Money, Lies, and God: An Interview with Katherine Stewart

Helping the rich over the poor isn't a Christian value

Today, I feature an interview with Katherine Stewart, the author of the New York Time bestseller Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy. The segment is timely in that we discuss income disparities accentuated by the passage of the recent Trump budget. The dominance of Christian nationalism in the current administration isn't helping many of the evangelical foot soldiers who helped bring Trump to power.

Katherine discusses her new book and much more. Here is a sampling of topics:

• The uneasy coalitions in Christian nationalism and MAGA world

• The lifeblood of Christian nationalism: bad history

• Religious liberty means the freedom to do what Christian nationalists want to do

• Religion is a tool of autocratic leaders

• The threat of the New Right to American governance

• Power is what unites the religion of the New Right

• David Barton (Where's Waldo) is still active

• The rank and file are ultimately victims of the theology of power

Listen to the episode wherever you get your podcasts. Most people listen to Telling Jefferson Lies on the Apple platform so here is that link (it also embeds nicely here):

Favoring the rich over the poor is not a Christian value

At the end of the interview, I comment briefly on the newly passed Republican budget. All non-partisan analyses show the budget favoring the rich over the poor. I link to some of them below.

Congressional Budget Office - “CBO estimates that household resources would decrease by an amount equal to about 2 percent of income in the lowest decile (tenth) of the income distribution in 2027 and 4 percent in 2033, mainly as a result of losses of in-kind transfers, such as Medicaid and SNAP (see the figure). 3 By contrast, resources would increase by an amount equal to 4 percent for households in the highest decile in 2027 and 2 percent in 2033, mainly because of reductions in they taxes they owe.”

University of Pennsylvania, Wharton Business School - “The positive economic gains during the first decade are driven by increases in savings and labor supply, as households face a weaker social safety net associated with reductions in spending. On a conventional basis, households in the first income quintile lose about $1200 in 2030, reflecting net reductions in taxes and transfers, including cuts to Medicaid and SNAP. The top 10% of the income distribution receives about 70 percent of the total value of the legislation. (Under current law, the top 10 percent of the income distribution pays about 70 percent of all federal taxes). On a dynamic lifetime basis, lower-income households and some in the middle class are worse off, despite positive economic effects. All future generations are worse off.”

Washington Post: “Bigger tax breaks: Wealthy people will get the biggest tax cuts from the bill by far. While low-income families will see a modest change in their tax bills, most high-income households will pay much less than they otherwise would have.

According to ITEP’s [Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy] analysis, 72 percent of the value of the tax cuts will go to the top 20 percent of earners — those making more than $153,600 — and more than 20 percent of the cuts will go to the top 1 percent, those earning more than $916,900.”

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