A long drink of water.
From Orcinus, I learn that somebody off on the dextral side of the Islets of Bloggerhans is challenging folks who find themselves on one end or the other to say something nice about their better halves. —Apparently, bipartisanship isn’t so much like date rape in Paul Muller’s book:
So here’s my challenge – if you are a proprietor of a Democratic blog, and primarily post on how the GOP is the great evil, comment to me on one thing that the GOP has done that’s good. And, if you are feeling adventurous, post something on your actual site that does the same thing. Maybe a local Congressman or Senator has done something good for the area you live in. Perhaps a bill has been supported that you agree with. Maybe you actually gasp like the policy someone has. Whatever it is, let’s hear it.
So I’m game, though I’m afraid I might be spoiling the spirit if not the letter. While Muller seems more concerned with the GOP on a national level, I’d rather highlight the efforts of one Bob Riley, the conservative, Christian, Republican governor of my home state of Alabama. (Thanks to Julia for pointing me to the New York Times spit-take.)
The basic gist of what this red-stater is up to is summed up thusly by a blue-state elitist:
Alabama’s tax system has long been brutally weighted against the least fortunate. The state income tax kicks in for families that earn as little a $4,600, when even Mississippi starts at over $19,000. Alabama also relies heavily on its sales tax, which runs as high as 11 percent and applies even to groceries and infant formula. The upshot is wildly regressive: Alabamians with incomes under $13,000 pay 10.9 percent of their incomes in state and local taxes, while those who make over $229,000 pay just 4.1 percent.
A main reason Alabama’s poor pay so much is that large timber companies and megafarms pay so little. The state allows big landowners to value their land using “current use” rules, which significantly lowball its worth. Individuals are allowed to fully deduct the federal income taxes they pay from their state taxes, something few states allow, a boon for those in the top brackets.
Governor Riley’s plan, which would bring in $1.2 billion in desperately needed revenue, takes aim at these inequalities. It would raise the income threshold at which families of four start paying taxes to more than $17,000. It would scrap the federal income tax deduction and increase exemptions for dependent children. And it would sharply roll back the current-use exemption, a change that could cost companies like Weyerhaeuser and Boise Cascade, which own hundreds of thousands of acres, millions in taxes. Governor Riley says that money is too tight to lift the sales tax on groceries this time, but that he intends to work for that later.
Doesn’t sound much like a conservative Republican, does it?
Perhaps that’s because he takes his Christianity seriously. “Alabamians are used to hearing their politicians make religious arguments,” says the New York Times,
and Governor Riley thinks he can convince the voters that Christian theology calls for a fairer tax system. “I’ve spent a lot of time studying the New Testament, and it has three philosophies: love God, love each other, and take care of the least among you,” he said. “I don’t think anyone can justify putting an income tax on someone who makes $4,600 a year.”
In fact, now that he’s steered his plan through the divided, squabbling halls of Goat Hill, and it now hinges on the votes in an upcoming September election, Riley’s counting on religious groups to help grass-roots the plan to victory; Susan Pace Hamill has written a law review article titled “An Argument for Tax Reform Based on Judeo-Christian Ethics,” and is planning to train speakers this summer to address church groups with this argument.
It’s not the specter of a Republican raising taxes and the progressive shifting of the burden from them what hasn’t to them what has that I’m cheering, though. That’s reason enough, mind, but I’d like to think there isn’t a human being alive who could take a look at a system that taxes a family making $4,600 a year and not want to do something about it. (And yes: that does say a lot about Alabama politics to date.) —And it’s not like I’ve vetted his plan in any great detail, though there are details I quite like—still, there’s some education reform in there I’d want to know more about before signing off on them, education being one of those areas where the word “reform” has been deformed beyond all meaning, and anyway tax policy’s far from my strong suit.
No, it’s that anything at all is being done. It’s that a politician took a look at the problems besetting the voters, the resources available to hand, and then waded in and knocked heads and did something, or tried. Things have gotten to that state: there has been such a gross dereliction and abdication of duty at the federal level (I’m talking Donkey and Elephant here, Paul, so I don’t think I cross your line) that the states are facing unprecedented challenges. Each is rising to the occasion in its own gridlocked, squabbling, bipartisan way: the New York state legislature has told Governor Pataki to fuck off in no uncertain terms, for instance; here in Oregon, we’re going to kill the Hummer deduction. Whether you agree with Governor Riley—and the Alabama legislature, there on Goat Hill—or think he’s making a dreadful mistake, you must admit that they’ve remembered what it is governments are good for, and shown a remarkable alacrity for making it work. —If you doubt it, remember: if the voters of Alabama say yea to the Governor’s plan, a family making $4,600 a year will no longer have to set some of that aside to pay state income taxes.
And it’s also the thrill of seeing a compassionate conservative; of seeing someone who wields religion in politics not as a club for once, but as a beacon. One does not have to agree with someone’s convictions to admire their courage for sticking to them, and one merely needs to turn to John Giles of Alabama’s Christian Coalition for an illuminating counter-example: he feels tax reform isn’t necessary, saying the state “need(s) to cut out the pork completely”; he misses the point of one of the most misused verses of Scripture ever, insisting the key question is “How much is Cæsar’s?”; his response to Susan Pace Hamill’s detailed ethical argument on tax reform is to question her stance on abortion.
I’d like to think any Republican—any Christian—would prefer to be in the party of Riley. Not the party of Giles.
There’s that famous speech Michael J. Fox delivers in Aaron Sorkin’s overrated and underappreciated can President. “People want leadership,” he says. “And in the absence of genuine leadership, they will listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership, Mr. President. They’re so thirsty for it, they’ll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there’s no water, they’ll drink the sand.” We’ll leave off for the moment the President’s pointed response; he Learns His Lesson in the end, and all becomes right with the world. —I’m sure there are aspects of Riley’s governorship that would make me livid. I bet there are things I believe that would cause him to mutter darkly about moral depravity. But for all those differences imagined or not, I can see he’s holding out water for people who’ve been thirsty for far too long.
And that, at least, is something I can drink to.
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Saying something nice about the opposition day
Via Long Story Short Pier, I learned that Paul Muller of Heretical Ideas wants lefty bloggers to post something nice about the GOP, and righty bloggers to post something nice about the Democrats. (I wonder what Greens are supposed to post about?) Maybe...
Nice post -- I too was happy to read of Gov. Riley's initiative. Regarding the darkly hilarious line about "how much is Cæsar’s" -- it seems to me that money *in general* is "of Cæsar" -- one's spiritual devotion is "of God" -- I don't see how Christ's admonition has any application at all to tax policy beyond as a general, broad justification for the notion of paying taxes.