Rick Santorum’s tax policies and more–imposing his moralizing choices on all
by Linda Beale
Rick Santorum’s tax policies and more–imposing his moralizing choices on all
Rick Santorum is a man who seems to hold sincerely held religious beliefs. The problem is that he thinks everybody that matters holds (or should hold) the same beliefs that he does, or at least should be forced to live in a country that operates by the principles that follow from those beliefs.
Santorum has accused Obama of operating from a “phony theology” (one not based on the Bible). That suggests that Santorum thinks a president is supposed to impose a biblical theology on all presidential work–and that Santorum intends to impose his own “correct” theology if he were to be elected president. See Santorum Questions Education System and Criticizes Obama, New York Times (Feb. 18, 2012). That approach fits with Santorum’s idiosyncratic views on how religion is supposed to influence public life: Santorum has made a point of claiming that he does not hold with the founding principle of separation of church and state–a principle enunciated by Thomas Jefferson, ascribed to by Abraham Lincoln, and articulated splendidly by John F. Kennedy. See Joan Walsh, Santorum’s JFK Story Makes Me Want to Throw Up, Salon.com (Feb. 26, 2012).
This issue is worth pointing out clearly. Here’s what Santorum said
I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute. The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country. (emphasis added)
And here’s what the statesman Kennedy said when confronting the concerns of the Southern Baptist Convention that a Catholic in office would implement the laws under the dictate of the Pontiff in Rome rather than the U.S. Constitution.
I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.
What does Santorum’s theology look like and how will it influence public policy under a Santorum presidency? Santorum apparently thinks public schools are a bad idea (he’s likened them to “factories”) and that all children should be able to be home schooled (and indoctrinated in a parent’s religious preferences) at taxpayer cost. See Santorum Questions Education System and Criticizes Obama, New York Times (Feb. 18, 2012); Santorum Exposed: why is Santorum spending your tax dollars on his family (noting that Santorum took $100,000 from Pennsylvania for an online program for his home-schooled kids, even though he resided in Virginia at the time). He thinks kids get “weird socialization” in public schools. Rick Santorum, Kids Get Weird Socialization in Schools, Huffington Post (Feb. 22, 2012).
We already have weakened public schools by permitting taxpayer funds to pay for “nonreligious” items at religious private schools, such as text books and transportation. Since money is fungible, that payment merely subsidizes more religious expenditure on religious education and deprives children in public schools of much needed resources to deal with the huge lingering infrastructure problems of our public school systems. We don’t need to go even further in that direction by moving religion into public schools wholesale, or moving even more children into ideological indoctrination through taxpayer-funded schooling.
Santorum’s theology is backward on women as well, seeming to think more women should be anchored in the kitchen with numerous progeny pulling on apron strings that signify the most satisfying role for women (in his book). One worries how that would play out in a Santorum presidency that could cut off funding for disfavored activities through executive orders, and his public statements bode ill for how it would pan out. Santorum apparently thinks the feminist revolution is bad, because it has made it harder for women to choose to stay at home. See Santorum faces questions on women in the work force, New York Times (Feb. 12, 2012).
In contradistinction to the importance of individuals’ rights under the First Amendment, he seems to think that every religious institution should be able to impose its beliefs on its workers (no matter what their beliefs are): under Santorum, a woman working in any capacity for the Catholic Church could not be covered in her health care plan provided by her employer for contraception. See Social Issues Rule Day in Candidates Race, AP (Febl 12, 2012) (noting Santorum’s comment that the contraception rule forces churches to do something against their basic (institutional) tenets). He thinks voters should be aware of his religious faith and should consider that in determining whether to vote for him. And his religious faith doesn’t believe in birth control, so he wants to be sure that the tax code provides a huge tax exemption for each child in multi-child families–but not a refundable tax credit that would be of real use to a poor working mother with one child to care for. See Santorum letter, Raise the exemption for children, not the child tax credit, Wall St. J (Feb. 25, 2012) (claiming that he wants an $11,100 personal exemption per child for working families but is against a child tax credit that would be refundable, so is “innocent” of “expanding welfare”).
