tax reform and tax justice

I read the latest issue of The Economist this week and it had some great ideas about taxes in America.  I'm going to share some of them below and then add my own comments as I go along.  First, some interesting statistics from the IRS that were shown in The Economist.

There were 4,680 changes to the tax code since 2001.  There are four million words in the tax code.  Each year, there are three million man-years spent complying with the tax code.  89% of filers pay for help, excluding software.  $168 billion is how much money is spent each year on tax compliance.  $400 billion is the tax owed but uncollected each year.  In 2011, there were 7,000 millionaires who paid no income tax.  16% of small business people think the tax code is fair.

Interesting stats, right?  What stuck out to me perhaps the most was that there were 7,000 millionaires to begin with.  Apparently I'm just ignorant to how many millionaires we have in this country.  Not that there's anything wrong with being a millionaire, I just think they should at least pay income tax for crying out loud.

"Two lawmakers are trying to reform the code: Dave Camp, a Republican, and Max Baucus, a Democrat.  Mr. Obama should lend his weight to their efforts.  Ideally, they would start afresh with no loopholes and much lower tax rates.  Republicans should love this: if Congress were to scrap all loopholes and deductions, it could nearly halve income-tax rates and still raise the same amount of money.  Democrats should like it, too: a more efficient tax system would let them pay for the same amount of government with less drag on growth.  The snag is that voters define "loopholes" as other people's tax breaks.  Their own, they rather like."  (The Economist, p13, May 25th-31st, 2013.)

I love that!  Voters think everyone else is getting away with too many loopholes, but the ones they have they rather like.  How funny and true is that?!  I love the idea of scrapping all loopholes and deductions personally so we could halve income tax-rates.  I don't know that we should halve it necessarily though since we're still in a huge deficit, although it is now projected to be roughly half of what it was the past four years.  Yes, this means even the tax deductions that I get, which is pretty much for my charitable donations.  Even with just that though, I was able to save a ton on my taxes.  It would be better I think to have more money in my pocket to begin with though so I could give more.  My dad doesn't agree with this at all as it incentivizes private giving, but I say do away with that.  All the other deductions as well need to go.  Like the mortgage interest rate, etc.  People would hate that of course, but maybe we could at least do it on second homes, right?

If we simplified the tax code, there would be some consequences that would be painful.  For one, a lot of people would be out of jobs.  IRS people and tax professionals who help put taxes together would surely not be needed nearly as much because it would be a very simple code to understand and everyone could figure out how to do it.  I don't know though, maybe we could retrain those people for some other job.  Or the tax professionals could join the IRS people to make sure people were paying their taxes.  I know everyone hates audits and such but think of how many people get away with not paying their taxes because they take the risk of not getting caught.

So, there you have it, a fairly simple and straightforward answer to tax reform.  One that will never pass Congress to be sure, but it seems fairly logical to me.  The same could go for businesses, simplify the tax code, take away the loopholes and lower their tax rate as well.

As far as tax justice goes, I strongly believe in a progressive tax rate.  Someone commented on my facebook post earlier that they would gladly give up their tax deductions if it was replaced with a flat tax.  I've never understood a flat tax.  You're going to charge millionaires the same percentage as people who make $50,000?  How does that make sense?  You simply would not collect enough taxes that way.  I'm a Christian so I believe in a 10% tithe across income levels, but taxes are different.  Not that it should be a crazy high percentage, but I definitely believe there should be tax brackets and that the more income you make the higher taxes you should pay.  CEO's now make hundreds of times more than the average floor worker whereas in the 80's they made 30 to 40 times more than the average floor worker.  If they don't want to pay higher taxes, than they should give up some of their salary to pay their employees more.  I'm not saying the exact same, just a more understandable one.  Like somewhere closer to the levels in the 80's or even less than that.  I know one CEO who doesn't make more than 10 times his floor workers and he seems to be doing just fine on his salary.

Just some ideas, feel free to share any opinions, I welcome them all.

the economics of food and health care

Lately, I've seen quite a few documentaries regarding food and health.  They have been very interesting to say the least.  Coupled with this is that several years ago I read several books on the food and agriculture business in our country.  Now, obviously, this doesn't make me an expert in this field, not by a long shot, so please keep that in mind.  With that being said, I thought I'd share my thoughts on these couple of subjects.

