If conservatives have a “darker” view of human nature, why do they think poor people should rely on charity instead of the government?

[Nate13]

It’s pretty naive to think that if people got 11% taken off their taxes (that’s about how much goes to welfare programs), they would give that money and more to charity. Also that that money would be enough to solve the problem of poverty any better than the government.

Again lining yourself up to the extreme and swinging. Very few people are asking for that. I want to see us moving in that direction and seeing that direction as something good. I know we will never reach that, but that should be our goal. Our goal should be to form a country of people who would be capable and willing to do that. Its comparable to how we as Catholics might view the pursuit of perfection. We all know we are not going to be sinless here on Earth. That doesn’t mean we stop pursuing it nor do we make excuses for our sins because of it.

To explain this phenomenon G. K. Chesterton uses the example of a man in love. A man in love will tell you that he feels he doesn’t deserve the woman whom he is in love with. In the next breath though he will irrationally tell you he is willing to go to the other side of the Universe and back in pursuit of the woman he loves. This idea of Romanticism is what powered the American dream to begin with and is what we are desperately lacking today.

Nobody is standing in the charities way. Nobody is hindering them from dealing with the poverty issue. If the charities were better equipped to deal with the problem then why aren’t they doing a better job than the government right now? Truth is, this is a society problem, not a soup kitchen problem. More soup kitchens isn’t the answer. Career welfare isn’t the answer either. That’s why there are limits to how long you can get it.

One thing I’ve seen posted on here is the idea that women are having babies just to enjoy the luxuries of welfare and that is a very uneducated hypothesis. In fact it’s downright insulting and could only come out of a conservatives brain.

Actually, the States with lower taxes give more to charity on average than States with higher taxes. There is a correlation between the amount of taxes taken, and the amount of charity given. I’d also point to disaster relief efforts recently where there was an overwhelming response of private aid that in some cases dwarfed the response of the government. Also, please note that what conservatives really have a problem with is the amount of federal control over social programs. These programs should be under the complete control of States and localities where it can be specifically fine tuned to meet the needs of the people within that State or locality.

 

[Bill_7154]

I knew, when I began reading this thread, that I was about to be ‘delighted’ by some reactionary right wing opinions. I have noted with distaste the cult of individualism apparent in some of the posts. Why the poor should have to depend on voulntary largesse is quite beyond me. I suppose it is rather more shocking because the attitude of some members is so reminiscent of medieval noblesse oblige. It seems to me that some correspondents differentiate between ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor. It was precisely this idea which gave us Parish Workhouses a la Oliver Twist. And I have no doubt that the most vocificerous correspondents regard themselves as the best judge of where their precious ‘tax dollars’ go

when you generalize like this, talking about ‘some posts’ and some posters it is confusing to me. It would be helpful to me if you quoted posts by posters you take issue with or have questions about so a clear discussion can be followed (read) and had by those involved.

Do I have ‘right wing’ opinions? I’m not a concervative but most would paint me as one.

And I think you muddy the issue when you talk about deserving and undeserving poor. I would prefer to discuss specific programs and their specific effects. On an example of particular poor people and how their lives are now and how they could be different if the type of services they received were different.

I know what it’s like to be poor and homeless (and clean and sober prior to becoming homeless- as well as a very tragic childhood), and know what it’s like to be a working poor person as that is what I am now and have been for the past couple of decades. Yet ‘liberals’, despite my criticisms of their support of current government programs and practices when it comes to trying to help the poor consistently choose to not engage me in disucssions about the government programs that are supposed to help the poor. Is that because you can’t point the finger at me and accuse me of being greedy or not invested in helping the poor? Is this because you can’t rely on the emotional arguments since I was (and to some extent still am) one of the people who would be identified by liberals as being in need of the government services liberals support. Yet I am against most of them, at least in their current form.

If you are for them and think they are good and helpful I would like to discuss these matters with you. Thank you.

 

[Bill_7154]

Here are some facts the conservatives on this blog don’t know, or conveniently ignore.

