The purpose of this blog is to inform people of how Communism as a political and economic system goes against Christianity, how it goes against what humans will naturally do, and how it has begun to be implemented in the fabric of the United States of America. I will first interpret each plank. Then, I will show how the plank goes against Judeo-Christian tradition. I will finally show how the plank has been implemented in various policies of the government of the United States and goes against the original intent of the Founders when the US Constitution was written.
This is the second plank of the Communist Party and is a complicated issue. Many people may not know that the income tax has not always been legal in the United States. There was a brief period during the Civil War when Congress passed an income tax on the Union states which expired in 1870. Karl Marx published The Communist Manifesto in 1848 a mere thirteen years before the Civil War broke out. To levy the income tax which exists today, the Constitution needed to be amended.
The founders of the United States of America were very wise, and included a clause in the Constitution that prohibited a direct tax on individual citizens. The fourth sentence in Article I, Section 9 states, "No capitation, or other direct, tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken." This means that the states can be taxed based on the number of people counted in that state, but no tax should be directly taken from individual citizens.
The Sixteenth Amendment of the Constitution states, "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census of enumeration." This Amendment basically voided Article I, Section 9. The tax that exists is a progressive tax because people with low incomes are not taxed at the same rate as people with high incomes.
One may ask why the Sixteenth Amendment was necessary. The Federal Reserve was founded in December of 1913. The Sixteenth Amendment was passed earlier that year in February. These events are linked because the Federal Reserve borrows money from businesses and, in turn, lends it to the Federal Government. The businesses who worked to push the legislation through needed to get some sort of collateral on the loan. The government did not really have anything they were willing to offer, so it was agreed that a direct tax would be levied on the people of the United States. The Sixteenth Amendment was ratified in February. The Federal Reserve Act was passed out of Congress and signed into law on the last day of the lame-duck legislative session in 1913.
The way the income tax is applied to the American people is not constitutional. The Fourteenth Amendment states in Section 1, "...nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." This clause was addressed to the States; however, when people who make a certain amount of money are taxed at a higher rate under a direct tax than other people based on the amount of money they make, this is not equal protection under the law.
Scripture also speaks on taxation. Referring back to the last post, this tax is covetous. The government wanted what it could not legally have, so it changed the rules so that it could take it by force. This is a violation of the Ten Commandments.
The Gospel of Matthew tells a story of Jesus Christ addressing taxes. There is a story where the Pharisees are trying to trap Jesus. They asked him, "Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?" Jesus replied through asking them for a coin. Then Jesus asked them whose image was on the coin. They told him that a picture of Caesar was on the coin. Jesus told them to give Caesar what was Caesar and God what is God's. Jesus was stating that Caesar was not a god, but He was also pointing out that they were created in the image of the One True God. He was telling them that they were not giving to God what was made in His image.
There is another story in Matthew about the temple taxes. This is the one where Peter caught a fish that had a coin in its mouth which was enough money to pay the tax for both Jesus and Peter. One thing that may not stand out to the reader is that the temple tax was the same for everyone, two days' wages. This was a limited tax for temple maintenance and was not a progressive tax.
Saint Paul also addresses taxes in his letter to the Romans. He states that governments are established by God to defend citizens against those who do wrong. Therefore, if one owes taxes, then one should pay taxes. Paul is talking about the ideal role of government as the Founders brought forth in the Constitution. Citizens should obey God rather than man if rulers overstep their proper function as Peter and John stated in the book of Acts.
Now, this writer is not opposed to paying taxes. The government requires them to be paid so that it can perform what is its Constitutional role, protecting citizens from those who would do them harm. However, the progressive tax that has been foisted upon US citizens by rewriting the Constitution has given the government a blank check to do what it wants. One should read Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution which James Madison in Federalist Letter 48 confirmed listed finite powers to the Congress. This list of powers if followed would not require a direct, progressive tax on its citizens. Taxes should be limited to what the government should be spending and applied equally among the citizens.
Works Cited
“Acts, Matthew, and Romans.” THE NIV STUDY Bible, Zondervan, 1995.
Hill, Joseph A. “The Civil War Income Tax.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 8, no. 4, 1894, pp. 416–452. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1885003. Accessed 17 Nov. 2020.
United States Constitution, New Revolution Publishers, 2011.
