Our Problems Are Not New

Now then, what makes a nation strong? Taxes? (Heh)
There’s nothing new about those either, the first income tax was paid by Abraham
It was written on a rock by the hand of Divinity and handed to Moses at the top of Mount Sinai and you might want to remember this, it was at the flat rate of 10%
It promised the wrath of God on anybody who tampered with or violated that law
Christ was born in Bethlehem because Joseph was on his way to pay his taxes
Joseph was a relatively well-to do landowner
Yet the taxes exacted by Caesar Augustus were so exorbitant that he didn’t have enough money left over to employ a trusted messenger for the mission so, though his wife was great with child, he made the journey himself
(Journey himself)
(Bucko)
And Christ was born in Bethlehem because Joseph was on his way to pay his taxes
And Christ was born in a manger because there was a housing shortage when he got there
Our problems are not new

[Chorus]
Christ was born in a manger
Because there was a housing shortage
Our problems are not new
Christ was born in a manger
Because there was a housing shortage
Our problems are not new

At Runnymede the Magna Carta was handed to King John on the end of a sword denying to royalty the right of unlimited taxation
Yet, you know it was for us, the American People, to become the
First in recorded history ever voluntarily to surrender our rights to private property?
Oh, yes we did
With an innocent sounding Constitutional Amendment, the Sixteenth, which says that “Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes on incomes from whatever source derived” and we forgot to put any limit to the extent to which we could tax ourselves
Conceivably we could be taxed out of all private property. We could be taxed not 70%, 80%, 90% but at 100%
We could be awakened one morning and find the government owns the farm, and the house, and the car, and has a mortgage on the church, legally
Historically, whenever any nation has taxed its people more than 25% of their national income
Initiative was destroyed and that nation was headed for economic eclipse
Presently the American People are being taxed 33% of their total income
History says we’ll roll forward on momentum for a little while, but we’d better get some more gas in the tank pretty quick
History says we’ll roll forward on momentum for a little while, but we’d better get some more gas in the tank pretty quick
History says we’ll roll forward on momentum for a little while, but we’d better get some more gas in the tank pretty quick
History says we’ll roll forward on momentum for a little while, but we’d better get some more gas in the tank pretty quick

[Chorus]
Christ was born in a manger
Because there was a housing shortage
Our problems are not new
Christ was born in a manger
Because there was a housing shortage
Our problems are not new
Christ was born in a manger
Because there was a housing shortage
Our problems are not new
Christ was born in a manger
Because there was a housing shortage
Our problems are not new