The Supreme Court Looks Likely to Give Religious Groups Another Win

[Midnight Writer]

1. I fully support our First Amendment religious freedom and I think Catholic Charities do a lot of good work.

I don't, however, see how that translates into tax exemptions.

We have First Amendment Freedom of the Press, but that doesn't mean news organizations don't pay taxes. We have Second Amendment Freedom to Bear Arms, but that doesn't mean gun dealers don't pay taxes. We have the Right to Legal Counsel, but that doesn't mean lawyers don't pay taxes. Churches, like them or not, are run like businesses and should be taxed as businesses. It is ridiculous to give tax exemptions to millionaires like Joel Osteen and the like.

My fantasy is to scrap our current income tax system, with thousands of pages, and start over with a new income tax with zero exemptions and zero deductions. There should be hundreds of tax brackets, with the highest incomes paying the highest rates. If we completely pay off our national debt, then we can look at lowering rates until we are roughly on a sustainable 1 to 1 revenue/spending parity.

If we want to provide an extra break, say, for people with dependent children, then we can pass a law to issue them checks independent of the tax system.