Anyone who has read my Blog will be aware of the fact that one of my primary areas of interest is the relationship between belief in God and the presence of evil and suffering in the world. For anyone who shares this interest I would like to recommend a book by Bart Ehrman which I have just finished reading entitled: God’s Problem. In this book, Ehrman, who is a professor at the University of North Carolina, discusses the question of whether it is possible to believe in God and still be aware of the massive amount of suffering that goes on in the world.
Professor Ehrman considers all of the explanations for suffering given by apologists, philosophers, and by prophets in the Judeo/Christian Bible, and one-by-one he dismisses each of them. He shows that the explanation of suffering based on free will simply does not give any reason to believe in God. He demonstrates that the idea that suffering is redemptive cannot be reconciled with a loving God. He rejects the idea that suffering is a test of faith or the idea that suffering is caused by forces of the devil. He does not accept the idea that suffering is caused by God, but that its reason is a mystery that will be revealed and explained after we die. This is the conclusion reached by the biblical author of the Book of Job.
The most powerful section of the book is near the end where Ehrman discusses the part of the book called “The Rebellion” in "The Brothers Karamazov" by Dostoevsky. There, the brother Ivan, who still believes in God, says that even if, after we die, there is a full explanation of the reason why God allowed or perpetrated the suffering in the world, he, Ivan, will never accept the explanation. Ivan points to the acts by Turkish soldiers, tossing babies up in the air before their mothers and impaling the babies on their bayonets. He also tells the true story of parents who punished their little daughter for wetting the bed by smearing her face with excrement and locking her outside in the freezing-cold outhouse overnight. Of course the child died.
I found myself totally in agreement with the ideas of Professor Ehrman. Even if I could believe in God, which I cannot, I could never accept any explanation he might give for the horrors of the world. Even if the explanation was free will, I could never accept any excuse for the suffering of children. What does free will have to do with the suffering caused by tsunamis, volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, diseases, birth defects, and hundreds of other causes? If God is perfectly loving and omnipotent, how could he allow things like the holocaust, other genocides, plagues, war, mass murder, and suicides? The only explanation is that there is no such thing as God.
But Ehrman gave me something to latch onto besides the sad absence of God. He somehow finds a redemptive resolution of suffering in, of all places, the Bible. He says: “I have to admit that at the end of the day, I do have a biblical view of suffering. As it turns out, it is the view put forth in the book of Ecclesiastes. There is a lot that we can’t know about this world. A lot of this world doesn’t make sense. Sometimes there is no justice. Things don’t go as planned or as they should. A lot of bad things happen. But life also brings good things. The solution to life is to enjoy it while we can, because it is fleeting. This world, and everything in it, is temporary, transient, and soon to be over. We won’t live forever—in fact we won’t live long. And so we should enjoy life to the fullest, as much as we can, as long as we can. That’s what the author of Ecclesiastes thinks, and I agree.”
Ehrman says that enjoying life means not just relaxing, going to the theater and the symphony, eating great food, drinking the best wine, dancing all night, (although we should do all of those things), but it also means working to alleviate the suffering and bringing hope to a world devoid of hope. We can enjoy life and still try to live upright, decent, helpful lives in which we refuse to accept the explanation that life is hopeless and miserable. We can be good, kind, generous, and loving. We may not cure the horrors or ills of life, we may not be able to save mankind, but we can be kind to those around us and show love for our fellow man. In the end, that is the real message of Jesus.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Friday, October 15, 2010
Should the Tax Cuts Be Allowed to Expire
At the start of his presidency, President George W. Bush believed that it was necessary to cut taxes in order to spur the economy. During his first term (2001–2004), he obtained Congressional approval for the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, the Job Creation and Worker Assistance Act of 2002, and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003. These acts decreased all tax rates, reduced the capital gains tax, increased the child tax credit, and eliminated the so-called "marriage penalty.” The tax cuts are set to expire at the end of 2010. The question is whether the cuts should be extended or allowed to expire.
So far, these tax cuts have cost the government $2.48 trillion. This includes the revenue loss of $2.11 trillion that resulted directly from the Bush tax cuts as well as the $379 billion in additional interest payments on the national debt that we must make since the tax cuts were deficit-financed.
When Bush took office in 2001, there was no deficit. He inherited a $236 billion budget surplus, with a projected 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion. As a result of the tax cuts and Bush’s continued spending, including two wars and expansion of the Medicare drug benefit, the deficit at the end of Bush’s term for fiscal year 2009 was in excess of $1.2 trillion. Thus, President Obama inherited most of the deficit for which he is now being criticized.