1. No one stays on welfare forever. For SNAP, Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program, (formerly Food Stamps) is only available for 5 years.

There are many forms of what could be considered ‘welfare’. If someone receives SSI or SSDI they can and usually do stay on it their entire lives. Their access to food stamps is NOT time limited. It is based solely on their income.

When government ‘pays’ someone in the form of cash, an apartment, food stamps, free healthcare, discounted public transportation… and then sets up as part of that system/program… the opportunity for them to work… but takes 1/2 of their gross income back at the SSA office and 1/3 of their gross income at the gov’t office that pays for their housing…

You have a person who is receiving something like $15.00/hr (based on a 40 hr work week) tax free when you add up the cash and other non cash entitlements they get.

Then ‘allow’ them to work, where they may get a job paying $10.00 part time, but it turns into a $2.50/hr part time job… you are not helping them. And you are not helping the people who pay for the whole system.

You are setting them up to stay a non working person for life. Who is going to go to work at McDonald’s and listen to a boss and all the hassles that go along with work for $2.50/hr when they get paid $15.00/hr tax free to sit at home and do whatever they want?

This creates a sub group of society who don’t have meaningful roles in society and keeps them there, fragmented, cut off from their community. They are ‘different’ and develop learned helplessness, which the government programs are instilling in them. Any skills they had wane away. As do the opportunities to learn and develop skills.

All working people practice hundreds of different life skills every day, social, organizational, hygiene, etc, etc, etc… Some are higher functioning in one or more area than others, but we all practice and get rewarded/reinforced for practicing and using all of these skills. This makes up the bulk of society.

The others learn and practice helplessness and neediness and dependency and get rewarded/reinforced for doing so. You think this makes them proud of themselves? You think this creates opportunity for them? You think this helps their self esteem? They are treated less than other people and ignored and living unfufilled lives. Liberals are the one’s who support the programs and practices that put these people in these positions and worse, keep them there.

There is a better way (in fact I’m sure there are lots of better ways). I believe such practices are very sad and people who support them are misguided. Maybe if people who support the current policies and practices of entitlement programs were able and willing to open their hearts and minds and have discussions about where such programs fall short, and begin to advocate for changes in such programs, we as a society would be in a better position to actually HELP the needy and marginalized, etc rather than throw money at them and keep them in a box separate from the rest of us.

Conservatives want to help people and want to see people get help. But handouts don’t help people, especially if all they know is receiving handouts. They might help someone who has a solid and consistent work history and falls on bad times, like going on unemployment for a period of time while they work to get back on track. But the permanent non working underclass is not helped by entitlement programs… unless you consider ‘help’ treating them like 3rd class citizens and having the whole of society ignore them.

When you open your home to such people and start having social meetings with them every week at your home I will take you seriously as someone who really cares about them. But if your going to advocate that others pay for such marginalization of desparate and needy people I question your character.

 

[Bill_7154]

1. Our Cathecism explicity states that we should all be concerned about the welfare of the poor, but when churches, and charitable donations are not enough it is the responsaiblility of the government to control the excessive growth of the market.

When the government gloms trillions of dollars from people and wastes it, that money is not available to be used responsibly by anyone, churches, whoever.

Can’t you understand that government cares about government, not about the poor?

 

[Bill_7154]

Nobody is standing in the charities way.

Wrong.

Government is standing in charities way. And so are the people who advocate for the status quo.

Think about it like this:

You live in a town that has a mafia. They force everyone to kick in 25% of their income to them and then do some stuff with it (they keep some to pay their own- like government does- they do some stuff to help the neighborhood, whatever, oh they kill people like government does too).

Now everyone in that town has 25% less money to do things with, including donating it to charity. Since billions who already are forced to pay taxes donate both time and money it’s fair to assume they would donate more if they had more.

Government is like a mafia. Except worse. If one mafia family controlling an area starts to exploit the people in that area too much another mafia will take over and will have the support of some of the people in the area to have that happen.

