Alabama governor Bob Riley is one of the only Conservative Christian politicians I’ve ever heard of who actually puts their morals ahead of their politics :

Riley is that rarest of creatures: A genuinely inspiring politician. As a member of the House of Representatives, his hard-right instincts won him annual commendations from Grover Norquist’s fanatically anti-tax group, Americans for Tax Reform. But, when he took over this year as Alabama governor, he encountered three ideologically discomforting truths about his state’s tax system. First, it wasn’t producing enough revenue to balance the budget, as the state constitution required. Second, it wasn’t producing enough revenue to guarantee even a minimally adequate education for Alabama’s children. Third, it fell largely on the poor.

In other words, Alabama has the kind of tax system Norquist wants for the United States. The state constitution, rewritten in 1901 at the behest of timber and cotton interests, largely exempts Alabama’s extractive industries from property taxes. As a result, while timber companies own 71 percent of the state’s land, they pay less than 2 percent of its property taxes. So how does Alabama make up for this lack of revenue? Partly, it doesn’t: Its schools are the worst funded in the country, and last year the state tied for last in national writing tests. Partly, it taxes the poor. In most states, state income taxes kick in at around $18,000. In Alabama, they kick in at a breathtaking $4,600–or about one-fourth of the poverty line for a family of four. The state collects the majority of its revenue through highly regressive sales taxes; in some counties, the tax on groceries reaches 11 percent. A study by the liberal Citizens for Tax Justice found that, while the poorest one-fifth of Alabamians pay more than 10 percent of their income in taxes, the wealthiest 1 percent pay less than 4 percent.

Riley is trying to change this. He wants to exempt families below the poverty line from state income taxes while boosting property and state income taxes for the wealthy. As a result, the poorest two-thirds of Alabamians would see their taxes hold steady or go down. The wealthiest one-third would pay more, although still less than in most states. Riley’s plan would bring in enough new revenue to balance the budget. It would also fund an intensive K-6 reading initiative, a salary boost for teachers willing to work in the worst schools, and college scholarships for high school seniors with good grades and test scores. In return for the new money, Riley has convinced Alabama’s teachers’ unions to scrap tenure for all new hires, giving principals far more authority to fire bad teachers. As Buddy Bell, minister at Landmark Church of Christ in Montgomery, recently told the Montgomery Advertiser, “This is the most courageous thing I have ever seen a governor do.”
. . .
The NAACP and the Urban League, not to mention the Democratic party, should be sending college students to Montgomery and Birmingham by the busloads. Al Sharpton, Jackson, and Mfume should be taking up residence in the state. Alabama GOP Chairman Marty Connors recently told The Washington Post that, “If this can pass in Alabama, it could be a precedent to attempt it elsewhere.” And he’s absolutely right. Riley, who couches his reforms in biblical language about the obligation to “take care of the least among us,” is one of the few white politicians in recent history to try to use religion on behalf of social justice. He’s won significant white evangelical backing, and, if his plan passes, it could upend conventional wisdom about what is politically, and morally, possible in the South.

It’s nice to see some religious people finally realize see the conservative goal of “empowering” the poor by taxing the hell out of them for the selfish bullshit that it is. Anyone who thinks Jesus would vote Republican needs to read the Bible again (Here’s a hint : start at Matthew, stop at John. The rest is just filler).

What I find so fascinating about this story is that it all started with a thesis from Beeson Divinity School :

Beeson, which teaches the inerrancy of Scripture, has generally been a Christian Coalition sort of place, a marketplace of ideas where southern-fried conservatism was often the only item on the menu. “We’re all conservatives here. We don’t have any liberals,” says Beeson Dean Timothy George. “We’re people who say we believe the Bible is the word of God. We generally agree with Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell. We’re very conservative Christian evangelicals.”

But last fall, Susan Pace Hamill, a Beeson theology student, published a master’s thesis arguing that “Alabama’s tax structure economically oppresses low-income Alabamians and fails to raise adequate revenues.”

