MN Bishops Ask for Income Tax Increase

[Lisa_N]

katherine2:

In Minnesota, yes, the property tax increases fell disproportionately on people who owned modest homes and the elderly in comparision to the income tax proposal that effected only those at the very upper brackets.

Thnak you for asking.

Please explain how that works. It doesn’t make any sense on its face. People are really poor but they own such expensive property they can’t pay taxes? Huh? Further most communities have special deferral programs for elderly to allow them to stay in their homes until they move or death. Oregon had one of the highest property tax rates in the country. It’s still extremely high but we finally voted a cap on it. Quite honestly a property tax should appeal to your communist nature Katherine. After all removal of property rights was an essential element of the the Communist manifesto.

And speaking of regressive taxes, I assume MN has a sales tax…

Lisa N

 

[jlw]

When my wife and I were at the kitchen table writing out the checks for our billslast summer and we were scraping by, and quite frankly, in the red.

So, one option was to take another job–increase income. AND…
The other option was obvious–cut our expenses. Cable? Gone. Cell phones? Gone. Dinners out? Gone. Full price for anything, ever?? Gone. New lessons for the kids*, delayed. *

Painful and uncomfortable. But it had to be done.

AND…as far as adding income?? I WORKED for it. I didn’t go to my siblings, parents, in-laws, neighbors, etc and said, “Hey, we spent more than we took in, we’re in the red, you need to sacrifice, we need more of your paycheck”. That is essentailly what taxation is.

Did my parents and In-laws help us here and there?? Sure.
But it was of their own free will.

 

[Trelow]

jlw:

When my wife and I were at the kitchen table writing out the checks for our billslast summer and we were scraping by, and quite frankly, in the red.

So, one option was to take another job–increase income. AND…
The other option was obvious–cut our expenses. Cable? Gone. Cell phones? Gone. Dinners out? Gone. Full price for anything, ever?? Gone. New lessons for the kids*, delayed. *

Painful and uncomfortable. But it had to be done.

AND…as far as adding income?? I WORKED for it. I didn’t go to my siblings, parents, in-laws, neighbors, etc and said, “Hey, we spent more than we took in, we’re in the red, you need to sacrifice, we need more of your paycheck”. That is essentailly what taxation is.

Did my parents and In-laws help us here and there?? Sure.
But it was of their own free will.

Same boat brother.

 

[MichaelTDoyle]

katherine2:

I disagree with you that nothing is being done and whatever improvements might be brought about I think it is insulting to call the admirable pro-life witness of the Minnesota bishop “nothing.”

God has not been miserly with the talents and energy He has given us. Nothing but our own sinfullness stops us from witnessing for the poor, the unborn, the disabled, the condemned criminal, the sick and the elderly concurrently.

Telling the bishops of Minnesota or faithful Catholics in general to ‘shut up’ in their faith based advocacy for the poor does not help protect the unborn. In fact, one of the programs being cut in Minnesota is a very effective program that helps women in crisis pregnancies choose life.

You do distort what I said. If it involves supporting pro-abortion candidacies to support your particular government driven charities, then I don’t say shut up, I say speak up. Until the Church stops seeking government pursestrings and government influence they cannot tell abortionists to recant, which is their duty. Their duty is not to allocate government monies.

Yes, we can concurrently do good as individuals.

The government is infested with pro-abortion “Catholics” This makes it an unsuitable vehicle for “charity”, if that is even a proper role for government.

 

[katherine2]

Lisa N:

Please explain how that works. It doesn’t make any sense on its face. People are really poor but they own such expensive property they can’t pay taxes? Huh?

So you think that everyone who owns a home is rich?

Further most communities have special deferral programs for elderly to allow them to stay in their homes until they move or death.

And in those communities that have this, it was people who you belittle who caused it to happen.

Quite honestly a property tax should appeal to your communist nature Katherine. After all removal of property rights was an essential element of the the Communist manifesto.

And I suppose kicking poor people and elderly out of their modest homes appeals to your Nazi nature. After all, removal of people from their homes was an essential element of the Nazi programme.

 

[katherine2]

MichaelTDoyle:

You do distort what I said. If it involves supporting pro-abortion candidacies

The Minnesota bishops do not support pro-abortion candidates. You invented that out of whole cloth.

You are damning the bishops for supporting effective means of saving the unborn. I think that is sad.

 

[swampfox]

katherine2:

The Minnesota bishops do not support pro-abortion candidates. You invented that out of whole cloth.

You are damning the bishops for supporting effective means of saving the unborn. I think that is sad.

Does Minnesota use tax dollars to fund abortions?