With government there is not such an option for some other entity to step on and take over. Governments are territorial monopolies. What they say goes. They do a terrible job, they stick you with the bill. Then they make another program to fix the terrible job they did in the first place and stick you with THAT bill as well.

You expect me to believe that because I am allowed to stick a piece of paper with a name on it in a suggestion box every couple of years (voting) this has anything to do with government or how it is run? The rich control the government and use it to tax the middle class to do things so they can get richer with the middle class footing the bill. And they give just enough to poor people so they don’t all gather up and charge the white house with pitch forks.

Government is out of control and has been for decades. Ever since we went off the gold standard inflation started going out of control. Prices rise at greater and greater rates. What is really happening is that the value of the dollar has been declining. This is why a house used to cost 20K and now costs 400K, because government decided to rob everyone and sticks them with a huge hidden tax, the biggest tax of all, inflation.

Inflation hurts the poor and middle classes. The rich don’t really get impacted by inflation.

It confuses me why more people do not understand that government is the problem. It exists to grow and grow and grow and grow and grow. And it forces us all to pay for its growth.

I have been told that the difference between liberals and concervatives is that liberals want the government to grow by 2% a year and conservatives want the government to grow by 1 1/2% a year. I know there are a lot of conservatives that want government to shrink, but do you really believe that people who join the government ranks can and will make this happen? It has not happened yet. I say the proof is in the pudding.

 

[Carlan]

Catholic social teaching three aspects of solidarity:

1. solidarity as de facto human interdependence;
2. solidarity as an ethical imperative;
3. solidarity as a principle concretized in legislative policies and institutions.

Official Catholic social teaching has long accorded a positive role for the government in protecting the economic rights and well-being of people.
By its very nature, solidarity requires advocating social change on the structural level.
This is the case because eliminating the causes of the suffering of the wounded and oppressed requires embodying solidarity in social policies and institutions. In other words, solidarity includes but goes beyond charity to promote justice and human rights, particularly by empowering the marginalized. Charity is important, but never sufficient to meet the needs of the poor,
as Pope Benedict reminds us in Caritas in Veritate.
Christians must thus foster the common good through “the institutional path—we might also call it the political path—of charity,
no less excellent and effective than the kind of charity which encounters the neighbor directly.”
As John Paul II argued, the entire social, economic and political order should be shaped by the principle of solidarity. Peace, Carlan

Gerald J. Beyer is associate professor of theology at Saint Joseph’s University. He is the author of Recovering Solidarity: Lessons from Poland’s Unfinished Revolution (University of Notre Dame Press, 2010) and numerous articles on solidaritym

---

 

[Nate13]

Catholic social teaching three aspects of solidarity:

1. solidarity as de facto human interdependence;
2. solidarity as an ethical imperative;
3. solidarity as a principle concretized in legislative policies and institutions.

Official Catholic social teaching has long accorded a positive role for the government in protecting the economic rights and well-being of people.
By its very nature, solidarity requires advocating social change on the structural level.
This is the case because eliminating the causes of the suffering of the wounded and oppressed requires embodying solidarity in social policies and institutions. In other words, solidarity includes but goes beyond charity to promote justice and human rights, particularly by empowering the marginalized. Charity is important, but never sufficient to meet the needs of the poor,
as Pope Benedict reminds us in Caritas in Veritate.
Christians must thus foster the common good through “the institutional path—we might also call it the political path—of charity,
no less excellent and effective than the kind of charity which encounters the neighbor directly.”
As John Paul II argued, the entire social, economic and political order should be shaped by the principle of solidarity. Peace, Carlan

Gerald J. Beyer is associate professor of theology at Saint Joseph’s University. He is the author of Recovering Solidarity: Lessons from Poland’s Unfinished Revolution (University of Notre Dame Press, 2010) and numerous articles on solidaritym

---

That does not explain why liberals have to do everything at the federal level. Government starts at the family level and works up from there. I think its also important to mention that as the role of the federal government has increased, it has decreased the solidarity of the family and at the local level, which I’m sure JPII would have considered the most important to protect don’t you think? If the family falls everything else falls.

