A dilemma

[a_priori]

I am asked frequently by various Catholic charitable organizations to lobby government for the funding of various causes. Government is broke. For government to give money to somebody (in and of itself a noble thing), they must borrow it. A person borrowing money they could never repay in order to give it to charity would be a dubious thing.

Since taking care of the less fortunate is one of our primary mandates as Christians, how do we reconcile doing all we can do as a society to help others with a hopelessly debt-ridden government? Should Catholic charities keep asking us to pressure the government to borrow money to give it away?

 

[StCsDavid]

That’s a great question. It seems it’s matter of efficiency and pragmatism. The least efficient way to give money to a charity is to give it to the government first and then have the government give it to the charity. On the other hand, the government is going to give the money to someone. Why not lobby for it to give it to a worthy cause?

As to the government being broke…No government is really broke when has the unfettered ability to raise taxes and print money. Certainly there are consequences to both of those actions, but I don’t seen the US government filing Chapter 7 BK anytime soon. It’s policies might cause a large number of citizens to have to do that…but that’s another story.