Pax Christi USA is part of a national project aimed at raising issues of the common good during the 2012 election process. More information on this effort will be available in the coming weeks at http://commongood2012.org/. We thank Jean Sammon and Network for helping to coordinate the project and share this information.
This year, Catholic voters face critical choices as we help decide who will lead our nation, states and communities. The stakes have never been higher.
The 2012 election comes at a time when the U.S. faces the highest poverty rates in decades, when the wealth gap has reached historic levels and income disparities are high, and when government officials face stark choices about who will benefit and who will suffer as a result of the decisions they make. Will those decisions be based on the common good* or will they serve only to enrich the already super-wealthy and divide us further? Will they foster economic justice and peace? Or will our nation become mired in injustice and division?
As faithful citizens guided by the Gospel command to protect those who are most vulnerable and hold accountable those with power, we know we cannot afford to “sit this one out.”
Realizing how important this election is, a coalition of national Catholic organizations (listed below) is working to build on the momentum created during the 2008 election. Four years ago, individuals and groups across the U.S. created a national Platform for the Common Good, which was ratified at the Convention for the Common Good in Philadelphia.
In 2012, our goal is to create common-good* platforms for each state and the District of Columbia, which will be signed and delivered to candidates and public officials. Each of these 51 individual platforms will be written with the input of people in that state or the District of Columbia, and they will include a national preamble designed to outline a common-good perspective.
We invite you to join us in the coming months as we engage Catholic voters across the nation in the writing, signing and delivery of these platforms.
A simple remedy – raising the Inheritance Tax would probably do more to improve the conditions of the worker & the poor …..than all these endless debates about what should we do !
I agree about the Inheritance Tax. The problem is that it usually starts with people’s estates which are so small that what is left after tax can hardly be called an inheritance. I think an inheritance tax should be made on people who have a plethora of financial resources and whose beneficiaries will have plenty after taxes.
I believe that taxing income from at least most sources of those making over, say, $250,000 should be require without loopholes. Straight tax. Also I think it is ridiculous that large salaries are not taxed right up to the top (and paid out, too, right to the top)