I missed this last week, but a little Libertarian/Republican spat is brewing in Arizona:
These days Barry Goldwater, Jr. is on an unlikely crusade. In March, the former California Republican congressman founded Tell Utilities Solar Won’t Be Killed, or TUSK, after Arizona’s largest electric utility proposed a hefty new fee on solar customers and a plan to lower net metering rates, which dictate how much electric utilities pay solar customers for excess energy sold back to the grid. “Republicans want the freedom to make the best choice,” Goldwater said in a statement on TUSK’s website. So he cobbled together a ragtag coalition of libertarian-minded conservatives, solar industry advocates, and business groups to wage a colorful guerrilla campaign. […]
The utility, Arizona Public Service (APS), donated a bunch of money to the usual Republican suspects, and spent more than $3 million on an ad campaign. Still, that money isn’t getting the job done in Arizona and elsewhere:
Conservative think tanks like Cato and the Heritage Foundation have been silent on the issue of net metering and “energy choice,” the preferred buzzwords that conservative solar advocates use to describe their support for net metering. At the state level, powerful conservative organizations like ALEC, the Heartland Institute, and Americans for Prosperity are waging an aggressive fight against green energy, pushing forward model legislation to repeal renewable energy standards and cut state subsidies for solar power. So far, however, these efforts have been thwarted, even in Republican-led states like North Carolina, Idaho, and Louisiana.
In Georgia, Tea Party activists broke their longstanding ties with AFP over the solar issue, citing an individual’s right to choose his or her own energy source. The result was the emergence of the Green Tea Coalition, a strange political coupling between Tea Party Patriots and Sierra Club environmentalists that successfully lobbied state regulators to increase solar mandates for utility giant Georgia Power. […]
All the Solyndra talk in the world isn’t going to sway even the most ardent teabagger from saving a few bucks on their power bill.
gnomedad
You don’t know the power of the derp side.
Violet
@gnomedad: LOL. Win!
I do agree with DPM, though. When it comes to their own wallets, teabaggers’ principles take a back seat.
Ash Can
I think it’s interesting that the think tanks are silent on the matter. It indicates that Big Energy money hasn’t gotten to them.
And “Green Tea Coalition” — whooda thunk it?
C.V. Danes
I think I’m gonna choose to power my house with a giant Tesla coil. May not be efficient, but there will be a certain coolness factor…
RaflW
It’s interesting. I think because at least some tea-nuts could imagine having a solar array (in a survivalist and/or f*k the utilities sort of way), they actually can make common cause with Sierra Club granola-nuts.
Good for the Sierra peeps for being willing to make strange bedfellows. As long as they don’t get bed bugs.
pharniel
@gnomedad:
Ehh. See this hits all the Tea Bagger/Prepper/Anti-Government buttons –
* Mah MONEY! You OWE it to me!
* Solar power allows you get ‘off the grid’ a/k/a free from gobment interfearence and those ‘you-know-whos’ who run the corporations
* Solar installs are small business guys – the kind who had nice jobs doing construction work before the housing collapse and have been out of work and who basically went a little nuts when ‘one-of-them’ got into the white house – and who could really do with the extra business.
* It’s a fresh grift – you get to ‘stand for the little guy’ while racking in donations, building a national profile and reaching across the isle all in one go.
It’s pretty much crackpot convergence.
deep tin
The think tanks have nothing to say because they’ve been swinging to the left for a while now. Wasn’t it the Heritage Foundation that recently got accused of being a bunch of RINOs?
NonyNony
@Violet:
To a teabagger, “my principles” and “my wallet” are basically the same thing. They talk a good game about the Constitution and Freedom and Liberty, but at their core they are a group of anti-tax nutters who believe that any taxes they are “forced” to pay are basically theft.
But in this case it’s channeled for good rather than evil – there is no reason that power companies should be able to operate like this, and if the teabaggers in those states succeed in crushing the power companies hopes and dreams and paid-off legislators, well, I won’t be shedding any tears.
NotMax
Aren’t the Teanuts also a part of the Defend Incandescents Movement?
Or DIMbulbs, for short.
mai naem
I wonder what the Goldwater Institute has to say on this considering they have Goldwater on their board but they’re also Kochsuckas.
gnomedad
@pharniel:
Seriously, I hope you are right — anything to advance renewables. But these guys have a history of acting against their interests when anything smells “liberal”. See: Energy-efficient lighting, hybrid cars, Obamacare, progressive taxation, etc., etc.
srv
If you support this coalition, you are a firebagger.
