Brown gets religion on tax increases

by CalWatchdog Staff | April 30, 2012 3:17 pm

[1]April 30, 2012

By John Seiler

Hey, I thought we had “separation of state” in America? Even though it’s not exactly in the Constitution[2], but imposed by court rulings.

Anyway, Gov. Jerry Brown has been campaigning in churches [3]for his tax increases. “We’ve got to take this message to the schools, to the colleges and, yes, to the churches, to the faith community[4] that knows that man doesn’t live by bread alone,” said a man who himself is exceedingly wealthy because of oil deals his late father, former Gov. Pat Brown, made with the murderous dictator Sukarno of Indonesia[5].

That’s also a novel and highly convenient interpretation of Matthew 4:4[6]. Here’s the context, from the first four verses:

¹Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.

²And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.

³And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.

⁴But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

The devil was tempting Jesus with being able to feed the whole world with bread — an infernal premonition of the welfare state that Brown presides over, and wants to fund more with even higher taxes. Instead, Jesus replied, we’re supposed to live by “every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

Moreover, many things the government now does — especially education, health care and marriage — used to be performed by churches, and in many cases still are, although on a smaller scale to what government does. Government, including Brown, has usurped the rightful sovereignty of churches and families over these functions.

Brown’s tax increase would slam the middle class and the poor with a sales tax increase. It also would hit wealthy people with higher income tax rates. Brown, slipping into faux religious concern again, said the rich “have been blessed, and they must join with us in blessing those that have not been as fortunate.”

But the rich already “bless” us by creating businesses and jobs. Taking away their money means fewer businesses and jobs, with more workers laid off and going on unemployment and welrare. The main thing this tax increase would do is push more of rich folks to leave a state where they’re being robbed.

Thou shalt not…

Tellingly, Brown did not bring up these Biblical admonitions from Exodus 20[7]:

¹⁵Thou shalt not steal….

¹⁷Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.

The tax increase money is not going to the poor or schools, either. It’s going to the bloated pensions of current retirees. David Crane, a budget expert and fellow Democrat of Brown’s, just wrote[8]:

Most Californians would be surprised to learn that 100 percent of education’s share of the tax increase proposed by Governor Jerry Brown[9] will go to pensions instead of classrooms. But that would be no surprise to longtime observers of the California[10] State Teachers’ Retirement System, which administers teacher pensions.

So, all Brown is doing is using religion to push robbing people more to shovel stolen money to his political allies. It’s another con game.

If he wants to help the poor, he should heed the words of Matthew 19[11]:

²¹Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.

²²But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.

Finally, in the Bible, God asks us to give to church or charity only 10 percent of what we have. Speaking of the priest Melchisedec, Hebrews 7:4 says[12], “Now consider how great this man was, unto whom even the patriarch Abraham gave the tenth of the spoils.” In Old English, the word “tithe[13]” even means “tenth.”

Yet, government today takes far more than that, at least 40 percent [14]of most working people’s incomes. That means government considers itself four times as important as God. What blasphemous arrogance.

Source URL: https://calwatchdog.com/2012/04/30/brown-gets-religion-on-tax-increases/

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