What is the marginal tax rate in the Bible?

 

Recently, J.D. Greear, pastor at The Summit Church wrote, 

I don’t know of anywhere God spells out for us the ideal marginal tax rate, the proper number of refugees a compassionate country should take in, the godly posture toward gun control, whether health care should be nationalized, or exactly what our safety social net should include.

Pastor Greear is engaging in proof texting, something I'm sure he opposes. He slipped into it in a moment of weakness trying to make a point. But as Pastor Greear knows, there are no verses in the Bible that detail God's perspective on those issues. But he also knows that there are no verses that directly address many of the doctrines in our systematic theology books. The most obvious is the Trinity. No verse in the Bible contains the word "Trinity" or spells out the doctrine. Systematic theologians derive the main doctrines of Christianity by studying the whole Bible, comparing verses and distilling them. Political theology does the same. 

What does systematic theology say about marginal tax rates? To answer that, theologians during the Reformation at the University of Salamanca asked first, what is the role of government? From the Bible, they determined that God created government to punish criminals (Romans 13), provide courts to settle disputes (Deuteronomy 17) and national defense. 

Federal government is the real criminal in Somali fraud

President Trump received a lot of criticism for his harsh comments about Somali refugees in Minneapolis after the $250 million theft of Covid relief funds. It's unfair to blame millions for the crimes of a few. But the fraud highlights two important economic points that Americans need to keep in perspective.

The first is that the federal government has tried to rescue citizens from danger for over a century by flooding the country with tsunamis of cash. In every case, bureaucrats have one goal, to push out as much money as possible in as short a time as possible. The mainstream socialist media helps by destroying the reputations, depicting them as desiring that people die, of anyone who tries to slow the flow by implementing safe guards against theft and corruption. 

After the danger has passed, the same media is shocked to find theft and corruption. That song and dance has happened dozens of times over the last century, enough that one would think voters would recognize it. It's no longer entertaining. But that's what happens when voters trust corrupt bureaucrats with billions of dollars of other peoples' money and no accountability for the theft that occurs. Bureaucrats never get punished for wasting money; they get promoted.

$4,000 gold and housing affodability

The price of gold recently hit $4,000 per ounce. That means a lot to economists. When the U.S. government created the Federal Reserve in 1913, gold was worth just $22 per ounce. What happened? 

Gold has had value for thousands of years. So, people have taken care of it and only insignificant amounts have been lost. Almost all the gold ever mined still exists in someone's vault. Mining companies continue to add to the stock, but in comparison to the amount existing, their contributions are small. Central banks hold most gold.