Now You Can Keep Some

 

This just in from Americans for Tax Reform:

Happy Cost of Government Day!  Today, August 12, is Cost of Government Day (COGD), the day of the calendar year when the average American worker has earned enough gross income to pay off his or her share of the spending and regulatory burdens imposed by government on the federal, state, and local levels.

COGD falls 26 days later than last year's date, and it's 23 days later than the previous all-time high of July 20, in 1982.

As your Congressman and Senators hold their town hall meetings this recess, you should ask them why you needed to spend 224 days working to pay off your share of government. You should also ask them if you've already spent this much time working to pay off government, why would you possibly want to spend additional days working for a government takeover of healthcare?

While this is a mathematical average, it is still revealing.  You must remember that much of the cost of government goes beyond taxes.  Invisible ‘taxes’ are piled on us whenever the production of anything we use is made more expensive by government regulation.  However you look at it, YOU have to pay for it.

Will the cost of government day continue to move ever later into the year?  This bothers me for theological reasons.  The Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 13 that we owe taxes to those who give their full time to punishing evil and commending good.  We have a system of governments that both condemn good and commend evil.  (Examples abound, abortion being just one.)

So it is the height of theological naiveté to claim that scripture requires that we should cheerfully support our current mess.

As the government approaches more closely to self-declared omni-competence, it will demand that an ever-greater part of our lives be devoted to its feeding.  Economically speaking, that means it will be more and more difficult for people to support themselves – which becomes yet another excuse for the government to claim more power.

And theologically speaking, it means the government will tacitly claim to be god.  (And be led by messianic figures?  Just asking.)