Santorum’s theology doesn’t seem to find it problematic when a government system systematically redistributes resources upwards to the benefit of the wealthy. His tax plan would result in zero taxation on unearned income, the primary type of income of the wealthy. Welfare for the rich is apparently fine and dandy under Rick Santorum’s version of morality.
crossposted with ataxingmatter
I knew Santorum would eventually drive Prof. Beale to shrill madness. :))
The fun ends in Michigan today.
I think just about everyone understands that Santorum is unelectable in a nationwide race which is why some Democrats have been urged to vote for him in Michigan so that Romney is further weakened in the general election. personally, I think it is a huge mistake for anyone with a even the slightest left of center tendencies to vote for Santorum or Gingrich for that matter. I am heartily sick and tired of both major political parties who care only about the special interests that support them and winning the next election. I want Romney to be the GOP candidate for president because he will keep Obama from moving further to the right. If Santorum were the candidate, Obama could move further right than Ronald Reagan and still win 35 states. With Romney as the candidate, Obama would have to continue governing about where Ike did on the left/right spectrum or else Romney would be percieved as the more progressive candidate.
I remember the good old days of the Civil Rights movement when all you had to worry about was unmitigated racism, anti-semitism, and anti-catholicism. This stuff is crazier than any of the stuff I heard my father and his neo-Nazi friends rant about back then. Do any of you have any ideas why the Republican candidates have all gone round the twist? NancyO
Santorum, and the others, are doing exactly what our forefathers wanted to prevent with the first amendment.
The authors of the Constitution were Englishmen by birth and education and they had observed two centuries of conflict between Protestants and Catholics in England that even included a civil war.
When the Protestants controlled the government they would persecute the Catholics only to see the tables turned when the Catholics came to power. The Catholics in Maryland did not want the Puritans in Boston to use the government to impose their views on them any more than the Quakers in Pennsylvanian wanted the Church of England protestants in Virgina to use the government to enforce their beliefs on them. They resolved this conflict by banning the government from having anything to do with religion.
But Santoreum and many other evangelicals now want to do exactly what the Constitution banned and use the government to force their version of religion on everyone. That is not conservationism. Rather it is some form of radical anti-Americanism.
Note, I will not even go into the question of whether their weird form of “hate thy neighbor” religion is even Christian.
Terry, nothing can keep this President from moving farther to the right. He’s already willing to trash SS, Medicare and whatever you can name in the way of social legislation under the bus to institute ruinous austerian policies. If anything, Peterson will vote for Obama rather than Romney. I wish you were right. But, I don’t think anyone can save us from the deficit hawks. NancyO
I don;t think you knew any REAL bigots back then.
http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpre.html Here’s what Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptists during his presidency. Seems to me that there is little evidence that the majority of the founders supported the idea of a Christian republic. NancyO
Prof. Beale might want to look at what is going on closer to home.
Indictments pending for misuse of pension funds in the City of Detroit.
Most or all of those indicted with be liberal Democrats, and the majority of those African-Americans who stole from African-Americans employees.
One in a long series of indictments of Democrats for theft and corruption in Deeeetroit.
STR–Sir, I knew my father and his Nazi friends. They were German and had entered the US after WWII. The pals were old SA men, in part, and all were dedicated to the purity of the Aryan race. Oh, yeah. I have heard it all, dear STR. My father ate it all up. He was a share-cropper’s son, barely able to read and write. When he was 14, his parents sent him off to work for wages they needed to keep the rest of their kids fed. He never went back.
Long story short–he bought the whole KKK and Nazi enchilada. He was, in fact, so well-known as a racist in Miami that when George Wallace attended the Orange Bowl one year, the latter rented my daddy’s parking lot to park his limousine during the festivities. I know from racists, STR. Ja, you betcha. NancyO
No actual SS guys, but lots of old Wehrmacht foot soldiers. NancyO
STR–Political parties don’t mean much in this country and never have. Corruption is a function of character, means, opportunity, and motive. After all, when you look at Repubican Illinois governors routinely ending up convicted for public corruption you can’t hold the Party of Lincoln up as an example of public probity. Or, well, Spiro Agnew, Meese, J. Gordon Liddy, etc.
