The World Around You

Kevin is thrilled with the new coke refrigerator packs. We have had these for about a year. Coca-Cola unveiled the design almost two years ago.

SURVEY TIME! Have you seen this new packaging? If so, when did it come to your area?

Josh Marshall attacks another of the arguments being floated to defend the Niger debacle.

Now we’re also seeing a lot of administration defenders carting out the standard lines that intelligence is an art, not a science, that it’s a mosaic, and so forth.

That’s all true of course. But it doesn’t cut it to say, “This is just an intelligence failure. The White House just went with what they were being told.” Why? Because you can’t separate our failure to find a lot of what we thought we’d find in Iraq from the “war” the administration has been fighting with the intelligence community for the last two years. If the administration spent the previous two years “at war” with the CIA, pushing them harder and harder into a set of assumptions (and in many cases conclusions) that turned out to be wildly off-the-mark, shouldn’t there be some political accountability for what turned out to be at best a very poor call?

Let’s say a CEO took over a Fortune 500 company. Let’s further say that his first act was to walk down to the advertising division and tell them they had no idea what they were doing and had to change the way they did business. He also told them he was going to bring in some outside consultants to comment on (read: second guess) their work. Now, the CEO and his new crew didn’t have a huge amount of experience with ad work. But he talked a good game. So people thought he might have something up his sleeze. Then the new results come in at the end of the year and the company’s revenues fell off the cliff.

Now, needless to say, the boss’s cronies and sycophants would say that it was just an example of how bad the ad division was doing in the first place, or come up with some other such excuse. But how long do you think that CEO would hold on to his job?

Very nicely done Josh.

Professor Wayne Flynt from Auburn University had an outstanding opinion piece in this morning’s Montgomery Advertiser entitled “Coalition’s Positions Don’t Seem Very Christian.”

Our tax rate should not define us. The theology is as elemental as the words of Jesus. Don’t be anxious about what you will eat or wear. God takes care of the sparrows and magnificently clothes the lilies of the field, which are here today and gone tomorrow. Don’t worry about money. You brought nothing into this world, and you will carry nothing out of it.

How, then, has part of America’s Bible Belt allowed itself to be defined by the refrain “I refuse to pay more taxes” even if the tax system is unjust. Even if those who earn the most pay the smallest percentage of their income in taxes and those who earn the least pay the highest percentage. Even if a third of Alabama children under the age of five live in poverty. Even if half the children in public schools are eligible for free and reduced meals. Even if the poor pay sales taxes on milk for their babies while chicken and calf feed are exempt from taxes.

Meanwhile, the Christian Coalition tells us that tax reform is wrong because it taxes families. Private charity, John Giles insists, can solve the problems.

The reality is that most families will not pay more. Families with an income of $40,000 or below will pay the same or less.

How interesting that a coalition named in honor of Jesus defines its cause as low taxes. As long as it proclaims belief in inerrant Scripture, could one of the leaders write an op-ed column citing the scriptural basis for this all-consuming theology? I have read the New Testament completely through, Matthew to Revelation, a number of times, and I don’t remember running across Jesus saying anything about keeping taxes low as a principle for supporting families.

He did, however, speak often about the family of God, how we are responsible for our brothers and sisters, especially for orphans and widows, the sick and imprisoned, and the stranger in the land. Justice permeated his thought. Taxes hardly appear at all.

There is the key. What really is the Christian thing to do? Professor Flynt sums it up about as well as anyone I’ve seen.

Perhaps the Christian Coalition needs to check its spiritual thermostat. Seems to me, they are like the Grinch who stole Christmas. Their hearts and minds need to grow three or four sizes larger so they can understand the joy of selflessness gained by serving the needs of others.

Or else let’s forget all this Christian stuff and admit that we need a new national motto. Instead of “In God We Trust,” perhaps we could substitute “I Shop, Therefore, I Am.” Or “What’s mine is mine, don’t touch it.”

As it is, the more I read the pronouncements of the Christian Coalition the less Christian they sound and the more coalition they seem (as in Alfa, big timber companies and Eagle Forum). This coalition, having enjoyed and profited so much financially from the 20th century, seems determined to take Alabama straight back to the 19th.

If you oppose Ammendment I because you’re a Christian, you need to seriously re-think what being a Christian really means.

Bob Riley’s gutsy initiative is again being used as a contrast to a similar situation in a far-off state. Harry Esteve has a column in The Oregonian today entitled “Oregon, Alabama: Divergent Gambles.”

Riley, a conservative Christian Republican, has proposed the nation’s most sweeping response, a top-to-bottom tax reform plan that would double the amount of discretionary money lawmakers are able to spend each year.

At the opposite end of the country, Gov. Ted Kulongoski has steadfastly resisted pressure to ease Oregon’s crisis by taking tax reform to the voters, even though schools have been forced to close early and thousands have been taken off health care rolls.

Both have come under stinging criticism for their stands — Riley for his “betrayal” of Republican anti-tax ideals and Kulongoski, a Democrat, for failing to act as the state’s economic bungee plunge exposed weaknesses in the state’s dependence on income taxes.

The two governors have similar personal styles. Riley displays a Southerner’s ease when he drapes a long arm over a newcomer and asks, “How long’r you in town?” Kulongoski, with his Northwest openness, is apt to invite a visitor out for a beer and bowling.

Both insist they are displaying the leadership that voters expect and circumstances demand.

Each knows it could be a career-defining gamble.

It really makes me proud to finally have a a Governor who is held up as an example of taking a stand for what’s right instead of being mired in scandal. This package has been extremely positive for the image of Alabama already, but our image will be tarnished again if the plan is rejected.

Mr. Esteve’s column ends with this,

Dashing between events in Birmingham, Riley listens to an overview of Oregon’s situation and the approach taken by Kulongoski, whom he’s never met. He nods in understanding.

“I would have given anything to have two years to work this out,” Riley says wistfully. But with Alabama facing financial catastrophe, “we just don’t have that luxury.”

Maybe that should be our rallying cry, “We don’t have the luxury of waiting anymore.”