassed by California’s new budget. I should hurry to say that I personally will be little affected by it. I am an old man with enough books to read for the rest of my life, enough income to provide more than enough food for the rest of my life, enough money to travel and do just about anything I want to do, and insurance sufficient to cover my medical expenses; so eliminating programs that provide education and health-care for children will not take anything away from me... except my pride in my American citizenship. I can afford to give more to keep alive the programs that are being eliminated or reduced and to keep healthy the people they support.