…C.S. Lewis talks in an essay about how there is nothing more infuriating than sitting down after we have finished our work, to read or do something else with our leisure time, only to have it swept away by some unexpected demand. But this anger comes from a fundemental error - from thinking that time can be in any way “ours”. Rather, it belongs to God, and we are given use of it, but not always in the way we would like.
I think the same can be said for money. Wealth comes from two sources - resources and the work of our bodies and minds. Neither truly belong to us, we didn’t make them - we hold them in trust for their Creator. So to want to see them used well is fine - but when we begin to feel personally incensed and as if we are somehow having our “rights” trampled on when demands are made that we don’t expect or like - to me that suggests that perhaps we are making a similar error.
Time and money cannot be exactly equated, because we do “make” money–we work for it. The right of a person to have control over his own property is indeed a human right deriving from man’s nature.
OTOH, the right of a person to hold onto his property (and time) is mitigated by the obligation to help those in need. However, this obligation is not to be regulated by the state. In the US, what is being proposed violates the principle of subsidiarity–the control of property is being taken away by too-high an authority, and one which is not the appropriate authority to begin with.
- Therefore, those whom fortune favors are warned that riches do not bring freedom from sorrow and are of no avail for eternal happiness, but rather are obstacles;(9) that the rich should tremble at the threatenings of Jesus Christ - threatenings so unwonted in the mouth of our Lord(10)—and that a most strict account must be given to the Supreme Judge for all we possess.
The chief and most excellent rule for the right use of money … rests on the principle that **it is one thing to have a right to the possession of money and another to have a right to use money as one wills. **Private ownership, as we have seen, is the natural right of man, and to exercise that right, especially as members of society, is not only lawful, but absolutely necessary. “It is lawful,” says St. Thomas Aquinas, “for a man to hold private property; and it is also necessary for the carrying on of human existence.”"
But if the question be asked: How must one’s possessions be used?—the Church replies without hesitation in the words of the same holy Doctor: “**Man should not consider his material possessions as his own, but as common to all, so as to share them without hesitation when others are in need. **Whence the Apostle with, ‘Command the rich of this world… to offer with no stint, to apportion largely.’”(12)
True, **no one is commanded to distribute to others that which is required for his own needs and those of his household; nor even to give away what is reasonably required to keep up becomingly his condition in life, **“for no one ought to live other than becomingly.”(13)
But, when what necessity demands has been supplied, and one’s standing fairly taken thought for, it becomes a duty to give to the indigent out of what remains over. “Of that which remaineth, give alms.”(14)
It is a duty, not of justice (save in extreme cases),
but of Christian charity—a duty not enforced by human law. But the laws and judgments of men must yield place to the laws and judgments of Christ the true God, who in many ways urges on His followers the practice of almsgiving - ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive";(15) and who will count a kindness done or refused to the poor as done or refused to Himself—“As long as you did it to one of My least brethren you did it to Me.”(16)
To sum up, then, what has been said: Whoever has received from the divine bounty a large share of temporal blessings, whether they be external and material, or gifts of the mind, **has received them for the purpose of using them for the perfecting of his own nature, and, at the same time, that he may employ them, as the steward of God’s providence, for the benefit of others. “**He that hath a talent,” said St. Gregory the Great, “let him see that he hide it not; he that hath abundance, let him quicken himself to mercy and generosity; he that hath art and skill, let him do his best to share the use and the utility hereof with his neighbor.”(17) (This is from
Rerum Novarum; I put in the paragraphs to make it easier to read online.)
Now, what we see is that a person has the right to use one’s property to keep one’s life appropriately. That which he earns over and above that is given to him as a steward, to distribute to others. However, the control is his, as he himself earned it (or if he inherited, it was given to him by someone who earned it).
Note that it says that the excess should be used in accord with God’s will, which is to say, if God gives someone excess, God wants that person to use it to help the needy.
What does the state propose? The state proposes *mandating *what someone will do with the money he has earned—in effect creating a tax—which removes the decision-making from the person to whom that decision belongs. Starting a business will be seriously hampered by this bill, as will various other things in life. IOW, this is going beyond the boundaries of what the state should do and micromanaging a family’s internal budget.
Furthermore, the obligation to help the needy is not a form of justice, which is the concern of the state, but with charity, which is *not *the concern of the state.
PS: Congratulations
