The U. S. Congress has been hard at work this week trying to find places to cut the budget to help offset at least a portion of the record breaking deficit created by four straight years of tax cuts for the wealthy.
The U. S. House of Representatives believes it can save $50 billion over the next decade by "tightening up" on Medicaid, by providing the states much more latitude for making further cuts to various human services benefits and programs and by applying sharp cuts to Food Stamps ($1 billion) and to programs that benefit the elderly.
The editorial page of The New York Times reported earlier this week (October 26, 2005) that $4 billion would be cut from child support enforcement efforts, a program that returns $4 for every $1 spent on enforcement to protect and secure women and children.
Thankfully, the U. S. Senate version of the work so far is not so extreme, but based on a similar philosophy.
What is amazing is the fact that the motivation for this entire belt-tightening effort is to find a way to pass along another $70 billion in upper-bracket tax cuts.
Let's see now.
Costly foreign war with no end in sight.
Natural disaster upon natural disaster at home and abroad.
Record national deficit.
The ranks of the poor swelling to the tune of over one million annually.
Further tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
Hmmm.
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14 comments:
Deut 15...
Doesn't look like a gov food stamp program. The borrower at least has to ask the person from whom he is getting. It's not an ENTITLEMENT.
Moses seems to be speaking only to the people of means. Why does he not instruct the borrower here?
Yes, generosity is a virtue, but it is not cultivated with resentment. Envy and covetousness are vices also talked about in Deut.
If you read Deut as a socialist manifesto, that’s fine. Others however, may read it as PERSONAL moral instruction with basic level of good judgment understood. Would you send me $50 if I asked you?
You’ve seen the statistics and know that Republicans are far more likely to be generous than Dems. One is more likely to see morality as a personal responsibility, the other passes it on to his gov. Both are expressions of a religious faith. Just differing faiths.
Guilt motivates a lot of philanthropy.
- Chris
Does it really matter what motivates people to be charitable? As for me, I am thankful people open up their wallets for the right causes, regardless of their motives.
c hand, what do you propose we do to lift people out of the poverty into which they were born? is maintaining the riches of those who were born into wealth really the best way to move forward?
Before you reply with some false claim that the poor should "work hard, pull themselves up by their boot-straps..."
The reality is that the American Dream -- working hard and getting rich -- is really the American Myth: it is not a reality for the majority of Americans. How can someone making minimum wage -- $5.25 an hour, or $210 per 40-hour week -- lift themselves out of poverty when they are paying at least half of that in rent?
All Christians should realize the truth of what Jim Wallis says: Budgets are moral documents. The things in which we invest show our values as people. Advocating for tax breaks on the backs of the poor is advocating against the call of Christ, who called us to give up our wealth and lift up the least among us.
You may call it an entitlement. Yes, I believe that the poor are ENTITLED to as much of God's bounty as I am, if not more. Let us never forget: we own nothing . . . we are but stewards of His Kingdom.
c hand, the Deut. 15 provision in the LAW GOD GAVE to Moses, COMMANDED--doesn't seem to be optional in the mind of the Almighty here--the people to loan generously when asked and not to calculate the time until the year of release from debt.
In a constitutional democracy we have the right to set things up as we the people decide. I for one vote that we provide better lives for every American who works hard or who is disabled or too young or weak to do so.
Part of the problem is a matter of philosophy as to whom the resources belong in the first place. You would really like the LAW on Jubilee--see Lev. 25, especially verses 23-24. Every 50 years in Israel the land was to be returned to its original owners so that everyone would understand who really owned things--i.e. God.
Somehow such values need to be factored into our discussions about wealth, poverty and a reasonable theology of government.
Larry-
I think that discussion would be fine to have. But it looks like slight of hand to insert gov(who really owned things) for God
c hand, however you look at it, the system in place was designed to keep the playing field more even and to eliminate injustice and unfair advantage over time.
Larry has you on this one--the principle here is clear. . .
ok
Assuming you are right, how would jubilee work in America. Would it apply to all bank loans, personal and commercial? mortgages?
