In small win for Democrats, the final tax bill will not include a provision allowing churches to end

[applegrove]

By Heather Long at the Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/14/in-small-win-for-democrats-the-final-tax-bill-wont-include-a-provision-to-allow-churches-to-endorse-political-candidates/?utm_term=.c6b8c2d13c8a

"SNIP.........

In a minor win for Democrats, the final GOP tax bill will not include a repeal of the Johnson Amendment, a change that would have allowed religious institutions and all nonprofit entities organized as 501(c)3s to endorse political candidates.

President Trump had strongly advocated the repeal.

Trump promised to “totally destroy” the Johnson Amendment at the National Prayer Breakfast in February. Getting rid of it has been a priority of some spiritual leaders, especially in evangelical circles that have typically leaned Republican. The tax bill that passed the House in November scrapped the Johnson Amendment entirely for all non-profits, but the Senate bill did not, setting up a difference that had to be ironed out in this final week of negotiations.

“I'm pleased to announced that Democrats successfully prevented the repeal of the Johnson Amendment from being jammed into any final Republican tax deal,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. He added that he would “continue to fight all attempts to eliminate this critical provision.”

...........SNIP"

[Phoenix61]

1. That's good news! nt

[no_hypocrisy]

2. While I agree with the omission,

I don't understand why R's caved on this one. It meant more money to their campaigns. It won't garner a single Democratic vote on the votes for "tax reform".

[Achilleaze]

3. Well, it is anti-democratic and unAmerican

not that the repubes give a shit about that...

[Orangepeel]

5. Maybe they realized it wasnt limited to Christian churches

[Fred Sanders]

6. The shitstorm of political involvement by crazed Evangelicals would have buried the nation.

That fascist Trump wanted that is plain scary.

[no_hypocrisy]

8. From Interfaith Alliance

The Senate parliamentarian has thrown out the portion of the GOP tax bill that would have repealed the #JohnsonAmendment, which serves as a critical safeguard for #religiousfreedom by preventing houses of worship from being turned into partisan weapons.

It's a victory by technicality, but a victory nonetheless. We expect that Republicans in Congress will continue to push repeal of the Johnson Amendment, and we will fight that effort at every turn.

[maxsolomon]

4. Maybe they realized they'd be freeing the Roman Catholic Church to take a side

And don't want to risk Pope Francis weighing in.

On edit: they already do weigh in by putting such an emphasis on Abortion.

[karynnj]

7. A very small win -- and possibly one they thought could backfire

My impression from both NJ and VT, is that reform, reconstructionist and conservative synagogues and most main stream Protestant churches took the requirement very seriously. I know that every synagogue I was involved with had some instance where we asked what we were allowed to do -- and made sure we were following the law.

I suspect that keeping the law in - especially when they control the government, is to allow the evangelicals to say that Democrats are worse than people who inappriately touch 14 year olds, but they might go after especially the black churches using their congregations to get the vote out for Democrats. (Needless to say, they - like the synagogues I have belonged to - can list values without names -- and everyone will understand. )