 

[Bill_7154]

Official Catholic social teaching has long accorded a positive role for the government in protecting the economic rights and well-being of people.

I don’t think they are living up to the Catholic social teachings. And I don’t think they care to or are trying to. The proof is in the pudding.

Do you trust politicians? I do NOT.

 

[Bill_7154]

That does not explain why liberals have to do everything at the federal level. Government starts at the family level and works up from there. I think its also important to mention that as the role of the federal government has increased, it has decreased the solidarity of the family and at the local level, which I’m sure JPII would have considered the most important to protect don’t you think? If the family falls everything else falls.

This started en masse in the 60’s and 70’s. Some non-mainstream media sources connect Gloria Steinem (sp?) and Ms. magazine with an agenda of getting females to work for 2 reasons:

This way they could tax the entire population, rather than just half of it.

It would leave families without a stay at home parent, putting government via schools as taking on a primary role of raising (indoctrinating?) children in this country. Children today certainly have less suspicion of government than when the country was first founded. And they certainly have a much greater say in the way poeple live their lives. And people have continually turned over their rights and freedoms to government on a regular basis since then as well.

Does anyone think things are going to turn around where people have a healthy distrust of government and start pushing for individual rights (and responsibilities), pushing government back out of their lives, limiting their role to that of a minor one? I don’t. I think there are more than enough laws, more than enough rules and regulations. More than enough taxes and fees. More than enough government programs and employees (where most have much easier jobs than those in the private sector- to the degree where it’s a running joke). Who is the joke on?

Of course, the PR isn’t going to put that out as the agenda. I’m all for equal rights, but if the above is true, it is not IMO in the best interests of families or the country (made up of individuals, families, and communities).

 

[Carlan]

I don’t think they are living up to the Catholic social teachings. And I don’t think they care to or are trying to. The proof is in the pudding.

Do you trust politicians? I do NOT.

I hear what you are saying, but our families are already falling apart with no one to care and love them, Please let me send you more of the piece on this. Following if you bear with me.

The American Jobs Act,decried by Paul Ryan as excessive government, **attempts to do just this.
Subsidiarity in Action **
In the area of social welfare, the popes envisioned government supporting local groups and agencies and directly assisting the needy as necessary.
This is exactly what the U.S. government does today.
In fact, the government enables Catholic organizations (and many others) to engage in various works of mercy.
Over the last two years, the government increased funding levels for this purpose, even allocating federal stimulus money to faith-based charities.
In 2010 Catholic Charities alone received about $2.9 billion from the federal government, which is 62 percent of its entire budget. Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota, like most of its counterparts around the country, relied on the government for about 80 percent of its revenue.
This is the principal of subsidiarity in action. The government supports those who can best provide not only material assistance, but also respond to “deeper human need,” as John Paul put it.

Ryan believes that the government’s role in combatting poverty should be radically reduced, leaving the taxpayer to do as she or he pleases with her income and assets.
He disregards Catholicism’s insistence on the universal destination of all goods and the duty to contribute to the common good by paying taxes in proportion to one’s ability.
In Ryan’s words, “basic economics and basic morality both tell us that people have a right to keep and decide how to spend their hard-earned dollars.”
The fate of the poor, in this view, should be largely left to private organizations.

Can churches, synagogues, mosques and other NGO’s sufficiently rise to the task, using only charitable donations?
Not according to economist Robert Reich. Only about 10 percent of all charitable contributions aid the poor, Reich says.

The rest (about $40 billion in tax breaks for charitable giving) goes to maintaining religious organizations (properties, salaries, etc.),

the arts and universities (which, as I have written elsewhere, increasingly exclude the poor).
Thank you Bill for pondering this. And God bless you and yours with his peace, Carlan

 

[Bill_7154]

I’m not sure what your trying to say by that post.