Violet
@Ash Can:
I think it means they’ve got more than one paymaster on this issue and are being pulled in opposite directions. If they speak out on one side, the other will get upset. Best to keep quiet or issue a non-statement statement.
Face
That’s gold, Jerry. GOLD!
Cacti
I’ve seen the anti-solar ads here in AZ, but I don’t see them getting very far with it. Home solar arrays are already well established here, because duh, it’s a desert and the sun shines 320-330 days per year.
Just seems like APS trying to close the door a couple decades after the horse left the barn.
Ken T
@Violet: Don’t be so sure of that. Did you see the study that came out a couple of months ago about the energy-efficient lightbulbs? Two different groups of people were shown the bulbs and asked if they would switch. One group was shown a package that ONLY mentioned the cost savings; the other group was shown a package that was exactly identical except that it added the words “Good for the environment, too!” Even though the cost savings were exactly the same, FEWER people would switch if it also mentioned the environment.
Do not underestimate the disdain the TP segment of the population has for dirty hippie liberals and anything they are for.
Cacti
O/T but this is interesting.
Federal Judge strikes down 60-year old tax exemption for ministers of religion.
Cites violation of the establishment clause, as the policy benefits religious persons and no one else, and the policy is not necessary to alleviate a special burden on the free exercise of religion.
negative 1
I’ll give credit where credit is due — it’s nice to see libertarianism being apolitical for once. It is actually useful to have a true ‘loyal opposition’, as it is truly rare to agree entirely with a party’s entire platform.
gnomedad
@Ken T: Yup.
Violet
@Ken T: Well, yes, there’s that. But I referring to the think tanks being quiet. They’re generally a little more focused on the money side–as in, who’s paying them to say things. I think their silence means they’ll tick off one of their paymasters if they say too much.
The average teabagger, however, you’re absolutely right. It’s why I think it would be a great idea if President Obama came out in favor of air and breathing.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@RaflW: the spectrum of left-right is not a straight line, but rather a circle.
negative 1
@Cacti: I have done the tax returns for more than one minister. It’s a good rule even if it is a frequently abused one. That said, I bet that you can time that decision’s life with a stopwatch, but if folks are worried that it is unfair to atheists they should expand the definition to include anyone devoting their life to service (regardless of religiousity) rather than eliminate it for all. It gives the equivalent of a 25% bump in salary for people who desperately need it, often by being better people than the rest of us.
chopper
@C.V. Danes:
actually I’ll bet it would be quite warm.
ericblair
@Cacti:
This ought to start a riot. From what I know from tax people who’ve dealt with clergy, while their faith in God may sometime be in doubt, their faith in the tax-deductability of everything they own and do never is.
pharniel
@gnomedad:
That’s all very true but I base my evaluation on this for a few reasons
1) Electric cars and/or hybrids were marketed directly at ‘hippies’. I think Ford or GM will take the plunge and talk about ‘American Cars that can run on American Oil’ with the implicit ‘we don’t need them anymore’ left unsaid but, y’know, there.
2) Creating power and having the power company “PAY YOU!” has actually been one of the grifting points for awhile now – It’s the ultimate in FIGHT THE MAN! You get to stick it to a utility (which for many Teabaggers/TeaJahdiis is essentially a proxy for the government), you get energy independence (Good for the Nation, Better for me!) and you get cash. Between the power rush and the cash that’s basically tea-bait.
3) Someone with conservative chops got to the ‘Energy company/Government conspiracy to keep you on the gird’ first which meant they triggered the ‘large organization resentment’ switch instead of the ‘FREEDOM!”. The power company calling in all the national out of state establishment power players just keeps re-enforcing this. The 27% dead-beats club are now naturalized at worst or engaged at best and without the psychotic 27% (especially in AZ) you’re not going to get anywhere. Once the narrative became “Evil Power Company taking a page from the Cable Co.’s playbook..” it was all over but the crying.
Seth Owen
An awful lot of people have made major economic decisions based on this very old tax break. It hardly seems fair to pull the rug out from churches and ministers who have relied on that exemption. Our church, for example, sold the old parsonage and that trust money has been an important source of emergency money for our small congregation.
We could sell the building because our pastor had bought a house. I don’t think it’s fair to change the rules now.
shelly
NewsMax, you’ve done it again! So I guess it’s gonna be a Thanksgiving Zombie Apocalypse.
