Pastors misguided belief in Fair Tax

I had to smile, when I read the letter from a coalition of pastors, advocating a "Fair Tax" in Illinois. The Fair Tax compels high income persons to pay a higher percentage of taxes than low income persons. They argue that God, in Christian, Muslim and Jewish traditions, obligates us to help the poor.

Apparently, these pastors have forgotten that the various courts around the nation have forbidden governmental bodies from combining religious beliefs with public policy. For example, because laws prohibiting abortion, pornography and homosexuality have a religious origin, they allegedly violate the First Amendment principle separating church and state.

The pastors also argue that God, himself, is the pinnacle of fairness, alluding to passages in sacred scripture. Here they show the difficulty of forcing the Bible into support for the agenda of the Democratic Party.

In a parable (Matt. 20: 1-16), Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who hired some men in the early morning to pick grapes. As time passed, he saw that he needed more laborers to complete the harvest. So, he hired more toward the end of the day, for the same price. Ultimately, he paid the late laborers the same as the early ones, even though the early ones worked more. Naturally, they complained that this was unfair.

In modern America, the householder, who obviously stands in for God, is unfair, having violated who knows how many labor laws and offended Democrat labor unions.

The problems related to social justice do not stem from a flat tax system in Illinois. These problems result from an unjust spending system which trades lucrative short-term benefits for votes and for future generations to pay.

George Kocan

Warrenville