I am of the opinion that handouts are worse than hand ‘ups’. Give a man a fish vs. feed a man a fish.

Would the Catholic Church wish to see me, as a working poor person, who had to change his health insurance policy and I as the father do not receive any medical care despite having several medical diagnosis as I must buy health insurance as I have a family.? … and since I work for a company that provides health insurance and has over 50 employees I must buy it whereas someone of the same family size who works for themself and earns twice what I earn (or works for a company with less than 50 employees but makes twice as much as I do) can buy into a different heathcare system that costs them significantly less?

Would the Catholic Church see me taxed and have my family in debt where I must borrow from family and friends and have credit card dept accumulated in paying for basic bills… have money stolen from me via taxes to give to able bodied adults so they can live for free? Me, as somoene who has PTSD from childhood, left my family to become homeless in order to receive assistance in learning how to live. And instead of getting on the public dole busted my but to learn as an adult the stuff that most citizens learn as a natural part of growing up. Not only that but I had to overcome the damage that was done to me on top of not learning basic life skills.

Is this what the policy of the Catholic Church says?

Does the Catholic Church want me to work 80 hours a week (which I doubt I would be able to do- my job actually recommended to me a year or so ago that I apply for disability and they would support such- I choose not to because I don’t want to live off of someone else’s sweat- even though I 'paid into the system for the past 25 years and can claim ‘entitlement’ to it) to have my money stolen from me to be given to able bodied citizens to live for free on a 52 week paid vacation for life?

I’m a little confused. Speaking on a grand scale and quoting others confused me. I’m a little stupid in some ways. Please help clarify for me. Thank you.

 

[Nate13]

I hear what you are saying, but our families are already falling apart with no one to care and love them, Please let me send you more of the piece on this. Following if you bear with me.

The American Jobs Act,decried by Paul Ryan as excessive government, **attempts to do just this.
Subsidiarity in Action **
In the area of social welfare, the popes envisioned government supporting local groups and agencies and directly assisting the needy as necessary.
This is exactly what the U.S. government does today.
In fact, the government enables Catholic organizations (and many others) to engage in various works of mercy.
Over the last two years, the government increased funding levels for this purpose, even allocating federal stimulus money to faith-based charities.
In 2010 Catholic Charities alone received about $2.9 billion from the federal government, which is 62 percent of its entire budget. Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota, like most of its counterparts around the country, relied on the government for about 80 percent of its revenue.
This is the principal of subsidiarity in action. The government supports those who can best provide not only material assistance, but also respond to “deeper human need,” as John Paul put it.

Ryan believes that the government’s role in combatting poverty should be radically reduced, leaving the taxpayer to do as she or he pleases with her income and assets.
He disregards Catholicism’s insistence on the universal destination of all goods and the duty to contribute to the common good by paying taxes in proportion to one’s ability.
In Ryan’s words, “basic economics and basic morality both tell us that people have a right to keep and decide how to spend their hard-earned dollars.”
The fate of the poor, in this view, should be largely left to private organizations.

Can churches, synagogues, mosques and other NGO’s sufficiently rise to the task, using only charitable donations?
Not according to economist Robert Reich. Only about 10 percent of all charitable contributions aid the poor, Reich says.

The rest (about $40 billion in tax breaks for charitable giving) goes to maintaining religious organizations (properties, salaries, etc.),

the arts and universities (which, as I have written elsewhere, increasingly exclude the poor).
Thank you Bill for pondering this. And God bless you and yours with his peace, Carlan

No the problem is your view of helping the poor is too short sighted. I do not question your motives but rather your foresight. For one, no amount of helping the poor will do any good if our country goes bankrupt and we all end up poor. Policies that further hurt the economy and put more people out of the job will just add to the amount of people social programs have to provide for. You also strive to solve problems with money that can only be solved with more God in our society. You point to Obama providing more funds to charity groups as proof of his benevolence. You fail to see the times he has used the power this gives him to intimidate and threaten those groups as well as States to follow his holy un-Christian social views.