 

[jlw]

Originally posted by katherine2: And I suppose kicking poor people and elderly out of their modest homes appeals to your Nazi nature. After all, removal of people from their homes was an essential element of the Nazi programme.

Uh, sorry, the Nazis were leftists. LEFTISTS take away property rights. We on the right side of the aisle protect property rights.

Protecting private property ownership is Catholic, BTW.

 

[katherine2]

swampfox:

Does Minnesota use tax dollars to fund abortions?

They use tax dollars to prevent abortions.

 

[katherine2]

jlw:

Uh, sorry, the Nazis were leftists. LEFTISTS take away property rights. We on the right side of the aisle protect property rights.

Protecting private property ownership is Catholic, BTW.

Thank you for your opinion. Having been alive in the 1930’s no one then had your great wisdom. Everyone saw the Nazis as right wing extremists. Of course, they Nazis were able to seize power because the Conservative Party led by von Papen and Hindenberg made an alliance with them.

And of course, have we forgotten the leader of the British Conservative Party with his thin little umbrella making deals with him? Thank God one Tory (that blessed bullgog!) broke ranks and joined with Labour to create a National Coalition government.

And here in America? FDR and Sidney Hillman denoucing Hitler while those on the right like Lindberg and the America First Committee supporting isolationism.

 

[vern_humphrey]

katherine2:

Not in Minnesota where they are cutting the income tax for the upper brackets but raising the regressive property tax.

Dear, to pay property tax, you must HAVE property.

You cannot raise property taxes on the people of no property.

 

[vern_humphrey]

MichaelTDoyle:

You do distort what I said. If it involves supporting pro-abortion candidacies to support your particular government driven charities, then I don’t say shut up, I say speak up. Until the Church stops seeking government pursestrings and government influence they cannot tell abortionists to recant, which is their duty. Their duty is not to allocate government monies.

Yes, we can concurrently do good as individuals.

The government is infested with pro-abortion “Catholics” This makes it an unsuitable vehicle for “charity”, if that is even a proper role for government.

Katherine is a dear, but she associates too closely with the pro-abortion wing of the Democrat Party – for example, in another thread, she repeated their claim that there were no laws against abortion at the time of the Constitution.

One of my concerns is this:

I

n a pastoral statement, the bishops have asked lawmakers not to make any more funding cuts in human service programs to balance the budget. Minnesota Catholic Conference spokeswoman Kate Crissik says they believe raising revenue “justly and fairly” is the best way to invest in human needs…

Yet virtually every day, those same bishops make funding cuts to balance THEIR budgets. They close old churches that don’t have enough parishoners to support them. They close Catholic schools.

Is there somehow a different brand of economics that gives these bishops dispensation to do what they accuse others of doing?

 

[StJeanneDArc]

****! And I was sooooo hoping to seize the moral high ground!!! I do realize that, someone just batted around the term “socialist” in an earlier post in what I believe to be a rather cavalier and inflamatory manner. As it happens, I do not believe all Republicans are evil, nor do I believe all Democrats are either. I do take your point.

I won’t back away from using the word socialist and I don’t understand why it’s so inflamatory. Those that advocate socialism are socialists, and we have several posters on this forum who do that.

Socialism n. 1. a theory or system of social organization that advocates the ownership and control of industry, capital, land, etc., by the community as a whole. (Random House College Dictionary, 1975).

There are posters here who advocate increasing taxes to fund welfare programs for the poor. That’s seizing capital from one group and giving it to another, or socialism.

 

[jlw]

katherine2:

Thank you for your opinion. Having been alive in the 1930’s no one then had your great wisdom. Everyone saw the Nazis as right wing extremists. Of course, they Nazis were able to seize power because the Conservative Party led by von Papen and Hindenberg made an alliance with them.

And of course, have we forgotten the leader of the British Conservative Party with his thin little umbrella making deals with him? Thank God one Tory (that blessed bullgog!) broke ranks and joined with Labour to create a National Coalition government.

And here in America? FDR and Sidney Hillman denoucing Hitler while those on the right like Lindberg and the America First Committee supporting isolationism.

Do not confuse conservative and liberal with Right and Left. Don’t confuse the meaning of these terms as they apply today and as they applied a half-century ago.

Do not confuse fascism with conservatism. Most fascists are leftist socialists or communists. Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Saddam. I am not saying the fascism can only be applied to the Left, but history tells us that those interested in using the government to strongarm the populous into “order” are LEFTISTS.

The democrats in the first 60 years of the last century were the party of RACISM, SEGREGATION, and JIM CROW. They were socialists/fascists!! JFK Changed all that. He took northeastern Republican (classic liberal, not to be confused with modern liberal) values, and put a Democrat face on it.

