To: Senators Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott
Representative Joe Wilson

I received your canned responses to my previous communications of opposition to the tax bills passed by the Senate and House of Representatives. You have made no substantive response to my concerns but, rather, provided an unsupported and deceptive rationale for your support of the bill. I am disappointed in your failure to respond adequately to the concerns, questions, and opposition to the bill by many of your constituents.

The fallacious claims of providing a tax cut for the middle class is intentionally or unintentionally dishonest and misleading. For many of us, both versions before Congress will be a major tax increase as the result of removing important deductions.

One example is the House’s provision for removing the deduction for long-term medical care. My wife of fifty-seven years is in the severe stage of Frontotemperal Dementia and requires full time nursing care. The cost is rapidly diminishing our savings and pension accounts. Removal of the deduction will hasten the depletion or our resources. Additionally, the anticipated cuts to Medicare will add to the financial crisis in our family and millions of others.

Perhaps an analogy is appropriate. The claim that I, and millions who are in similar circumstances, are getting a tax cut is comparable to saying, “We are giving you a steroid injection for your weak arm; but to do so, we are amputating your legs.But don’t you feel good about the steroid injection?” You are crippling me while claiming to strengthen me. Such action is deceptive at best and outright cruel at worst.

There is insufficient data to support your contention that the tax cut for corporations will result in increased wages and job growth; and there are no provisions in the current bills to hold corporations and businesses accountable to use the tax windfall to increase wages and expand employment. Data exist to indicate that the proceeds from the cuts will more likely go to share holders (the already more affluent) and corporate executives. This is redistribution of wealth, taking from the under-privileged and transferring it to the already privileged, a reverse “Robin Hood” approach.

I can give additional reasons for opposing both versions of the bill; but it is obvious that your positions are shaped by the failed ideology of “trickle down” economics and narrow partisan politics.  You seem to be more interested in a quick partisan “political win” than listening to the concerns of your constituents.

I assume you are honorable men and I appreciate your willingness to serve in Congress. However, when it comes to tax policy and approach to economic policy, I feel that your positions fall short of the vision of justice of our Jewish-Christian heritage. The proposed tax legislation demonstrably favors the most economically and politically powerful at the expense of the most vulnerable in our society.

Justice as defined in the traditions of the major religions disproportionately favors the weakest and most vulnerable and enables them to have access to that which is necessary to thrive as children of God. The current tax bills clearly fail the test of our sacred scriptures. Additionally, they fail the test of long-term sound economic policy.

I am readily available to discuss any of this issues with you and/or your staff.

Sincerely,

Bishop (Retired) Kenneth L. Carder
Williams Distinguished Professor Emeritus
Duke University Divinity School and
Senior Visiting Professor of Methodist Studies
Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary
Columbia, SC