Jim Wallis and a number of other Christians involved in politics
are trying to gain attention for the question, “What would Jesus
cut?” The answer to this question is supposed to be as obvious as
it is in other moral contexts. For example, would Jesus lie about
the useful life of a refrigerator he was selling for Best Buy? No
way. Would he bully a kid into giving away his lunch money? Not a
chance. Would you find him taking in the show at a strip club on
interstate 40 in Arkansas? Unlikely to the extreme.
Would he agree to a 2% cut in the marginal tax rate for income
made above $250,000? Would he EVER accept a cut in welfare
spending? Those take a little more thought.
Jim Wallis and others think it’s a no-brainer. Let us reason
together.
As I look over what Wallis wrote, I see several things worth
noting. For example, he complains that some Republicans want to cut
domestic spending and international aid, while they support an
increase in military spending. The implication is that this is
obviously a sub-Christian position. But is it? Probably the most
essential purpose of government is to protect the life and freedom
of citizens. The government achieves this goal through military
means. Unless one takes the position that Christianity implies
corporate pacificism, then it is unclear the Republicans have
blundered according to Christian ethics. Now, match the question of
military spending versus international aid and/or domestic
spending. Are the latter obviously superior to the former? No. It
depends on not only what the stated objective is for the different
types of spending, but whether they actually achieve their
purposes. To simply state that the Republicans want to bolster
military spending while cutting international aid and domestic
spending is to achieve nothing at all by way of an indictment.
Here’s another example. Wallis complains bitterly that tax cuts
to the wealthiest Americans add billions to the deficit. He is
referring to the extension of George W. Bush’s cuts in the marginal
tax rates that existed under Bill Clinton. The first question I
have is how does Jim Wallis know that the level of taxation was
just to begin with? And why take Bill Clinton’s tax levels as the
Platonic form of taxation? Maybe they were too high or too low. The
highest marginal tax rates have fluctuated drastically in the
United States during the last century. John F. Kennedy made a big
cut, with impressive economic effects, as did Ronald Reagan. Is
Wallis sure that by cutting taxes those men robbed the poor and
gave to the rich? Maybe a lot of poor people got jobs because of
them. And we aren’t even getting into the question of whether rich
people actually have an enhanced duty to pay taxes. If there is a
community need, is it righteous to grab a rich person and employ
the power of legal coercion to extract the needed funds?
Still another problem with this redistributionist attitude about
taxes and spending is that it assumes a zero sum state of affairs.
For example, one could assume that the most people would be better
off under a system like the old Soviet Union that spread resources
out to citizens in a way that prized equality of rations. The
United States system didn’t do that nearly as much, not nearly at
all. But which of the two systems provided a better life for
people? The answer is easy. The United States and its emphasis on
liberty did. Why? A more free economic system produces far more
wealth than an unfree one. If your equality system produces a
little, bitty pie, it may give you a lot of philosophical
satisfaction, but it doesn’t do as much actual good for people as
the system that prizes free productivity and success over
equality.
What Jim Wallis is saying comes from a good heart. He is worried
about things like fairness and, of course, about helping people.
But the reasoning he employs in doing so assumes that federal
programs actually achieve what they set out to do, which is far
from obvious, and that they don’t create incentives for behavior
that results in greater problems, which often happens. He also
assumes a zero sum society. It is entirely possible that economic
thinking that concerns itself more with productivity than with
equality will actually leave the great majority of people better
off.
