This Needs Fixin'

It’s time to stop pretending that churches are special.

They are, in essence, social clubs for people who share some common belief.

Like the Elks or the Masons, but with a side of actually believing that the rituals do stuff and mean something.

That’s really not a good enough reason to give them a “Get Out Of Taxes Free” card.

There was a deal in the Constitution when the country was founded: the Churches stay out of the State, and the State will leave the Churches alone to do their own thing. The founders knew what it was like to live under Church government, and didn’t want that to keep happening.

But the Churches have long ago reneged on that deal.

They’ve never actually done a good job of sticking to it, honestly, but lately it’s gotten totally out of hand.

For example, there’s an active movement of evangelical preachers who openly choose to preach specific political exhortations in their Churches, for example, knowing that this is pretty much the only thing they’re forbidden from doing by the tax codes.

There are also active christian movements in legislatures around the country, and attempts to force the State to subsidize Church schools and many, many more.

And that was all going on before he Secretary of Defense started holding religious services in the Pentagon auditorium last week.

This is, frankly, too much; it’s time to tax the Churches.

No more than any other social organization, of course; let’s be fair about this. The goal isn’t to get rid of them; the goal is just to remind them to stay well away from the State.

In fact, a good way to do this without damaging any Churches who aren’t misbehaving would be:

• remove the categories like “church” or “religious charity” from the tax code entirely, so those organizations would be taxed like any other social organization
• give each taxpayer one income tax exemption credit, that’s good for exempting (say) $1,000/year of income from tax, that they can assign to a single social organization of their choice and change once per year
• give each taxpayer one property tax exemption credit, that’s good for exempting (say) $1,000 of assessed property from tax, that they can assign to a single social organization of their choice and change once per year

Its a good compromise.

Religious organizations would be able to stay exempt if their congregations wanted them to be.

And non-religious taxpayers could put their exemption towards organizations that they support without everyone having to pretend that a weekly tea brunch is a Church meeting.

And the Churches would be reminded that the United States is not, and has never been, a country where religion has any role at all in the State.

A win for everybody.

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