The dispute between conservatives and liberals in Congress over whether to allow the tax cuts to expire or to extend them, and even make them permanent, reflects deep philosophical differences between the parties. Republicans hate budget deficits and loudly call for reduction of spending, but despite the fact that the tax cuts caused huge deficits, they are united in their demand that the tax cuts be extended. Democrats are willing to extend the tax cuts for the middle class, but wish to allow the tax cuts for people making over $200,000 per year to expire. Republicans claim that this would be disastrous at a time of economic difficulty, but leading economists say that expiration of the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans would have no adverse effect on the economy. Remember, these taxpayers are wealthy people! They have an upscale standard of living. Repeal of the tax cuts will not make them poor. It would not cut down on their purchases, because they do not use all of their income to purchase things. It is well known that the very rich use only a small portion of their income to make purchases. They put the rest of their income in savings. Allowing the tax cuts to expire would result in only a small decrease in their savings.
Economists have pointed-out that the “Program for America” pushed by Republican leaders would be impossible to implement. Nobel Prize laureate Paul Krugman explains that if we were to follow the Republicans program, keep the tax cuts, keep funding the wars, keep Social Security and Medicare, but cut enough spending to balance the budget, the remainder of federal government would disappear. There would be no federal departments, no federal agencies, no federal programs of any kind—nothing. The Republican program would be impossible to implement.
When the Obama Administration was faced with the recession it was necessary, in order to avoid a horrendous depression, to intervene and spend government money to stimulate the economy. All of the leading economists supported the stimulus, and all of them now know that it worked. Robert J. Samuelson reported in Newsweek that when Obama took office in early 2009, the economy and financial markets were in virtual free-fall. By summer they were steady. Alan Blinder of Princeton and Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics estimate that without the government’s aggressive response, gross domestic product would have dropped 12 percent instead of 4 percent, and 16.6 percent of jobs would have been lost instead of 8.4 percent.
Republicans cannot have their cake and eat it too. They cannot eliminate deficits and still maintain gigantic tax cuts for the wealthy. They cannot have a stimulated economy and still avoid government stimulus. The truth is that the Republicans are not worried about the economy. They are worried about their wealthy contributors. The tax cuts for the middle class should be extended, but the tax cuts for those fat cats should be allowed to expire.
So far, these tax cuts have cost the government $2.48 trillion. This includes the revenue loss of $2.11 trillion that resulted directly from the Bush tax cuts as well as the $379 billion in additional interest payments on the national debt that we must make since the tax cuts were deficit-financed.
When Bush took office in 2001, there was no deficit. He inherited a $236 billion budget surplus, with a projected 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion. As a result of the tax cuts and Bush’s continued spending, including two wars and expansion of the Medicare drug benefit, the deficit at the end of Bush’s term for fiscal year 2009 was in excess of $1.2 trillion. Thus, President Obama inherited most of the deficit for which he is now being criticized.
The dispute between conservatives and liberals in Congress over whether to allow the tax cuts to expire or to extend them, and even make them permanent, reflects deep philosophical differences between the parties. Republicans hate budget deficits and loudly call for reduction of spending, but despite the fact that the tax cuts caused huge deficits, they are united in their demand that the tax cuts be extended. Democrats are willing to extend the tax cuts for the middle class, but wish to allow the tax cuts for people making over $200,000 per year to expire. Republicans claim that this would be disastrous at a time of economic difficulty, but leading economists say that expiration of the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans would have no adverse effect on the economy. Remember, these taxpayers are wealthy people! They have an upscale standard of living. Repeal of the tax cuts will not make them poor. It would not cut down on their purchases, because they do not use all of their income to purchase things. It is well known that the very rich use only a small portion of their income to make purchases. They put the rest of their income in savings. Allowing the tax cuts to expire would result in only a small decrease in their savings.
Economists have pointed-out that the “Program for America” pushed by Republican leaders would be impossible to implement. Nobel Prize laureate Paul Krugman explains that if we were to follow the Republicans program, keep the tax cuts, keep funding the wars, keep Social Security and Medicare, but cut enough spending to balance the budget, the remainder of federal government would disappear. There would be no federal departments, no federal agencies, no federal programs of any kind—nothing. The Republican program would be impossible to implement.
When the Obama Administration was faced with the recession it was necessary, in order to avoid a horrendous depression, to intervene and spend government money to stimulate the economy. All of the leading economists supported the stimulus, and all of them now know that it worked. Robert J. Samuelson reported in Newsweek that when Obama took office in early 2009, the economy and financial markets were in virtual free-fall. By summer they were steady. Alan Blinder of Princeton and Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics estimate that without the government’s aggressive response, gross domestic product would have dropped 12 percent instead of 4 percent, and 16.6 percent of jobs would have been lost instead of 8.4 percent.
Republicans cannot have their cake and eat it too. They cannot eliminate deficits and still maintain gigantic tax cuts for the wealthy. They cannot have a stimulated economy and still avoid government stimulus. The truth is that the Republicans are not worried about the economy. They are worried about their wealthy contributors. The tax cuts for the middle class should be extended, but the tax cuts for those fat cats should be allowed to expire.
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