Spreading the Wealth

[sleigh]

Sarah Palin spoke in Cincinnati yesterday. She's dropped Ayers-the-terrorist from her stump attack against Obama, and has added in Joe-the-plumber with the 'horrifying' tag that Obama wants to "spread your wealth around" -- recited to a chorus of boos from the white-bread audience. This obviously plays well to the Republican base.

Which makes me wonder. The Republican base is largely conservative Christians, who are reputed to follow Jesus' example and teachings. Now, I don't have a dog in this theological fight; in fact, I don't think there's a dog at all. But...

Certainly Jesus wasn't against taxation ("Render unto Caesar" and all that). So given the two tax plans put forward by the candidates, I wonder which one Jesus would prefer: a tax plan that gives the largest tax decreases to the wealthiest people (McCain's plan); or the one that would give the largest tax decreases to the poorest people while asking the wealthy to shoulder more of the tax burden (Obama's plan)?

Comments

[rmeidaking.livejournal.com]

My cousin (the fundy minister) says that support of the poor should be done through the church, not through the government. If I also understand him correctly, this is so only those who deserve to be supported, actually get supported. They don't mind poor people receiving charity; they oppose deadbeats receiving charity. They want their church to decide, not the Federal government. (PS never ask a minister if he deserves to be paid more than the median wage of his congregation, either. Is it hypocritical to become well off from the donations of poor people? Hmmmm....)

[spaceoperadiva.livejournal.com]

When I lived in Utah, I met people who sincerely believed that all the other states shipped all the homeless people to Utah, because they knew that Utah and the LDS church was "nice" and would take care of them. These same people, while proclaiming their niceness, complained bitterly about how all the states shipping their homeless to Utah stretched the budget of the LDS church, who had to carry the burden of taking care of people the government should have done something about. At the same time, they firmly supported the view that support of the poor should be done through the church, so this kind of whacky contradictory thinking is sadly not limited to Fundies.

P.S. The homeless mission in the city I lived in was run by a group of churches that didn't include the LDS. ;)