C.V. Danes
@chopper: That, and everyone will have to have short hair ;-)
mike with a mic
@Ken T:
There’s good reason for that. Good for the Environment often translates into “shit quality product that will break really fast and screw you over”. Nobody should trust any green electronics at all, ever.
Case in point all the “lead free” electronics. The funny thing is lead is just about the best possible type of solder for bga and flowing. The lead free stuff cracks as it heats and cools, eventually destroying the item. Xbox Red Right of Death, Sony Yellow light of Death, dead macbook/hp elitebook, dieing nvidia gpus, failing tv’s… all of this was caused by environmentally friendly lead free solder. The only fix was to… replace the solder with the toxic lead solder. Something that most people are not able to do.
So those green electronics, royally fucked millions of people who bought gear that spontaneously failed or just dies earlier now than it normally did. This oddly enough creates more products that are just thrown the fuck away (replacing them costs almost as much as a new one) which means we are throwing more of the other toxins back into the world. So we are creating more trash.
This is just one case where “environmentally friendly” ended up fucking over the consumer, creating a worse product, and oddly creating more toxic waste. People who work with these items for a living realize that something being green is just a way to fuck over the end consumer with an inferior product so some people can feel good about themselves when they buy it. It’s a sham, more often than not creates more problems than it solves, and only massive idiots look for green products.
Once you see this play out enough with items you understand and realize “holy shit those idiots took lead out of solder, no wonder it’s so fucked up” every single green advocate and product out there reminds of you the idiots that destroyed prior things.
But hey… forcing people to buy more of a product is good for stocks… and since I”m not poor and brown in India I’m not inhaling the vapors from all the trash created by it.
gnomedad
@pharniel: Nice riff; thanks.
BTW, I’m a green nerd and was an early adopter of CFLs, some of which really sucked. So they should thank us hippies for being pioneers and taking the arrows in the back so that they can save money on lighting. :)
Belafon
I agree with the Georgia Tea Party in this case. Here in Texas, the state allows a “group” to set up what are called Municipal Utility Districts (MUDs). They are generally set up around here by they companies that build the large housing developments. Among other things, they can control what electrical sources can be used in the district, and most of them, in collusion with the electrical companies in the state, have written in clauses that prevent solar being installed on houses.
tybee
@negative 1:
so those who prey upon others with a superstition “need” a tax break? horse shit.
Frankensteinbeck
@pharniel:
You have to be right, because I think @Violet and @NonyNony are dead wrong. The Teabaggers have proven time and again they will gladly take a financial and economic hit for the chance to hurt someone else. Their complaints about social programs mention their taxes, but focus on how that other guy doesn’t deserve to be helped. They know big businesses and the banks are fucking them over, but liberals are for regulation, so the Teabaggers are against it. Any worries about how the government is spending money disappear when their side is in charge. Their motivation is hate, not greed – maybe even in the 1%. Witness Romney’s venomous speech about the 47%.
The Teabaggers specifically are tied tightly to the conspiracy fringe, however. Rand Paul put up a vote to block the Amero, they’ve put anti-Admiralty clauses in their platforms, and they pour their money into stuff like that Mad Max enclave. ‘Get off the grid!’ just might sway them. Remember, the utilities are an arm of the government watching their every move to these loons.
Peter
If you have to ignore major words in your name to make an acronym, maybe you shouldn’t be acronymizing.
Villago Delenda Est
@shelly:
The sure way to kill your brain is to read Noisemax religiously.
Villago Delenda Est
@Frankensteinbeck:
Precisely. Their paranoia runs very, very deep.
gnomedad
@shelly:
Redundant.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cacti:
Good.
It’s about time we drove televangelists into utter penury, so they can actually be like Jesus.
schrodinger's cat
Bill Keller provides the GOP argument of creating a new permanent underclass without citizenship, an able assist in this morning’s NYT.
eemom
TUSK!
One of the few F Mac songs I haven’t gotten tired of over the centuries.
ericblair
@Frankensteinbeck:
Yep. I’m in the camp that the teabaggers’ view of economics and politics is completely a moral one. Which wouldn’t be a problem if the moral basis was the Sermon on the Mount, but it’s some stew of authoritarianism, petty resentment, and tribalism.
Cacti
@tybee:
As it is now, anything that is designated for a “housing allowance” is exempt from tax. Or in other words. Reverend Jimbob gets $60,000 per annum from the Hallelujah Baptist Church. $30,000 of that is designated a “housing allowance,” so Reverend Jimbob only pays income tax on $30,000 of his annual compensation.
catclub
@Cacti: “, but equality should never be mistaken for hostility. ”
There is something you don’t hear often enough. The Catholic Bishops have definitely not learned this.