Everyone in this country knows we have a health care system problem to say the least.  Obama tried to fix it with Obamacare which a lot of people hate with a passion.  I can't say I understand this completely, perhaps because I've been to Europe and have been influenced by their system or because I have a pre-existing condition and find it extremely difficult to find private health insurance.  The part of the health bill that I disagree with though is making employers cover birth control for their employees.  This seems to blatantly fly in the face of religious freedom and conscience so there's that.  Also, I listened to a podcast that said it doesn't make sense to have health care tied to a job.  Why should they be responsible for your health care?  By that logic why aren't they responsible for your car insurance as well?  This podcast recommended health care be separate from jobs, which makes sense if you ask me.  You'd probably have to pay more but you'd also get paid more by your employer since they wouldn't have to cover your health insurance.  With this in mind, I also believe everyone should have health insurance.  Better yet, I believe in universal health care, again this is influenced by my European travels in the past.  Why wouldn't we want to pay for everyone to have health care?  That seems like it should be a basic human right in a developed country such as ours.

Anyways, let's dive into the economics of our food system for a minute.  In my humble opinion, this has a lot to do with government subsidies.  We are subsidizing corn, wheat, and soy to the extent that farmers are incentivized to grow these crops and nothing else.  As a result, corn and soy in particular are in everything on our food shelves at the grocery store practically.  We have put high fructose corn syrup into soft drinks and a ton of other stuff as well.  Now, don't get me wrong, I love my soda as much as anyone, but it isn't healthy or good for you, is it?  I don't hear anyone arguing that point so I'm going to move on here.  There are a couple ways to get off high fructose corn syrup.  We can either tax it, like we've done with tobacco; or we can end subsidies to corn.  I'm not saying we should end subsidies to farmers period, just that we should shift them.  What if we subsidized farmers based on diversity and how they were helping the soil become sustainable?  What if we subsidized smaller farmers instead of these huge farms that are destroying the land?  Furthermore, and W and Obama both have supported bills along these lines by the way, let's put aid money towards teaching developing countries how to produce their own crops as opposed to sending them our excess food.  Shouldn't the goal be to have those countries be able to feed themselves as opposed to depending on us for their food?  These types of bills have been vetoed in Congress due to strong farm lobbies though who want more money for their excess food that they've grown.

There is also another problem with our food system, and that is ethanol and other bio fuels.  Some bio fuels are fantastic, particularly ones that use plant and animal waste products as fuel.  However, ethanol is made from corn which pushes up the price of corn and that effects poorer countries who can no longer afford corn anymore due to the rising prices.  How you can fix this I really don't know, except to say that we shouldn't incentivize corn production for ethanol as I believe that is encouraged under current law.

Now to how the economics of food intersect with the economics of the health care system.  We are subsidizing corn and soy so they're placed in a ton of our food products.  As a result, we have cheap food that is highly processed and all around bad for you.  Your body wasn't meant to take in all these chemicals and they trick your brain into making you think you're hungrier when you should already be satiated.  Furthermore, this is causing our obesity epidemic as more and more of our foods are increasingly filled with sugar or corn syrup.  Obesity causes a ton of health problems that are largely preventable, such as heart disease and diabetes.  These health problems, in turn, incur a ton of costs on our health care system.

What if, instead of treating illnesses and symptoms after the fact, we instead prevented them?  My heart breaks, as do many of your hearts I'm sure, for developing countries who suffer from waterborne illnesses and diseases that are largely preventable just by clean water.  Why do we not see the same idea in regards to our own health?  If we know that a poor diet leads to obesity which can cause major health problems, why don't we go about preventing a poor diet?  Well, it's more expensive to eat healthy.  You're absolutely right on that subject, and that says something about our food system in the first place, doesn't it?  However, if you look at it long-term, you're either going to have to pay more now for healthy food or pay more later, a lot more later in some cases, for more expensive health care.  You'll have to pay for hospital visits and a host of medications just to keep you moving.

Now, I've been struggling with my weight for the past few years.  Every time I go overseas, I lose anywhere from 10-20 pounds.  I think this comes largely from a change in diet; smaller portions and not as much processed foods, and the fact that I walk more overseas.  Lifestyle changes are the hardest of all to make in my opinion.  We have to be willing to try though.  We have to take responsibility for our own health and making healthier choices on a regular basis.  Keep in mind I'm one of the worst offenders of my own health as I have a massive sweet tooth and I give into it way too often for my own good.  But as I become more educated on proper nutrition and how it effects my health, I'm slowly but surely starting to change.

