For a state Legislature that spends an inordinate amount of time professing its religious convictions, whether it be posting signs or mandating the Bible be taught in schools, it’s a shame a basic Biblical teaching doesn’t get half the effort.With a new Legislative season comes a renewed try to help poor working families in this state. Again, some lawmakers and the governor are trying to raise the threshold for families living below the poverty line to pay income tax.
Alabama has the lowest threshold in the nation at $4,600 while the poverty line in this country is $19,661. As it moved over the years, Alabama’s line never did. That means a family of four in Alabama must start paying income taxes on that paltry amount even though it falls well below the rate poor families pay in other states and across the nation.
It’s a line that poor people haven’t been able to cross since 1982 because the Legislature has failed to change the number for more than two decades even though other states have mercifully adjusted theirs for inflation.
The governor wants to raise the threshold over time. When it is fully phased in, a single parent with two dependents would not be taxed until the annual income reached $11,600. For a family of four, it would rise to $15,100.
In each case, it would save those families a few hundred dollars on their tax bill. With that low of an income, every dollar does count.
Rep. John Knight, D-Montgomery, takes it further with his bill. The threshold for a single parent family of three would be $17,000 and for a two-parent family of four, it would be $22,900.
Gov. Bob Riley calls what the state has failed to do immoral. He’s right. It is immoral to widen the gap between the haves and the have nots when you have the power to easily do something about it.
To ignore a basic Biblical teaching of helping the "least of my brethren" while posting "In God we trust," "God bless America" and the Ten Commandments seems hypocritical at best.
Let’s hope this time around that lawmakers do see the light and the error of their ways and right a terrible wrong that has lingered for far too long.
