Passing Laws Against Greed

For months, we have heard the speeches blaming the current economic mess on the greed of Wall Street and the lack of government oversight. During the fall presidential campaign, Senator John McCain vowed that, if elected, that he would "put an end to the reckless conduct, corruption, and unbridled greed that have caused a crisis on Wall Street." More recently, President Barack Obama said, "We learned this week that even as they petitioned for taxpayer assistance, Wall Street firms shamefully paid out nearly USD 20 billion in bonuses for 2008," Obama said in his radio address. "While I'm committed to doing what it takes to maintain the flow of credit, the American people will not excuse or tolerate such arrogance and greed. The road to recovery demands that we all act responsibly, from Main Street to Washington to Wall Street," he said.

Having identified the root cause of economic troubles, the government now proposes its strategy to put an end to the problem of greed and corruption in Wall Street. The government's strategy is to pass more legislation and punitively tax those who have been greedy. Congress has passed a law to tax AIG executives who received bonuses from bail out money up to 90%. This should send a warning to Wall Street executives to curb their avarice.

Will it work? Will the fear of taxation finally bring about a transformation of the human heart, and promote an altruistic society with its citizens concerned for the common good? Will new laws regulating companies and with brilliant overseers who themselves found ways to circumvent tax laws, finally put an end to cheating on our taxes? (It takes a cheat to catch a cheat.) Will the president lead the way towards ending class warfare and not only eradicate greed but also envy? Will the people look to the government more and more to fulfill their egalitarian visions?

Greed and envy are deeply rooted in the human heart. Nothing less than a radical transformation, a new heart, is needed, and it must happen one individual at a time. The government is impotent to change the human heart. Law can never transform the human heart, and all the government can do is pass laws. The gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ is the only transforming power that can give an individual a new heart and eradicate greed and envy, and the Church is the bearer of this message.

However, the government promotes hostility towards the Church by advocating values in opposition to the gospel, such as when it advocates abortion and the destruction of embryos over the sanctity of human life. It promotes hostility to the Church by prohibiting the teaching of alternative views to Darwin's evolutionary theory, by promoting same sex marriage, and by arrogating unto itself messianic roles. Even now, the government is contemplating more hostility and punitive taxation even against the Church by possibly eliminating the Charitable Income Tax Deduction.

The government is not friendly to the gospel of Jesus Christ, man's only real hope against greed and envy.

And he said to them, "Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." And he told them a parable, saying, "The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, 'What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?' And he said, 'I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.' But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?'"

(Luke 12:15-20)