I think what you meant to say was that we:
- Reject direct government involvement in, and paying for, healthcare expenses, as that almost invariably causes prices to rise in much the same way the actual existence of healthcare insurance has cause healthcare prices to skyrocket.
- We believe the government has no business providing money for school, especially because, as noted with the previous example, when the government got involved prices began to skyrocket. “Free” schooling won’t solve anything because it will just cost taxpayers trillions of dollars while producing a glut of graduates in fields where they can’t find work. What we DO support is subsidies for trade schools and other professional development in fields we actually need.
- Hoping for a single living minimum wage is misguided because it implies that a single wage level is sufficient for all people. A high school student does not need to be making the same amount of money as a single mother of two. There is also a disparity in the skills required for a job which should be considered.
Thank you for the clarification, I was speaking in broad general terms which, obviously, can be further fleshed out with the reasons for such opposition.
Health care: in no other advanced Western democracy does a person face financial ruin due to a medical crisis. ACA has made insurance affordable for many, and that is a good thing. Perhaps that is all we need. Perhaps it doesn’t go far enough, and single-payer would be better. People can legitimately disagree on the fine points.
Education: no one thinks Harvard should be free for all comers who qualify. Admittance to European universities is highly competitive, due in part to the low cost and the sheer number of qualified students who would like to attend them. I refer more to the state and community college systems. Educational costs are through the roof, and students without means to afford it have to take on massive student debt that normally cannot be discharged even by bankruptcy — only death. It’s essentially indentured servitude. There has to be a better way.
Minimum wage: I would advocate some kind of “junior wage”, let’s say, for people below a certain age, who work at fast food, retail, and so on. In a Catholic society animated by traditional teachings on social justice, another factor would be the number of minor children who are dependent upon the breadwinner.
Faithful Catholics can and do legitimately disagree on social policies, and the extent to which the government and other public institutions should intervene in the private sector and in the individual lives of people. There is a “principle of subsidiary” to be followed, in which problems are best addressed at the most basic possible level, however, people can also disagree as to which level best addresses these problems.