If you're interested for further reading on the subject, check out The Omnivore's Dilemma and you can skip the first three chapters for the most part to help you get through it by the way.  There is also An Eater's Manifesto and Food Rules, all by Michael Pollan.  There are other books I'm sure, but those are the main ones that I've read.  If you're interested for further viewing on food and how it effects our health, check out Forks Over Knives, Food Matters, and Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead.  All of these are available on Netflix.  Another one that a friend suggested to me last night but I haven't watched yet is Hungry for Change.  I won't recommend this one though until I watch it.  Your opinions and comments are welcome, however please have some sources and not just your opinions so I can look into them.

working out again

As mentioned briefly in my last blog post, I'm trying to make some changes in my everyday life.  One of those major life changes is starting to work out on a regular basis again.  This past week I've done really well with it, I've worked out 4 of the past 5 days this week so far.

Working out can often become boring to me, so I've tried to mix it up a lot this week.  Sunday, I rode the stationary bike for 30 minutes, Monday I rode the stationary bike for 15 minutes and the elliptical for 15 minutes.  Tuesday I went to Miami so I didn't really get around to working out.  Yesterday I did yoga for an hour.  Today I joined a Masters swim class at a local pool and swam for about an hour and fifteen minutes.

I felt really strong in the pool today for not having swam over the past 4-5 years or so.  Now I'm having some major muscle soreness but it's a hurts so good type of hurt.  It makes me know I really did something.  I forgot just how much I enjoy working out.  I don't enjoy lifting all that much, I don't see myself as ever really enjoying that.  Cardio on the other hand, that I can get excited about.  It's interesting how we're all wired a little differently.  Some people love cardio and some people love lifting.

It's good to be active again, hopefully now I can just keep it up, especially when I get back from my summer trips.  I'm usually not exactly active on my summer trips although I typically will walk a ton more than I usually do here.  As far as actual cardio goes though I normally don't do a whole lot when I'm overseas.  I always seem to lose weight when I'm overseas though, so that's a nice side effect.  My trainer said it's probably because they don't have as much processed junk overseas.

That's another thing I'm trying to change; getting rid of processed foods and getting rid of meat and dairy.  This week I'm focusing on working out and next week I'll try and add in one of the others.  It's proven too hard to do them all at once for me.  Some people have incredible will power, I am not one of those people.  I'm stubborn when I want to be, but my will power usually doesn't last very long.

All that to say, I hope everyone can get back into working out again if they haven't for a while.  Even a half hour a day can make a tremendous difference.  It helps me mentally a ton, even more so when I realize I haven't done it in a while and then the first time I workout I release those chemicals and feel heaps better overall.

becoming a missionary

Yesterday, I went up to Tampa to do a calling lab.  It was very interesting and I felt like I learned a lot.  I didn't exactly find my calling so much as reaffirm what I've known for some time that I'm supposed to do with my life.  You see, I've gone on several mission trips for many years and have just been wrestling with whether or not I should become a full time missionary.  I've always had it on my heart to become one, at least since 2006 that is, it's just been a matter of letting fear get the best of me in regards to support raising.

Thankfully, I've already seen God provide for me in support raising both when I came on staff at my church part time a couple years ago and then again this year with my upcoming trip to Myanmar.  This is useful because I know He always provides for His people.  He uses unexpected people to meet our needs, doesn't He?  This makes it a little easier to trust that He can and will provide for all my needs as a full time missionary coming up.

As of now, I'm not sure where I'll end up or what exactly I'll be doing.  There are a couple things I'm looking into.  The main one is a traveling teacher for NMSI which sounds ideal for me.  I love to teach and I love to travel.  Boom, a traveling teacher position comes along and I'd be foolish not to go for it.  Now I just have to get my resume together and start the process with them.  There are some other opportunities that are out there for me to explore, but that's the one that kind of stands out right now.

It occurred to me recently that I need to be in prayer for others on a more continual basis.  Today we had a mother's day baby dedication at church.  It was pretty cool to see all the parents up there making promises to raise their children in a Christ-centered environment and to share the love of Christ with their children as they grow and mature.  One lady afterwards told me it seems like yesterday that she was dedicating her baby at a church in Orlando and now she's going off to college in the fall.  I've never understood why people say time just flies when you have kids, maybe someday I'll understand, God willing.