Villago Delenda Est
@mike with a mic:
You’re such a fucktard on so many levels, it’s really rather breathtaking.
Frankensteinbeck
@Villago Delenda Est:
I don’t think many on the left – especially the center-left – are even aware of how paranoid these people are. I suspect few people know that they want to defund the Post Office because they believe it pulled a coup and took over the US government back in the 1800s, or have heard the theory that there are two court systems and you can tell which is which by the fringe on the flag.
catclub
@Seth Owen: “I don’t think it’s fair to change the rules now. ”
But my child cannot deal with negroes in her school. That would be unfair.
catclub
One of the fixes that is not getting done on the ACA relates to Church Sponsored health insurance.
I do not know all the details, but many of the chruch sponsored plans did not meet the ACA requirements. It looks to me like the clergy would be better off going on to the ACA exchanges, but I am only guessing. Church health insurance plans have a lot of relatively old clergy.
catclub
@Frankensteinbeck: Smart Meters == Home invasion by the feds.
Peter
@catclub:
Wow, okay, that’s definitely a reasonable analogy. You fucking asshole.
tybee
@Peter:
catclub is exactly right. sorry you can’t see around your own stupidity.
gnomedad
@catclub:
Unlike, you know, telephone service.
Villago Delenda Est
@catclub:
The main problem I have with “smart meters” is that it’s supposed to be a means of saving money for utilities at the expense of people who are employed reading meters. This would not be so bad IF the cost savings were passed on to the customer in the form of lower rates, but that never happens. The cost savings goes directly into the pockets of the usual suspects a the top of the pyramid.
My local, publicly owned utility is talking about smart meters and raising rates, and recently proposed eliminating a program that assisted low income customers in updating their heating/cooling systems to more energy efficient technology…it’s as if Dick Cheney took them over and started badmouthing conservation, mainly because doing the smart thing economically and environmentally is bad for his personal cash flow.
There’s also the question of who benefits, short term, from the smart meter acquisition . Obviously the brother in law of the CEO who is selling the smart meters to the utility, but who has the maintenance contracts? Locally, a lot of people are tossed out of work and some out of state outfit provides maintenance, which means more money leaving the community which loses the positive local economic effects of money circulating based on local employment.
The benefits of smart meter technology don’t seem to accrue to the local community that much…and I don’t consider enriching executives to be that great of a benefit for the community as a whole.
negative 1
@tybee: Do you read or just take preconceived notions and scream about them? Are atheists superstitious? Do you not understand serving the community as a calling, religious or not, or do you not know how to read? How are you any better than the religious right “only my way is the true belief!”? Inquiring minds want to know…
r€nato
FFS. Pardon me if I have triple-posted this but I am getting nailed by the spam filter. I suspect a government false flag op is to blame.
Here is a pretty kick-ass timelapse video I completed a little over a year ago. It’s a solar power plant under construction.
Queen Creek Project timelapse video
…ok, note to self and others: don’t be a clever HTML monkey and try to insert ‘title’ attribute in your anchor tags. WP thinks it’s spam if you do so.
negative 1
@Villago Delenda Est: Deal with enough food banks, homeless shelters, HUD projects (both 202 and 801), and substance abuse organizations and you’ll quickly come to the conclusion that plenty of ministers are not TV hucksters. Very few are anything approaching rich, or even ‘not poor’. The ones that are milking the system can be excluded in other ways. You can see my post above, but if this is going to be challenged in court expanding it to help those who are basically living their life for the express purpose of providing charity (religious or atheist, or whatever else) should have access to these exclusions. Getting rid of them as a means to stop a scam is, in my opinion, throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It’s also rather conservative — how many times have you heard good policy being countered with “yeah but my friend’s cousin could work but doesn’t because he gets help from . Therefore the whole thing should be scrapped because it’s a scam!”
? Martin
@Villago Delenda Est:
The cost savings come directly to consumers here in CA if you choose. That’s the whole premise behind the Flex Alert system – if you participate you pay a lower rate.
Now, the savings from the meter readers isn’t directly credited back to us as consumers because those savings are what pay for the much more expensive meters, and the back-end support for them (networking, etc). We’re replacing a lot of low-wage people that would come to your house on a scooter with a smaller number of high-wage people that are keeping the radio network running, etc.
