Links: Biden's first diplomatic victory; ACLU's changing politics; analysis of US church

Links: Biden's first diplomatic victory; ACLU's changing politics; analysis of US church 

Having corporate income taxes is less effective than a good employer-paid value added tax to replace corporate income and pass through taxes. Such a tax can be used to fund social programs or have employers do so with tax expenditures. An asset value added tax would end the mutual find exemption on capital gains and dividend taxes, essentially doubling the revenue if rates are common. These would have to be negotiated to prevent stock market shifting. The new agreement, however, is a nice precursor to such a reform.

Tax reform would also end the ability to hide income overseas. A wealth tax would increase the incentive to hide income in havens. It would have all the liquidity problems of property taxes and the avoidance problems of capital gains taxes, all mixed into one tax.

The ACLU protects individual freedom as found in the entire bill of rights, including especially the 14th Amendment, which limits state level mob rule. Conservatives hate the last bit, because they can more easily dominate local government. The First Amendment is not the only one worth protecting, especially when religious power is hiding behind religious freedom. I have reworked a previous Court Opinion that would gut this Fourteenth Amendment power. You can find it here. See if you can guess which case I adapted. Don't say I didn't warn you.

There is hope for peace in the new Israeli coalition. It took Nixon to go to China. The two state solution only works if the Palestinian state includes Israeli Arabs and their lands and is not simply an Israeli colony. Instead, it should be the democratic yeast for a larger Arab megastate. The only other alternative is a united and secular Israel, free of its current apartheid dominance over non-Jews. As for Gaza, the reason it was retained was to protect the settlers there. The settlers are gone. Give it back to Egypt and watch it blossom again.

1985 was only possible because St. John Paul had not yet shown his true colors as a Vatican II counter-revolutionary. Lest we forget, he was the pet theologian of those who resisted changes championed by Kung, Ratzinger and Courtney-Murray. His encyclical, Veritatis Splendour was an almost ham handed attempt to bring back the approach to theology of St. Pius X and Pope Pius IX. Francis has restored the Council to where it would have been had John Paul I lived.

The American Church is so divided that any claims to unity are farcical. Time wounds all heals, especially as Francis retains his health past the retirement age of the John Paul bishops.