Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC last night made an interesting observation about Rick Perry’s record of executions in Texas.  Based on Perry’s record of allowing prisoners to be executed despite questionable court proceedings and evidence, O’Donnell concluded that, if Perry had been in Pontius Pilate’s place of authority, he would have allowed the execution of Jesus Christ.

By now you probably know how mean and contempuous of Jesus’ teachings the radical right wing Republicans are.  When Brian Williams was asking a question of Perry about the 234 executions Perry okay’d, the audience applauded in support of Perry.  These people have gone way beyond the general consensus of the majority of Americans that “Love thy Neighbor” should at least be in the back of our minds as we interact with each other.

I’ll carry O’Donnell’s observation one step further and say that, not only are these sociopathic Republicans eager to inflict harm on anyone they don’t like and, thereby ignore the teachings of Jesus, they are killing the essential message of the New Testament.

I am often perplexed when supposedly “God-fearing Christians” quote something from the Old Testament instead of the New Testament.  Isn’t it a fact that there were no “Christians” until the New Testament era?  If people claim to base their religion on the Old Testament, aren’t they more in line with Jewish history and teaching than Christian?  (And, no I’m not implying that Jews are mean-spirited people so don’t bother jumping to unwarranted conclusions.)

Perry talks about “wrestling with God.”  Which God?  The God of the Old Testament or the God of the New Testament?  Admittedly, my Catholic college studies of the Bible were over 40 years ago, but I think I remember a basic difference between the Old God and the New God.  In fact, isn’t that why it’s called the “New” Testament?  Didn’t Jesus preach a new morality, a new way of relating to our neighbors, a new way of approaching the highest moral plane achievable by humans?  If I recall correctly, there is something in the NT about “Love thy neighbor.”

I don’t remember Jesus saying “Shoot thy neighbor.”  Or  “Execute thy neighbor.”  But that’s what Perry is bragging about.  He said that people who don’t fit his definition of a red-blooded American better stay out of Texas or they’ll get “rough treatment.”  Imagine Jesus saying that about the Good Samaritan or the folks he accepted as “neighbors” despite their outsider status?

Thankfully, the kind and gentle Christians who take Jesus’ teachings seriously are finally starting to speak up politically. An Example Below.

In July, I attended a workshop on the Missouri state budget co-sponsored by Metropolitan Congregations United and Missouri Budget Project.

Participants were asked how the state budget reflects their spiritual values – or not.  The 20 or so participants all based their values on the New Testament teachings of Jesus and agreed that there is a big gap between the values taught by the New Testament and the way the state allocates funds.  Issues such as health care, especially mental health and services for children, were the prominent concerns of the group.  We learned a lot about how the limited funds the state has are spent and some of the ways we could achieve additional revenue.  SMP readers already know much of what we learned that day.  But what we left with was a sinking feeling that many lawmakers who claim to be “good Christians” aren’t walking the walk.  I hope constituents will press them on this whole values thing when they get a chance. BTW, Senator John Lamping had originally agreed to meet with this workshop group at a future date, but he canceled a few days before saying he had “other commitments.”  I wonder what’s more important than saving the lives of the poor, the lame, the sick and the downtrodden?  What would Jesus do?

Sunday I attended a workshop about the Missouri state budget at Faith Des Peres Presbyterian Church in an upscale St. Louis suburb.  The program was offered by members of the church and staffers from Metropolitan Congregations United of St. Louis and the Missouri Budget Project.  It involved asking ourselves what is “sacred” to us and how our values are reflected in the way we would divide up the revenue available for the state budget.  We did the “penny exercise” which forced us to make what politicians call “the hard choices.”

At the end of the session, David Gerth of MCU-StL asked those in attendance if they would come back to the church on August 24th at 5p.m. to meet with Sen. Lamping who represents the 7th Senatorial District.  I don’t know anything about Sen. Lamping, and I don’t live in St. Louis County, so I didn’t sign up.  But many others did.  They will meet beforehand and prepare their questions and comments for the senator. Our workshop group came to the conclusion that the state needs more revenue.  Here’s a shocker – at least to me.

The Missouri budget has declined every year since 2000, and, at the current rate of economic growth in the state, it will be 2016 before we are back to the revenue level we had in 2008.   Ruth Ehresman of the Mo Budget Project did a wonderful job of “show and tell” using props to explain what’s wrong with the policy decisions that have been made in recent years.

I think it’s wonderful that mainline faith communities are getting involved in talking to their reps and senators.  I’ve been wishing they would come out of hiding for years.  

