Dear Secretary Clinton: A Catholic appeal to the next president | National Catholic Reporter

Dear Secretary Clinton: A Catholic appeal to the next president | National Catholic Reporter by MSW. MGB: Immigration reform should be a top priority, but it should be much different than the last Senate bill.  Take the punitive measures out. Many undocumented workers have been trafficked.  Even before a bill, start a national push to give them the appropriate visas, enlisting local law enforcement in finding where trafficked workers are and reaching them with the good news.



There are already two tax systems - and the one paid by small business uses the personal income tax rates, which could be lower or higher, depending on revenue size.  Tax reform should get rid of  the business income tax and replace it with a value added tax, both a Goods and Services Tax for domestic discretionary spending (civil and military) and a Subtraction VAT for social services (replacing payroll taxes, most personal and corporate income taxes) and enacting an income and inheritance surtax for those with higher incomes.  Part of this reform should include a huge increase in the child tax credit, which should be distributed, not as an end of the year windfall, but as a large increase in pay for families with children. Now that would be pro-life.



Also on abortion, Clinton should tell the truth - the the pro-life/pro-choice duopoly is playing politics with Supreme Court appointments at the same time that seven justices (including Kennedy, Alito and Roberts) consider Roe to be settled law.  Most appellate judges think the same way, as do most lawyers.  Those who say that Roe was wrongly decided are simply outside the mainstream.  Any solution to the abortion controversy will exclude first trimester embryos (they are not yet fetuses) and will look quite a bit like the status quo.  She should promise massive assistance to Down Syndrome children and their parents and the pro-life side should consider that a win, fold their tents and go home.  And they should forget about going after birth control.  Catholic teaching on this ignores the science of embryology and should be discussed no more.