Stop taxing church contributions
From: Herold Neumann, Annandale
The Minnesota Department of Revenue has been taxing the gifts to churches and charities for many years. Why?
The Federal IRS does not tax gifts to the churches because of the statute of separation of church and state. So why is it that the state of Minnesota has the right to collect those taxes when the IRS does not?
One would think that the district courts, Minnesota High Court and the Minnesota state legislators would be aware of this and would not condone such an obvious practice of taxing gifts to the church. Maybe it will require a lawyer to file a brief against the state to stop this travesty.
If the judges and the legislators file their own income tax they have no excuse of not knowing about of this gift taxing, and they do nothing! It is not nice to rob "God."
Item: Minnesota tax form. If the Minnesota Board of Taxation were to be replaced with fifth-graders (there are none smarter) the income tax form would be reduced to a single page. Just using a percentage of the IRS adjusted gross would be a starter.
Legislators are elected to govern, but when doing so they should put the citizen first, not the state. Taxing gifts to the church is not legal and it puts the state ahead of the citizen.
We can do more to stop smoking
From: David Tilstra, M.D., president, CentraCare Clinic; and Janet Handrigan, M.D., medical director of wellness, CentraCare Health
As leaders at CentraCare Health, we are committed to furthering wellness throughout the communities we serve in Central Minnesota. Sadly, smoking continues to be the leading cause of preventable death and disease in our communities. Daily we see firsthand the physical and emotional toll that tobacco takes on our patients and their families. We also see the financial strain tobacco-related illnesses place on individuals and our society. Now, a new report from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota reveals just how high the cost of tobacco really is in Minnesota each year.
According to the report, smoking is responsible for the deaths of 6,312 Minnesotans every year and $3.19 billion in excess health care costs annually in our state alone. That’s a financial expense of $593 for every Minnesotan. The preventable health cost of tobacco stands out even more when the report compares what else $3.19 billion could buy each year – 200 libraries, 58,000 four-year college degrees, or 6,380 fire trucks. Wow!
We all know that the economic burden means nothing in comparison to the incalculable human impact on Minnesotans who see their loved ones suffer and all too often die from tobacco-related diseases.
As a state, we can do more to prevent kids from becoming addicted and suffer the damage from tobacco that the generations before them have endured. This can only be done by working together. We urge you to find out more at smokefreegenmn.org and support policies like raising the tobacco sales age to 21, restricting the sale of flavored tobacco products, keeping the price of tobacco high and funding tobacco prevention programs. These are all proven ways to help keep today’s young people from ever starting to use tobacco – and protect them from addiction, disease and premature death.
Guards, Reservists should get credits
From: Roger Rimpy, Albion Township
The National Guard and Reserve forces are being ripped off by Title 10, Section 12304B, when they are involuntarily activated for active duty without receiving service credits toward benefits such as the G.I. Bill, health insurance and retirement.
Senator Al Franken of Minnesota had a bill to fix the problem, but the GOP members of the committee voted the bill down. Some of us had no problems because we volunteered for active duty. The GOP is saving money on the backs of our Guards and Reservists, who make up about 50 percent of our armed forces.
Remember the simple joy of being
From: Daniel P. Schultz, South Haven
So many of us are angry about politics today. And it’s certainly true that there are crucial public policy controversies involving great suffering, and even matters of life and death. But we also have internal problems like our envy and greed, which get in the way of our goodwill toward all. Over these we have more control.
Punctuating her speech with ugly curses, Madonna – whose name means "My lady" – gave a speech on Jan. 20 about being "equal," and about "making sacrifices" for "a revolution of love." But what percentage of her vast wealth will give life for those in need? It’s sometimes easy to preach but harder to be generous.
Sometime back I tried to read a massive book called, "The Unintended Reformation," by Notre Dame historian Brad Gregory. Gregory says the spiritual failures of Catholic and Protestant Christians around the 16th century led to our socially-fragmented, relatively-irreligious and ungenerous society.
Today we forget that greed can – as St. Paul says – be "idolatry." Gregory notes that what had been seen as greed in the Middle Ages is now rationalized as enlightened self-interest. On the bright side, the modern world is filled with practical miracles, from refrigerators to antibiotics (which saved me recently) to the internet.
But sometimes in all the noise of our daily grind, and in our complexity of options and desires, we forget the simple joy of being. So we need Sundays and holidays to count our blessings and reconnect. The poet William Wordsworth said this about escaping from the world, to recover our childlike wonder about nature:
"The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; –
Little we see in nature that is ours.
We have given our hearts away – a sordid boon!"
But there is hope. We have a sacred power to know what may be called "The Is of things," and "The Who of things." We can surely be more grateful for the being of nature, of each other and of the infinite God. In this way, we can – as the prophesy says – receive "new hearts."
Conversely, it won’t help to demonize politicians, entertainers, and one another; or to angrily demand a utopia of equality. Instead we can pray about Our Lady’s revolution of love for Jesus, who – in sacrificing himself for human beings – gave away all.