I hope they are able to “move” some Republicans closer to decision making that reflects the care and concern for Missourians that the state motto calls for.

BUT………….

I don’t think the good hearted people who want to have a reasonable discussion with ultra conservative extremists in our state legislature realize what they are up against.

I have been harping on the influence of the American Legislative Exchange Council for months now, and national media outlets are finally exposing them and their insidious attempt to dismantle the programs that hold communities together and keep families from extreme poverty.

I really do hope the meetings with state senators by members of the various faith communities helps educate the senators about the damage their votes are causing.  I will network with friends in various churches and synagogues and ask them to invite MCU and Mo Budget Project folks to do this workshop in more places.   AND I’m going to keep reminding people that ALEC is out to destroy the country it took us 200 years of progressive change to build.  

Last week, I met the Grim Reaper.

Amy Blouin of the Missouri Budget Project has been speaking all over the state about the emerging budget shortfall in Missouri, and that’s what she calls herself: the Grim Reaper. As the first speaker at the State of the State Budget Summit, she drove home the need for Obama’s promised federal assistance–like, yesterday!–as well as the need for structural reform in Missouri’s tax system.

Missouri families, like someone whose eyesight has been gradually fading for the last thirty years, know that life used to be better, but the changes have happened almost imperceptibly. For example, the median income in Missouri was $45,924 in 2007–about $5,000 lower, when adjusted for inflation, than it had been in 2001 at the beginning of the last economic downturn. Ours was the second highest income decline in the nation over that period. More proof of our slide: the poverty rate increased 12 percent in one year, from 2006 to 2007.

Blouin’s point was that the need at the beginning of this economic crisis was much larger than it had been at the beginning of the previous crisis in 2001. Doesn’t mentioning two crises imply a recovery between them? Not in Missouri, there hasn’t been. If you look at a graph of food stamp data, for instance, you see a line that does nothing but rise. It takes a steeper rise in 2001 than in the previous years and then just keeps heading toward the stratosphere.

And at this time when Missouri’s families need additional assistance, social services and education funding have slid inexorably downward. But rather than change Missouri’s tax structure to hold the line on those services, we’ve been eating the seed corn for the last three years. We’ve been paying for the difference between what the state spent and what it took in with money from one time sources. Blouin did not specify what those were, but I’m assuming that the sale of MOHELA would be an example.

Should we just fork out less money, then? Is that the problem–profligate spending? Not really. Yes, spending has gone up slightly in the last ten years, but general revenue as a percent of state personal income is basically the same as it was in 1985. In fact it’s a hair lower: in 1985 it was 3.7 percent; in 2007, it was 3.6 percent. And we couldn’t spend much less than we do. Consider that we’re the 44th lowest in state spending per capita; 44th lowest in spending per capita on K-12 education; 46th lowest in per capita spending on higher education; and anyone who earns more than 21 percent of the poverty level is ineligible for Medicaid.

If we sink any lower, we’ll have the literacy rate of Mongolia and we’ll just sentence poor people who get sick to firing squads.

What is the cause of this worsening economic outlook for the state? Partly, it’s an eroding revenue base. First, if people are earning less, then the state collects less in income tax and sales tax. On top of that, the legislature enacted tax cuts in 2007 and 2008 that amount to $260 million a year in lost revenue. Furthermore, some funds have been earmarked for specific purposes, thus removing money from the general revenue fund.

Also eroding the revenue base is the fact that tax credit redemption has more than doubled in the last decade (from $182 million in 1999 to $500 million in 2008). That doesn’t make tax credits necessarily evil, not if they provide lots and lots of jobs, but we need to study more carefully which projects do that.

Then there’s the way internet purchasing has cut into the state’s sales tax revenue to the tune of $300 million a year.

All those factors are above and beyond another basic problem: inflation. The state’s revenue needs to grow by 5 percent a year just to deal with inflationary problems like the rising cost of health care and the need for capital improvements. So what’s the chance, you think, that Missouri’s income is about to rise 5 percent this coming year? With the way the economy has been hit? Right. As likely as a moose soaring with a flock of geese. In fact, overall revenue collections dropped 3.9 percent in the first five months of fiscal year 2009, which began on July 1.

The Missouri Budget Project predicts a $200 million dollar shortfall in fiscal 2009 (as opposed to the $340 million shortfall that Jay Nixon and Wayne Goode are projecting) and as much as a $900 million shortfall for 2010.

And don’t look for any turnaround in the economy before the latter half of 2010.

Maybe Amy Blouin should don a hooded black cloak when she speaks.