Congressional Democrats are furious with President Obama. The reason? He wants to allow the most economically productive citizens to keep more of their own money.

The House Democratic caucus decided Thursday not to support the President's plan to extend the Bush-era tax cuts beyond the first of the new year. And they chafed mightily that the President is not willing to seize 45% of estates worth over $3.5 million (he's willing to grab a paltry 35% of estates worth over $5 million).

The mindset of certain lawmakers is that you just can't allow people to have too much money. When they reach a certain level of annual income or cumulative estate value, it's the government's job to take a good chunk of their wealth and spread it around. We're so used to this way of thinking - even though we may not condone it - that it's easy to lose sight of just how outrageous it is. Outrageous, and sinful.

The American government is using taxation as a way to shore up entitlements, which is a way of shoring up voter bases for certain lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. The insidiousness of this mindset is not as clear as it might be: It insists that wealthy people should have their lawfully-acquired property filched in order to pay, in my name, the people I need to vote for me if I am to remain in office. 

We can shrug and say, "It's just politics," but that is to dodge the real issue. It is, rather, evidence of the powerful effects of sin, which has worked its way into the systems of our national government, unrecognized. Taxation as it is practiced in this country is, not to put too fine a point on it, wicked. It sanctions stealing, mocks the idea of just desserts, encourages graft, discolors political decision-making, divides the nation, and leaves government with a false sense of the limits of its powers. Should we have taxes? Of course, but they should be fair and equal as a percentage of income, which is the standard guideline recommended in Scripture for such matters. Tax codes should not be written so as to fund the political agendas of clever politicians.

Will the Tea Party Movement foster a tax revolt? I doubt it. The Tea Party groups, since they aren't willing to take a stand on moral issues, can't make a moral argument here, only one based on "keeping my own money." Status quo lawmakers are expert at highlighting the selfish sound in that appeal and of vaunting their own arguments on behalf of others, rather than themselves, even though they end up serving themselves by doing so.

Nothing short of a moral enlightenment will break the back of the current taxation mindset, and that's not going to happen apart from a work of God in the souls of people across our society.

Which, itself, is not likely to happen apart from God's people pleading earnestly with Him for revival (Ps. 80).

Additional related texts: Romans 13.1-7; 2 Chronicles 7.14; Matthew 21.22

A conversation starter: "Do you suppose Americans will ever wake up to just how wicked and unjust the current tax codes are?"

T. M. Moore