 

[Bill_7154]

Carlan,
In short, are you telling me that the Catholic Church wants to see me as a ‘needy’ person, a working poor person, a person whose full time job is devoted to helping the most ‘needy’ in society CRUSHED under a system of government with it’s regulations and taxes while I strive my hardest to provide for my family despite an upbringing that pretty much destined me to be in jail or dead? Does the Catholic Church seek to have someone like me, on the very cusp of the line between those who receive money and goods and services from taxpayers?

I hold no anger or resentment towards anyone who receives money or goods or services from the government. But I find it hard to believe that God and the Catholic Church want my family to be set up to fail as I struggle to provide for them via the current system that exists in the USA.

Please clarify the Catholic Church’s position as it relates to me and my family.

Thank you.

 

[JimG]

The government often gives federal funds to Catholic charitable organizations with unacceptable strings attached. They’ll fund Catholic Charities, but they have to adopt kids to homosexual couples. That forces the Catholic charities to close, because they can’t do immoral things to get federal money.

Now the HHS proposes to penalize Catholic institutions and Catholic insurance companies, and Catholic businesses who refuse to reject their Catholic principles. I would not call that subsidiarity in action. I would call that federal coercion in action.

 

[Jimmygill88]

when you generalize like this, talking about ‘some posts’ and some posters it is confusing to me. It would be helpful to me if you quoted posts by posters you take issue with or have questions about so a clear discussion can be followed (read) and had by those involved.

Do I have ‘right wing’ opinions? I’m not a concervative but most would paint me as one.

And I think you muddy the issue when you talk about deserving and undeserving poor. I would prefer to discuss specific programs and their specific effects. On an example of particular poor people and how their lives are now and how they could be different if the type of services they received were different.

I know what it’s like to be poor and homeless (and clean and sober prior to becoming homeless- as well as a very tragic childhood), and know what it’s like to be a working poor person as that is what I am now and have been for the past couple of decades. Yet ‘liberals’, despite my criticisms of their support of current government programs and practices when it comes to trying to help the poor consistently choose to not engage me in disucssions about the government programs that are supposed to help the poor. Is that because you can’t point the finger at me and accuse me of being greedy or not invested in helping the poor? Is this because you can’t rely on the emotional arguments since I was (and to some extent still am) one of the people who would be identified by liberals as being in need of the government services liberals support. Yet I am against most of them, at least in their current form.

If you are for them and think they are good and helpful I would like to discuss these matters with you. Thank you.

When a right-wing agenda is promulgated the issue of deserving and undeserving poor is always an issue. It is a conservative issue not mine. I believe in a Welfare State and the help that people need being available to them. I cannot discuss US welfare strategies in particular as I don’t live in America (although it is always assumed that all posters are American for some reason)

 

[Bill_7154]

When a right-wing agenda is promulgated the issue of deserving and undeserving poor is always an issue. It is a conservative issue not mine. I believe in a Welfare State and the help that people need being available to them. I cannot discuss US welfare strategies in particular as I don’t live in America (although it is always assumed that all posters are American for some reason)

Actually it’s assumed most live in the USA, and most who live in outside the USA assume that the USA is America, when it fact it is one country in North America.

I’d be interested in reading a thougtful response to my other post where I share how I am right on the edge, just about as close as you can get to being working poor, being taxed, me and my family suffering, while other individuals and families do not work and are living on my taxes.

Is this what you support? It’s convenient to generalize. I challenge you to look at the specifics of the working poor, especailly someone like me who had every excuse/reason to become a ‘welfare’ recipient and have lived my life that way. I choose to work very hard to overcome my past (still in the process of that), work to help others as my job, and can not make ends meat. I exist under policies where people with twice the income of mine can buy insurance and pay much less than I do because they are self employed or work for a very small company.