The smart meters are also allowing for much better pricing for people with plug-in electrics who will do most of their consumption at night for that use. And the meters we have in our neighborhood would allow us to sell back to the grid, something the old meters wouldn’t be able to support.
Villago Delenda Est
@negative 1:
That may be true, but the problem is, the grifters who use religion as a cover need to be stopped. They are parasites.
Villago Delenda Est
@? Martin:
Well, Communist California obviously has some Commissars looking over the shoulders of the local energy czars to make sure that the money doesn’t wind up in the pockets of CEOs.
Which is a good thing, IMHO.
r€nato
@Cacti: Yes, they bombed the airwaves with “WE LOVE SOLAR YES WE DO!” ads
which ended the day after the Corp. Commission gave them $5/mth instead of the as much as $100/mth they wanted to charge to rooftop solar residential customers. I’m glad they only got $5/mth but the fact that they can levy such a charge at all provide the potential for future rises in the rate. Voters need to wake up and elect a Democratic-majority commission.
Paul in KY
@eemom: Christy McVie says she wants to return to the band!
ranchandsyrup
Selling electric back to the grid from their solar system is as close to a “producer” as some of these teabillies will get.
americanitis
I live here, am an APS customer, and also have a SunPower PV system on my roof. My system generates just about all my peak power needs, more sometimes, and I’ve yet to see a bill under $60 anyway because APS ALREADY CHARGES a generation and transmission fee which is independent of any power they’re selling me.
So when APS says solar customers like me aren’t paying for the grid, they’re flat-out full of shit, period, full-stop. The transmission fee IS PAYING FOR THE GRID. Power consumption is billed separately, which is the system THEY set up in order to charge customers twice for electricity: first for the electricity itself, then again for its delivery. Now that customers are generating their own electricity cheaper than APS was willing to sell it, and even though those customers are STILL paying the transmission fees, APS doesn’t like that.
Never underestimate the tendency of the Republicans on the Corporation Commission (who sets these rates/fees) to fuck over regular people like me here in AZ. It’s an art form.
Bob's Had Enough
The right’s opposition to renewable energy has been crumbling for some time. It happened first with wind. Wind farms brought significant income improvement to many farmers and ranchers. It created jobs in communities starved for jobs. And it boosted tax revenues for local and state governments. Dying towns have been revitalized.
Fossil-fuel sponsored legislation designed to curb wind has failed in conservative/red states both in the Midwest and the South. When wind subsidies were up for renewable late last year Republican governors from red states lobbied for continued and better support for wind.
People of all persuasions have now realized that putting solar panels on their roofs will save them money. What’s not to like about saving money? Conservative people really like the idea of saving money.
Walmart, owned by the very conservative Walton family, has the largest commercial use of solar in the country. Their total solar capacity is enormous and they keep adding more.
Even the resistance to killing the incandescent bulb is melting away. Now that LEDs are dropping below $10 each and offering a one year pay back with many years of continued savings – well, conservatives like to conserve their own money.
(Check Home Depot. A few days ago they were selling Cree 60 watt replacement LEDs for just under $8. I’ve got a couple and they are great.)
Peter
@tybee: Yes, a tax break on a tiny percentage of the population (who do not even, by and large, make that much money) is exactly the same thing as the defining civil rights issue of a generation, centered around treating black people like actual human fucking beings.
It’s the comparison I object to, not the ruling. You fucking asshole.
gorram
@gnomedad: The trick is that they’ve been convinced that there’s no direct personal benefit to them from those (which is easier to do, since the ~market~ often makes those products more expensive than alternatives, so they write them off as a marketing scheme basically). Their allergy to progressive taxation shows that it can even extend into things where there’s a bottom line that they can see benefits them… but sometimes (especially when there’s some pseudo-Jeffersonian homestead involved) they can see through the bs they normally buy.
Matt McIrvin
@Bob’s Had Enough:
Well, there’s also ethanol (which is basically a grift and not at all environmentally sound, but it’s promoted as renewable energy).
tybee
@negative 1:
i understand that you wish to support a fairy tale at the expense of other people who don’t believe your fairy tale.
that makes you either ignorant or stupid. or both.
you stupid, ignorant slut.
tybee
oops. the last epistle was to peterhead, not negative 1.
Peter
@tybee:
God, Adolescent Atheists have to be the single mod tiresome group of people to interact with. Even more so than their religious equivalents, which is a hell of a feat.
tybee
@Peter:
yeah, “churches” that write off G-IV’s and motor homes and such are really doing the poor of the world a favor.
so if that’s such good idea, why don’t others involved in non-religious charities get the same write offs?
oh, that’s right. your sky fairy doesn’t get its cut that way.
hopefully, the religious groups and churches will begin to carry their fair share of both income and property taxes.
you leech.
