I will be one of a number of clergy speaking at a press converence today in favor of a State Earned Income Tax Credit. This is what I will be saying:

My brothers and sisters, we have gathered here this morning as leaders of this State’s Mosques, Temples, Synagogues, Churches and other religious organizations to demand that our state do justice for the lowest paid working people of our state. We do not come here hat in hand begging the legislature to please throw some crumb to the poor, we come as a body united in demanding justice for the working poor.

One of the most basic and elementary principles of justice is that those who have been advantaged to have enough and more than enough of the material things of this life have a greater responsibility to provide for the common good of the community. In other words the burden of taxation should fall on the middle and upper class, not on the shoulders of the impoverished. Justice for the poor was written into the original fabric of our income tax system so that the more affluent pay a greater percentage of their income in taxation, and the less affluent pay a smaller percentage.

This system had become so riddled with loopholes that often the richest members of our society pay the smallest percentage of their income in income taxes, and without exception the affluent pay less of their income than do the poor for property taxes and sales taxes.

The Federal Earned Income Tax Credit is a basic first step to providing justice for the poor, it provides a tax credit for low income wage earners. It is not a benefit for those who do not work; it is a help to those who work hard to provide for their families, yet still earn low wages.

What we are asking, what we are demanding today is that our state do justice for the poor and enact a State Earned Income Tax Credit. Specifically we are demanding is a simple system that would provide that everyone eligible for the Federal Credit would also receive an additional one quarter of this amount as a State Earned Income Tax Credit. In a state where we are enjoying huge surpluses in the state budget, and where our rainy day fund is filled to overflowing this is not a budget breaker.

We are today calling on our legislators not to do something some day, but to do this one thing in this legislative session. Thank You.