Lately, I've been trying to make a lot of changes in my life.  It has been extremely difficult.  I've seen some victories and a lot of failures.  I think I've simply taken on too many changes at once.  I'm trying to get in shape, get off meat, and get off processed sugars.  It may not sound like much, but in some sense it's like fighting an addiction to the processed sugars and meat in particular.  Those are things that I've always had in my life, and trying to give them up is proving quite difficult indeed.  I think this week I'll try and focus on working out more and then add the other stuff bit by bit.

For a long time, several years in fact, I've been fighting this urge to become a full-time missionary.  You see, I lead a very comfortable life in a lot of regards.  Teaching is by no means easy, but as a single person the salary is more than enough to meet my needs and to provide enough extra to put money into savings, retirement, and pay for a lot of my trips.  It has been a huge blessing to interact with colleagues at my school and of course to influence my students.  In that sense, I've already been a missionary, just not for a missions organization in particular.

Maybe all that was for a specific reason, to prepare me for the mission field overseas.  So far I've been to 29 countries, which is a huge blessing and one I don't take for granted too often.  There is something special about learning about a new culture firsthand and seeing how Jesus is already at work and how I can come alongside Him in His work in a particular context.  This summer I'm particularly looking forward to going to Haiti to love on some orphans and Myanmar to help with an entrepreneurship school.  Both things will undoubtedly prepare me even more for the mission field and for that I am so grateful.

Well, there it is, my decision to become a full-time missionary overseas somewhere.  Who knows where I'll end up or what I'll end up doing.  I just know that it's time to surrender my wants into the Lord's hands and ask Him for His desires for my life.  In our culture we make it a priority to hang onto security, whether financially or with a job or whatever.  It's time for me to let go of all that and just to trust in Him and His will for my life.  Pray for me, if you would.

measuring success

Today, I did several things in the morning.  First off, I met someone for coffee before they had to go to work.  Afterwards I went to Pepboys to get my tires rotated.  Apparently this is a 2 hour process which I wasn't aware of but at least it was free, right?  Having been held up so long at Pepboys I was consequently late for my therapist appointment by about a half hour.

My therapist was pleased to see that I was doing better since having taken some time off work.  She asked me when it was in my life that I felt the most successful.  I replied that I felt the most satisfied and therefore the most successful when I was on the mission field with a team serving people overseas.  She said she saw the same thing in me and said I seem to thrive on new things and a lack of structure and get kind of bogged down when I have to do the same work everyday and get bored rather easily.

I guess I hadn't thought of it like that, but it makes a lot of sense in regards to my work.  I usually do fine in the fall of each school year when there are a bunch of new things around me, new students, new colleagues, new challenges and so on.  Come January after a 2 week break though, and I start getting depressed.  Part of that has to do with the time of year.  It's a good thing I live in Florida because if I still lived in Illinois I can't imagine how difficult it would be for me during the winters.  Someone suggested to me that perhaps it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, that i kind of set myself up for an episode of depression.  It has been a repeating pattern for the last three years but this year I took a more proactive approach and sought counseling out before the depression hit and it hit nonetheless.

Maybe I'm just different than the average person in my strengths and abilities.  Maybe a lot of our students who end up dropping out of high school are the same way.  One of my friends is a great entrepreneur but wasn't all that successful in school and didn't go onto college when he graduated from high school.  He's doing great in his field because that's how his mind works.

Ever since I've started going overseas I've always seemed to thrive in new environments.  To a lot of people that's the scariest thing they can imagine.  For me, it really makes me happy and joyful even.  A couple years ago I took an 8 month round the world trip.  It seems almost like a dream now and a lot of people were quite jealous of me when I took it.  I dare say though that not everyone would've enjoyed it.  I lived out of a backpack for 8 months, not too many people could handle that I don't think.  Many people thrive on structure, but I'm different in that way.  I like things to be mixed up.  When I went to Kenya in 2006 I can remember enjoying watching my teammates get super frustrated when things didn't start on time.  My whole thought process was similar to the adage 'when in Rome.'  Give me a book and an ipod to pass the time and I can go for hours if I have to wait.  In fact, I was actually looking forward to Pepboys at first because I wanted to do some reading, I just started stressing when I realized I was going to be a half hour late to my appointment with my therapist.

In my opinion, it's time we start measuring success differently.  As a nation, we measure success as GDP which tells us nothing of how our people are doing with their health or overall well-being.  We have great material wealth in this country but our people, including your's truly, are more depressed than ever before.  As educators, we measure student success by how they perform on multiple choice tests.  What if a child doesn't think that way?  Wouldn't we be better off having them create something?  Which shows a more thorough understanding of something - creating something with guidelines or simply marking one of four questions?  In church we usually measure success by the three B's my pastor calls it; butts, bucks, and baptisms.  How does that measure how deep someone is in their walk with Christ?  How'd we come to focus more on converts than disciples anyways?  In business it's always about the bottom line and profit margins.  What if we started measuring success by how a business was meeting a local need or by how many people they got off welfare by providing sustainable work and income for them?  This would truly be a paradigm shift, wouldn't it?

