Church Views on Governmental Fiscal Responsibility?

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Maximilian75

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With all of this talk of a multi trillion dollar infrastructure bill in the US, I got to wondering: Does the Church say that governments have to do anything in regards to limiting debt? I say this as a young person, realizing that the tax burden on my generation may be massive, and Social Security and Medicaid may have no funding due to governmental overspending.
 
Given that a government is made up people (at least until smart robots take over) I would imagine the Church would believe that a moral person in government should have priorities in order. What are you running a deficit for? Because you think the multiplier can get the country out of recession? Is it because you’re giving the people panem et circenses? If you know there’s people who depend on Medicaid to get healthcare then you should try to always assure it’s well funded, maybe spend less on something else that’s not a priority?

I’m not from the US, we in Europe generally take public healthcare for granted, but then again the Church isn’t American either.
 
Taxes and retirement age have already been going up.
 
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I mean one can see what the governmental budget is going to, but then we get into ‘who primarily should provide assistance to the poor- the government or private individuals?’ and ‘The US has such a big military because if we weren’t the world’s policeman, chaos would explode. So should America become isolationist and watch the world burn while she solves her domestic problems, or do we save the world, while also saddling our children with immense debt and watching the poorest of the poor starve at home?’

It’s not a simple topic…
 
So what does the Church think of that? higher taxes are somewhat nessecary to reduce deficit, but then you mess over the citizens, especially the poor.
 
Of course it’s not. And whatever you do, you’re gonna get criticized. When you didn’t get into WWII from the beginning people criticized you. Toppling Gaddafi and Sadam makes people hate the US, but if you hadn’t you’d be “hypocrites for not standing by democracy”
 
As for the future, I’m not sure if the Vatican has made an official pronouncement. Normally the popes start referring to whatever issue during homilies. If the issue is pressing and affects many an encyclical may be issued addressing it, and that normally does have effects…

But there are many issues the popes have referred during homilies that after decades of wait have not yet been extensively addressed. This also raises the interesting issue of interaction between the Vatican and its faithful and how that reflects on world affairs and international and domestic politics. A vast subject…In short, I don’t know and haven’t looked into it…
 
American buisness profited, but did the government? I would say not…

And I was wondering if maybe Leo Xii had mentioned something similar in Rerum Novarum, but I guess not…
 
Just a note:

Sovereign “debt” is a very different thing than personal debt, since the “debtor” controls the currency the debt is denominated in.
 
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