02/19/06 Let's Ask Ourselves: Who Would Jesus Tax?' , by Scott D. Anderson

I thought about Susan Pace Hamill last week as I read about the misnamed "Taxpayer Protection Amendment" being pushed in the Wisconsin Legislature.

Hamill, a University of Alabama Law School professor, is absolutely on fire for the gospel. She also is a corporate tax expert trained in a big New York City law firm who worked for four years at the IRS before pursuing a doctorate in taxes.

"I spent most of my professional time on the side of business, with a heavy emphasis on taxation," she says. "I'm a pro-business moderate."

Then something stirred Hamill's heart. As she read her Bible, she was surprised by how much it had to say about her favorite subject: taxes.

She regularly cites Matthew 25:45: "Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me."

Luke 16:19-31 is a parable of a rich man sent to hell because of his indifference to the disadvantaged and in Jeremiah 22:15-16, "He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well."

A lifelong, devout United Methodist, she enrolled at Beesom Divinity School at Samford University, where she completed a masters degree in theological studies.

While in Seminary, Hamill applied her knowledge of Christian teaching to her legal expertise. The result was a master's thesis that ended up as a 2002 article in the Alabama Law Review: "An Argument for Tax Reform Based on Judeo-Christian Ethics."

It ignited a grassroots tax revolution in Alabama, which has one of the most regressive and dysfunctional tax systems in the United States.

And who is leading the campaign for tax justice in Alabama? The state's two largest denominations: United Methodists and Southern Baptists, along with Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Roman Catholics.

Hamill would certainly see through the "Taxpayer Protection Amendment" introduced last week in Wisconsin.

This proposed amendment would enshrine arbitrary funding formulas in our state's constitution. It conveniently relieves our state Legislature of its responsibility to decide biannually how much to tax and how much to spend.

It may indeed save us taxpayers a few dollars.

But the well documented, longer-term damage it will do to basic services such as public schools and medical services for the elderly and disabled will in the long run be morally unacceptable to those of us who cling to Biblical principles of justice rather than the self interest of pocketbook politics.

We need Susan Pace Hamill here in Wisconsin. We need a prophetic voice to speak up for tax justice on behalf of those in our state who can't organize an expensive lobbying effort to defeat this measure, and who will suffer the most if it passes.