It's hard to have conversation with fundamentalist who believe they know what either the Bible or Constitution say but often haven't bothered read or think about them and demagogues who encourage such ignorance.
For starters The Constitution clearly states why our government was established, "to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity".
It clearly says enumerated powers of Congress include "To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States" and "To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof".
So what happened? Certainly special interest have done well ensuring that all Duties, Imposts and Excises are not uniform throughout the United States. We imposed an income tax which is fine as far as it goes but special interest then used it to shift taxes from corporations, hereditary wealth and usage of resources to tax the true creators of wealth which is individuals who work and create.
Look at interstate commerce. It is dependent on two factors. One is transportation and private sources of transportation don't hesitate to charge the maximum fees or if a private group owns a road or a parking lot it imposes the maximum possible toll, if allowed, but the federal government charges relatively little for such usage. The second half of interstate commerce is the money used to finance it without which there would be no goods purchased and shipped over our often government created and regulated transportation services. It was part of the genius of America to give government control over the monetary supply. If you borrow from a private source, adjusting for risk, you will be charged the maximum the market will allow and expected to return the principal yet government, which is the originator of money, progressively collects a smaller and smaller percentage of the money it lends when it creates it. We complain about the federal tax rate, which realistically runs at about 20% overall at maximum, but what bank would only collect 20% of what it loaned?
It wouldn't be so bad if the 80% of the money the government creates and never sees returned were distributed productively in order to provide for the general welfare as intended but instead it is accumulated by a few, based on the Reagan mythology that it is theirs, or even more absurdly "you money" (then why do middle class Americans get less and less?) when it is in fact all of our money. Yes it is, despite the right wing knee jerk reaction this statement provokes. If it doesn't agree with your political and economic philosophy what does you religious philosophy tell you? I forget, the right wing only pays lip service to Jesus' teachings about wealth. I'm no Christian so I do can't expect anyone else to fully live up to the ideals but how can those who claim we are "a Christian nation" so clearly ignore them? No doubt intelligence and work must be rewarded but not at ratios of 100,000 to 1? Bottom line, no church is worthy of the name nor can a nation long survive that is indifferent to issues of wealth and economic fairness.