Hamill, a tax-law professor at the University of Alabama, spent her sabbatical studying Scripture at Beeson. Her 112-page thesis, published in the fall 2002 issue of the Alabama Law Review, is an attack not only on Alabama’s regressive tax code — which requires poor families to pay up to three times the percentage of income in state tax that wealthy families pay — but on the Christians who permit such an injustice to persist.

On Ms. Hammil’s website, you can download her entire thesis (which has since been printed in book form as The Least of These: Fair Taxes and the Moral Duty of Christians). Although I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, I was really impressed by this excerpt :

The Bible has a great deal to say about how individual people and their communities must treat the poor, powerless and needy among them. The book of Genesis (1:27, 4:9, 9:5?6), revealing that God created all people in His image, equates the unjust treatment of fellow human beings as a wrong committed against God Himself, for God?s image may be seen in even the poorest and neediest people among us. In other words, to sin against the poor is to sin against God.
. . .
Jesus declares that He has come to fulfill the Old Testament Scriptures, and His teachings show that the moral requirements of the Old Testament protecting poor and powerless people apply to all Christians. In addition to identifying the love of God and the love of neighbors (even those with no wealth or status) as the two greatest commandments, and announcing that He has come ?to preach the good news to the poor? and ?release the oppressed,? Jesus showed special compassion and concern for the poorest and neediest people of society throughout His earthly ministry. At the very least, Jesus calls for social structures that protect poor people from economic oppression and allow them a minimum opportunity to improve their lives.
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Given that Alabama?s tax structure fails to meet God?s moral demands, the next question is: What is the moral duty of all Alabamians professing faith in God? The Bible has a great deal to say. The Old Testament books of Isaiah (1:17, 5:8, 10:1?4), Amos (2:6?8; 5:7, 10?11, 14?15; 5:21?24; 8:4?6) and Micah (2:1?2, 9; 6:8), and the New Testament Gospel of Matthew (25:45) strongly condemn those who claim to be the people of God, yet do nothing toward changing conditions that economically oppress the poorest and neediest people and deny them a minimum opportunity to improve their lives. Jesus Himself made this clear when He said ?Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.? (Matthew 25:45) What does this require? At the very least, all Alabamians professing faith in God have a moral duty to vote for candidates running for political office who promise to work for tax reform efforts that will correct these unjust conditions suffered by the poorest and neediest Alabamians and their children.

However, the moral duty of some Alabamians is far greater. The Old Testament books of Isaiah (1:23, 5:22?23), Jeremiah (22:2?4, 12?17), Ezekiel (22:25?29, 34:2?4) and Micah (3:1?3, 11), and the New Testament Gospels of Matthew (23:23?24) and Luke (12:48) impose even greater moral responsibilities on those who enjoy greater privileges because of their education, wealth, status or access to the power structures. Jesus Himself made this clear when He said ?From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.? (Luke 12:48) Alabamians of privilege who profess faith in God, yet act in ways
designed to confuse the truth to avoid paying their fair share, should be mindful of Jesus? warning (Matthew 6:24, Luke 16:13) that ?you cannot serve both God and money.? Any efforts to falsely convince others that the current tax structure is acceptable to God violate God?s moral demands just as much as the tax structure itself.

If you’re the kind of person who believes that everything you do is being recorded in a “Book of Life” up in Heaven then you should see a shrink then what makes you think that God doesn’t have access to your voting record? Every time you vote for a Republican who promises to cut your taxes knowing that those tax cuts are being paid for by cutting programs that benefit the poor, don’t you think that’s just putting you one step closer to Hell? Isn’t “greed” still one of the seven deadly sins, or did they replace it with “liberal”?

The Republicans have spent the last 20+ years appealing to the most selfish instincts of Americans while publicly embracing Christianity in the kind of hypocritical way that Jesus tried to warn you about (Why are you hearing this for the first time from an atheist?). Advocating tax cuts for the wealthy that increase the tax burden on the poor directly contrasts the teachings of Jesus. In short, you can’t be a good Christian and a Republican at the same time.

Needless to say, the Democrats need to jump on this one quickly before its co-opted by Bush and the rest of the GOP. After all, if Bush publicly supported increasing taxes on the wealthy, it wouldn’t be the first time he took credit for a liberal program without any intention to follow through (Americorps, AIDS in Africa, etc.)