I have heard people say that if white people in office can’t be honest, then Afro-Americans are stupid not to get their share of whatever’s going around. I’ve heard a lot of absolute drivel put out as political wisdom and so have you. So, no need to belabor the obvious. A lot of pols are in it for the money. Says it all. NancyO
nancy
may not say enough
when a persons brain has collapsed to the point where he believes life is a contest between evil democrats and virtuous republicans, or between kind democrats and crass republicans, he has become the fodder for one party or another, or in our case, for the good-cop bad-cop charade of parties we have in America.
i think, without knowing a whole lot about it, that the “church” the founders were concerned about was the “establishment” of a political power in the name of an organized religion. neither the founders nor anyone else did, or can, let go of the moral beliefs that may or may not have their origins in religious teachings, whether those were cynical or meant to help people.
i think Santorum’s ideas are ugly and stupid, but I don’t think the answer to them is “separation of church and state.” those are well separated, and “the church” is all but dead, for better or worse. what you are seeing is the “religion” of party… just like the Nazi party, i am afraid, where a mess of proto-religious ideas, natioinalism, bigotry, and stupidity, as well as good old fashioned hate thy neighbor is manipulated by the big money interests for political advantage.
it is not helpful to attack those people at either the “religious” or “moral” level of their beliefs. they will just hate and fear you all the more.
Rusty, that’s non-germain to the point of silliness. Linda wrote about one guy’s effort to impose his religious views on the rest of us through the government. You know, the sort of thing the Founding Fathers dedicated themselves to preventing. Your answer is “Why isn’t Linda writing about criminal activity among the party I (rusty) want to saddle her with? Ha! Gotcha!” Is this the”Democrats are just as bad” shuffle, or the “Oh, look, black people doing bad things” effort to distract us from the issue Linda has raised? Either way, even you can’t think you’ve done a good job of it.
If the audience is religious zealots, then you’r right – telling them they are religious zealots doesn’t help. If the audience is everybody else, whose liberty is at risk because of the zealots, then Linda has every reason to sound alarms. Piping down is the wrong answer. Good German’s tried that. Didn’t work, so on to Poland. Good Poles tried it. Didn’t work. And so on. When bigotry crops up, you point it out.
I read pretty much everything Linda writes. She uses stereotypes and generalizations like an undergrad. GOP bad. Business bad. Private sector bad. Blah, blah.
Santorum is a definitely a loon, so what is news about that?
Wow, family reunions must be been a hoot. Ah sehr gut!
Some of my family probably shot at them. Sorry, glad you father made it so you can be here.
It is time to go vote.
I was going to vote for “none of the above” but now I’m thinking of voting for Rick, just to make Mitt and Linda angry.
(My wife says if she gets one more robocall at midnight she is going to pull Rick’s lungs out – glad the vote is today.)
kharris
i agree wholeheartedly. but it matters how you do it.
chanting “separation of church and state” is both wrong historically and ineffective politically… though it may give the anti-religion bigots a rallying point.
and if the religious zealots want to impose their values (not their religion) on the rest of us, that is no different from us wanting to impose our values on them. that’s what politics is all about.
thing is, though,you lose people who should be on your side in the politics that matter: political freedom, individual rights, economic sanity… by attacking them at a level where their unconscious fears kick in and they reject your economics because they think you are coming after everything they love.
oh, to be sure
if Linda is just sounding the alarm for our benefit, she is right on.
oh, and i should admit
you can’t win. they’ve got you in a cleft stick. even if you are reasonable like me, they will just accuse you of being everything they have been taught to believe you are.. immoral, baby killer, homosexual, liberal. democrat, even.
I guess having watched Obama for 3 plus years now I consider him to be totally devoid of principle and interested only in his personal agrandizement. That means winning one more election and he has already indicated that he will throw everything and everyone under the bus to do that. The one thing he can not do however is govern to the right of the GOP candidate. While it is not any great shakes, I would prefer Romney as the GOP chloice to Santorum or Ginggrich because it gives Obama a little less room to move right.
Does that make you one of those Dem crossovers Rusty? 🙂
terry
don’t count on it.
STR:
non sequitor
obama makes ike look like fdr.