Making the point yesterday that Congress should think twice before treating a tax exemption as a government subsidy, in the case of the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act" (HR 3), Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) followed that argument to one of its logical conclusions:
I am…surprised to find out that my Republican colleagues think that a tax exemption or credit is a form of government funding. . . . Will we now have to call every tax exemption or credit a form of government funding for the recipient? I'm sure there will be many businesses, charities, and religious denominations that will be alarmed to find out that they are receiving government subsidies. […]
Among others that should be horrified are all the churches and synagogues and mosques that will now have to, presumably, give up their tax exemptions, because if tax exemptions are government subsidies, that's a direct establishment of religion. And the logic is inexorable. Either a tax exemption is government funding — in which case we cannot give tax exemptions to churches and synagogues and mosques — or it is not, in which case this bill has no claim on anyone.