Elohim AND Yahweh

Tonight was youth group for our church and a friend asked me to teach.  In spite of my recent leave of absence at my school, I still love teaching.  Maybe I should be more specific, I love the art of teaching.  While I was working at my school, I felt more like a statistics person than a teacher with all the data analysis we were supposed to do.  It's fine if it makes you a better teacher, but often times we get so hung up on the data analysis that we forget the point of it all.

Alright, back to the point of the post.  We're in a study about how Genesis talks about and foreshadows the Gospel.  It's called 'Creation Unraveled' and so far is excellent.  Of course, when you prep for something you have to know it better than anyone so maybe that's why I think it's so great so far.  Tonight was session 2, entitled 'The Bigness and Nearness of God.'  What it was emphasizing was that God is complex.  In Genesis 1 it refers to God as Elohim in the original Hebrew, meaning mighty, powerful, big.  In chapter 2 of Genesis it essentially retells the same creation story, only this time it refers to God as Yahweh, meaning close, personal, near.

Right from the beginning of Scripture we see these two seemingly contradictory characteristics of God.  On the one hand, the Elohim side, is the wrath and power and might of God.  On the other hand is the closeness, the friendship and mercy of God.  How can this be?  The leader guide pointed out a few verses that seem to show one side or the other.  It mentioned how Uzzah was smote because he tried to catch the tabernacle of God but then in the Gospel account a lady was commended for her faith for touching the cloak of Jesus.

Some people refer to an Old Testament God and a New Testament God.  People see the Old Testament God as the ultimate Judge and wrathful and the New Testament God as some kind of hippie do-gooder who just loves everyone and draws them to Himself.  Make no mistake here, He is both.  He is the God of the Old Testament and the New Testament, He is the God of the Bible entirely.  In the leader guide it asked if you've ever thought of God as bipolar.  I never have thought that but I have wondered how He handles all sorts of emotions all at once.  Being a bipolar person it has always made me question how God can handle being so proud of some of His servants while simultaneously being heart-broken over the sin and the consequences of sin in this world.  That's just it though, I'm not called to understand, just to know that God's ways are higher than mine, and He's much more complex than I am.  I'm simply called to trust Jesus.  Trust that He's enough to satisfy my soul and my deepest longings and desires.

How can God be both big and near to us?  How can He not be?  To emphasize one without the other is to discount who God is and to make a god of our own heart rather than the One we find in the Bible.  This is also referred to as idolatry, and something we need to be careful of not to follow the Israelites in the Old Testament.  We don't often think of idolatry as a problem these days since it's usually met with a connotation of wood and stone idols.  An idol though, is anything that takes the place of God in our hearts and minds.  It's ultimately what we worship.  What takes up the majority of your thoughts and feelings?  For some people  it's their significant other.  Other people are obsessed with being entertained on a constant basis.  Still others essentially worship their families.  If you want to find out who you are worshiping, simply ask yourself what or who you spend the most time thinking about.  That's usually a pretty good indicator.

How can we know if we're worshiping God or some idol of our own making?  Well, we have to know what the Bible says about God to know if we're actually worshiping the triune God or not.  Don't just take what your preacher or pastor says about God as fact.  Search the Scriptures, find out who He is.  I've always been amazed at how many Christians have never read through the Bible even once in their lives.  How can you claim to love Someone who you don't know?  Obviously there are exceptions to this rule as not everyone can read whether that is due to a mental disability or a lack of access to a basic education.  However, for those of us who can read, there is really no excuse for not reading the Bible.  I have a friend who hates to read but while he was working a landscape job he listened to the Bible all the way through on his phone app.  That's a great idea.  He got through a 90 day Bible in 20 days or something ridiculous I think when he did that because he listened to it all day everyday while he was working.  I know, I know, everyone's busy.  This is of utmost importance though, isn't it?  I mean, surely a chapter a day wouldn't hurt anyone.  It's May 1st, why not try and read through the book of Proverbs this month.  It has 31 chapters for 31 days and is a great place to start if you need wisdom, which is all of us in case you were wondering.