Peter
@tybee:
Exactly who is it you think you are arguing with here? Because it certainly isn’t me. Literally the only thing of substance I’ve said in this comment thread is that the comparison to resistance to de-segregation is not only a false analogy, it is a deeply disgusting one to make, for the exact same reasons it’s disgusting and false when right-wing leeches compare taxation to slavery.
For the record, I’m totally fine with this ruling (as I’ve already said!) and think that in general too many of our tax dollars are spent subsidizing religious institutions. That doesn’t make the comparison to actual major civil rights issues any less disgusting, or catclub any less of an asshole for making it, or you any less of an asshole for defending it.
Cue more incoherent gibberish that has nothing to do with anything I actually said in 3…2…1…
tybee
so you’re ok with some types of discrimination. i understand that perfectly.
BruceFromOhio
@RaflW: Lay down with dogs, wake up with rabies.
Mnemosyne
@tybee:
Let me guess, you’re also furious that you have to pay for women’s cancer screenings because you’re never going to get cervical cancer, so why are they discriminating against you by making you pay for them?
Peter
@tybee:
Well, I suppose that was at least related to something I said at an extreme tangent. Our children is learning!
catclub
What I was pointing out was that the argument by Seth Owen, that changing the rules _now_ would be unfair, because some people have gotten used to the present rule, is essentially self-refuting. One could instead ask when it would be more fair than right now to change the rules, given the non-existence of time travel to fix the error in the past.
In terms of analogies, I really do not understand Peter’s disgust. Mine suggested that if we can do a large thing, like desegregation, to right a (much more) longstanding wrong, even though it will make many people unhappy, then we can right a lesser wrong, like fixing an unfair tax exemption, even though some people will be made unhappy by that fix.
It also suggests that the specious arguments to defend segregation are similar to the specious argument made by Seth Owen that changing the tax law _now_ is unfair.
I am not sure how this is disgusting in the same way that comparing taxation to slavery
(and arguing that they equally bad) is disgusting.
tybee
@Peter:
no, you don’t seem to be learning anything. par for the course for your ilk.
tybee
@Mnemosyne:
cervical cancer screening isn’t a myth. or do you just pray for a cure?
burnspbesq
@Cacti:
Guaranteed reversal on appeal to the Seventh Circuit. Case should have been dismissed on standing grounds.
burnspbesq
@eemom:
That’s because Duke’s band doesn’t have the chops to play it. At USC Law, we got to hear the Spirit of Troy rehearse it every afternoon of Fall semester.
burnspbesq
@tybee:
You’re either for the entire First Amendment, or you’re not for any of it.
Nice to know which side you’re on.
tybee
@burnspbesq:
the 1st amendment says nothing about me having to support religious leeches.
Mnemosyne
@tybee:
Neither is the work that the Los Angeles Mission does. But I guess all of those homeless people can go without food and shelter since the people who provide it to them do it because they believe in a myth, so therefore they need to be driven out of business.
tybee
@Mnemosyne:
the believers in fairy tales don’t deserve to skate on their share of supporting the various governments under which they exist.
every dollar they owe in taxes that is not paid due to discriminatory tax policies in their favor means that others, even the poor, have to pay for the religious’ share.
the religious need to pony up just like the rest of us.
Mnemosyne
@tybee:
So charities shouldn’t be allowed to get tax breaks? Or is it only religious charities that should have to pay taxes, while secular charities would be exempt?
Congratulations — you just violated the First Amendment by discriminating on the basis of religion. Want to go for two?
tybee
@Mnemosyne:
you think all charities get the breaks the religious ones do?
bwahahahahaha.
nice strawman you’re building there. be a shame if something happened to it.
Mnemosyne
@tybee:
So name a few of the differences. Just give us three.
tybee
@Mnemosyne:
you couldn’t read the link provided? figures.
Mnemosyne
@tybee:
Link provided where? There is no link in your comment #86. Which comment did you put a link into?
tybee
the original link. ANY break for the deluded sky fairy “believers” is too many.
perhaps you should knit yourself some reality instead of hats.
Nerull
If there is no real difference between a religious charity and a secular one, then surely the religion exemptions are not needed?
It’s not tax breaks for charity people have issues with. It’s tax breaks for Rev. Joe’s new private jet.
tybee
@Nerull:
exactly.