Uh, wasn’t Linburg a leftist?? Am I wrong???

 

[swampfox]

vern humphrey:

Katherine is a dear, but she associates too closely with the pro-abortion wing of the Democrat Party – for example, in another thread, she repeated their claim that there were no laws against abortion at the time of the Constitution.

One of my concerns is this:

I
Yet virtually every day, those same bishops make funding cuts to balance THEIR budgets. They close old churches that don’t have enough parishoners to support them. They close Catholic schools.

Is there somehow a different brand of economics that gives these bishops dispensation to do what they accuse others of doing?

Yes, it is the school of economics called DO-AS-I-SAY-Not-DO-AS-I-DO, which is also known by the name What’sGood4Me/is/NotGood4U. Proponents of that school are known as the NOMENKLATURA and typically characterized by shamelessness, elitism, hypocrisy and a sense of entitlement and special privilege.

 

[MichaelTDoyle]

katherine2:

The Minnesota bishops do not support pro-abortion candidates. You invented that out of whole cloth.

You are damning the bishops for supporting effective means of saving the unborn. I think that is sad.

Zowie!! You are a firebrand! I most categorically am NOT damning anyone!! I know you meant it metaphorically, but please.

If they are not denying them Communion, not in the process of excommunicating them for their own good, they are de facto supporting them by allowing them to continue to prance around Capitol Hill claiming Catholicism and supporting the murder of the unborn baby.

You mentioned NAZI How much worse than NAZIs is the systematic slaughter of the unborn by their own mothers and those sworn to heal, funded and approved by this government?

Evil is home to roost here. Our shepherds must ALL speak out. If pursestrings are holding them back, they must pluck out whatever is holding them back. We need to pray to the HS to wake up the consciences of everyone. Look at the pictures. The Bishops need to speak out. Now. Forcefully and with their authority.

 

[Lisa_N]

katherine2:

So you think that everyone who owns a home is rich?

No and because of low interest rates we have a record number of people in this country who own their home. However you need to get in touch with reality. Compare the tax base, value and percentage of home ownership among wealthy people vis a vis poor people.

katherine2:

And in those communities that have this, it was people who you belittle who caused it to happen.

I generally belittle socialists, communists, bleeding heart liberals, and people so “open minded” their brains fell out long ago. Did these people cause the problem to happen? Your comment does not make sense. But neither did the first comment.

katherine2:

And I suppose kicking poor people and elderly out of their modest homes appeals to your Nazi nature. After all, removal of people from their homes was an essential element of the Nazi programme.

So since you have no support for your argument you are reduced to calling me a Nazi? That’s pretty pathetic Katherine, you can surely do better. Yes indeed we Nazis like to drag granny out of her home and toss her to the curb. Come on. Get a grip.

As to your suggestion that Nazis are right wing, sorry but there is NOTHING right wing about Nazis. The only people who consider them such are not very conversant with the actual characteristics of right/left wing politics.

Lisa N

 

[katherine2]

vern humphrey:

Dear, to pay property tax, you must HAVE property.

You cannot raise property taxes on the people of no property.

You can be low income and own a home. Last fall we helped such a lady put insulation in her home so she could better afford her gas bill this winter.

 

[katherine2]

MichaelTDoyle:

Zowie!! You are a firebrand!

I know it.

I most categorically am NOT damning anyone!! I know you meant it metaphorically, but please.

The Minnesota bishop are fighting to keep programs in place that save unborn lives and you are criticizing them.

If they are not denying them Communion, not in the process of excommunicating them for their own good, they are de facto supporting them by allowing them to continue to prance around Capitol Hill claiming Catholicism and supporting the murder of the unborn baby.

Whatever. If so, I guess it could be said that if you are not supporting the bishops as they fight to kep programs that save unborn lives you are supporting the murder of the unborn baby.

You mentioned NAZI How much worse than NAZIs is the systematic slaughter of the unborn by their own mothers and those sworn to heal, funded and approved by this government?

And how much worse to obstruct the saving of unborn lives because it is not being done the way you prefer.

Evil is home to roost here.

It sure is. The bishops fight for the unborn, the poor, the disabled and the elderly and some Catholic do nothing but criticize.

 

[swampfox]

katherine2:

They use tax dollars to prevent abortions.

Do you mean state employees’ health benefits don’t pay for abortions in Minnesota. Those benefits are funded by the taxpayers. Also, how about the “poor” expectant mothers? Do they get government funded abortions in Minnesota? If not, Minnesota is not as “progressive” as most blue states which think it is unfair to deny a poor expectant mother the wherewithal to kill her child since a rich or middle class expectant mother can afford to pay for the killing herself.