I remember being stingy as a boy(even now on the rare occation). I know now that it was imature wrong behavior. I don't think God wants us to waste time keeping track of all that we think is "owed us". When the neighbor "borrows" a cup of sugar, we don't wait for jubilee to cancel the debt. But are food stamp recipiants ever expected to repay a "debt"? It does look to me like America provides a basic level of gifting without an offsetting recievables accounting entry. Could this be what God generally had in mind?
c hand,
Isn't that God's spiritual model? Grace/eternal life/love/compassion freely given, with no marker of what's gone before, only where the person is or is trying to get to at this moment?
If God can give away the things that really matter with no accounts receivable, no "but"s, why should we be any stingier with mere material possessions that don't belong to us in a permanent sense anyway?
You say it's really the government that owns things. What about you? Do you own your money/house/food, or are you a steward of what God's blessed you with? If you think you're a steward, show me how God says in scripture or any other media to do anything with money and goods but help people and enact his will. If you think you're an owner, then yes, I can see how none of this would apply.
And yes, c hand, I would send you $50 if you asked. But you'd have to tell me your name so I could make the check out. :-)
Charles
c hand, your last comment gets at why there is continuing debate on this matter.
First, the passage puts forward a principle about how national life can be ordered to insure a measure of fairness for those at the bottom.
Your statement, "But are food stamp recipiants ever expected to repay a "debt"? It does look to me like America provides a basic level of gifting without an offsetting recievables accounting entry."
Those who receive Food Stamps or houosing benefits or educational grants are by definition--established by the requirements to receive these benefits--people at the bottom who work but who don't have the skills in this current economy to command a wage that will allow them to provide for their families. The return to the general public currently is a very, very cheap labor force made up of people who do things you don't want to do for very little pay. The "redemption" here is in a few benefits that would not be necessary if the pay scales or values assigned to certain jobs were different. Of course, children and the elderly or disabled fit into a different category.
It is also obvious that these benefits act as currency in the economy and are spent and circulate again and again. The actual return to America is likely much greater for every dollar spent/invested at the bottom than at the top, where it tends to be hoarded (contrary to the canons of so called supply-side economics).
These are the kinds of things a civil society asks its government to accomplish for the common good.
Make sense?
Stan U.
Charles-
Sorry I wasn’t clear. No, Gov only has what it takes(taxes). And yes, I understand that everything we can see is ultimately flammable.
God is immeasurably generous. Why is he? Does he want something in return? Of course we can’t pay God anything but does he want something from us that is also good for us? What about gratitude . Gratitude has been called the mother of all virtues, without it all other virtues begin to fail and vice flourishes. Do you indulge your children with no strings attached? I hope not, as we have enough spoiled children running around. ( Did you see on the news the Manhattan HS prom cancelled because of all the wild Liberal excesses the parents were allowing their children) An entitlement mentality short circuits gratitude. That’s one reason “faith based programs” do more good than gov programs.
ps I’ll save you from a bad bargain, my name’s not worth 50 bucks.
It is difficult to talk economics when we let envy blind us to certain realities. I don’t like Bill Gates either (the smug rich SOB) but I think we are all benefit greatly from some of his efforts. Big oil guys are probably all jerks, but I like them keeping gas in my car.
Lots of socialist countries have followed your economics, which is the greatest success?
Faith-based programs do a lot of good. NONE of them can do the work of government. Cutting programs that support people -- or cutting taxes that support those programs -- will immeasurably damage our world.
Churches and NGOs can never replace government in terms of capacity to address the issues Larry brings up.
Also, when you are talking about "liberal" economics, do not bundle it with liberal cultural items like the prom dresses. The two are unrelated. One can have a liberal approach to taxes and economics without supporting a liberal culture or lifestyle.
This is a distracting tactic, a cheap ploy to bolster the credibility of a conservative agenda (similar to your previous comments about gay marriage).
Jeremy -
No ploy here. My point is that the left has trouble with boundaries and limits (can’t be judgmental you know) So when they have a lot of money (Manhattan or say Hollywood) you will see a lot of excess.
c hand,
God wants our gratitude and our love, absolutely. He wants us to make the right choices, to do the right thing, to do His will. But does He withhold his blessings if we don't give the right reply? Or are they always offered, hoping we'll learn from His example?
Charles
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