I am forced to by insurance thorugh my company but can not afford co-payments for myself to see a doctor. I should be seeing at least 2. I must forgo that so my son and wife can see doctors, so I can pay rent, etc.

The US programs and policies of welfare don’t just irritate middle class people, they hurt working poor poeple whose lives in great part are devoted to helping those less fortunate than themselves. There are real and serious negative ramifications of these policies that put my family in desperate circumstances, food is taken out of my babies mouth so millions of able bodied citizens can get free checks and free apartments, etc. This is what the Catholic Church wants? This is what you advocate? If you support the status quo you must.

 

[Jimmygill88]

Actually it’s assumed most live in the USA, and most who live in outside the USA assume that the USA is America, when it fact it is one country in North America.

I’d be interested in reading a thougtful response to my other post where I share how I am right on the edge, just about as close as you can get to being working poor, being taxed, me and my family suffering, while other individuals and families do not work and are living on my taxes.

Is this what you support? It’s convenient to generalize. I challenge you to look at the specifics of the working poor, especailly someone like me who had every excuse/reason to become a ‘welfare’ recipient and have lived my life that way. I choose to work very hard to overcome my past (still in the process of that), work to help others as my job, and can not make ends meat. I exist under policies where people with twice the income of mine can buy insurance and pay much less than I do because they are self employed or work for a very small company.

I am forced to by insurance thorugh my company but can not afford co-payments for myself to see a doctor. I should be seeing at least 2. I must forgo that so my son and wife can see doctors, so I can pay rent, etc.

The US programs and policies of welfare don’t just irritate middle class people, they hurt working poor poeple whose lives in great part are devoted to helping those less fortunate than themselves. There are real and serious negative ramifications of these policies that put my family in desperate circumstances, food is taken out of my babies mouth so millions of able bodied citizens can get free checks and free apartments, etc. This is what the Catholic Church wants? This is what you advocate? If you support the status quo you must.

I do not support a system that enables a multi millionaire to pay proportionally less tax than the people who clean his house, simply because his accountants know how to dodge the law. Nor do I support a system that drives down wages for the poorest workers in order to maximise profits for shareholders. A conservative would see government intervention to ensure the less well off have food shelter and healthcare as big government and God forbid SOCIALISM. Jesus said the poor you have always. However he did not say let them starve to death. I do think there is an inbuilt unfairness in the capitalist system. As the system is run by banks and big business then maybe they should take the responsibly for the maintainance of the poor? To pay low wages while making big profits is (according to the catechism I know) depriving ‘Labourer of their JUST reward’ and one of the sins ‘crying out to heaven for vengeance’

 

[rturner76]

The US programs and policies of welfare don’t just irritate middle class people, they hurt working poor poeple whose lives in great part are devoted to helping those less fortunate than themselves. There are real and serious negative ramifications of these policies that put my family in desperate circumstances, food is taken out of my babies mouth so millions of able bodied citizens can get free checks and free apartments, etc. This is what the Catholic Church wants? This is what you advocate? If you support the status quo you must.

Would you trade places with a single mother on welfare living in cockroach infested slum?

Probably not because you will have even less than you do now. You blame the welfare system for being unable to give your family the life you want. You need more training or education and you can get a better job. Welfare is not the cause of your problems your job is. As working poor, you can receive a free education from the Federal government through the Department of Ed. I’m getting one now. If you meet income and family size guidelines you can get a Pell grant that will pay for tuition at just about any community college or tech school. www.fafsa.ed.gov with a certificate in your chosen field, you can get a higher paying job. Government funding is here for you too. You pay your taxes, use the system as much as you can. Just try to do all you can instead of playing the blame game

 

[Swiss_Guy]

When a right-wing agenda is promulgated the issue of deserving and undeserving poor is always an issue. It is a conservative issue not mine. I believe in a Welfare State and the help that people need being available to them. I cannot discuss US welfare strategies in particular as I don’t live in America (although it is always assumed that all posters are American for some reason)

In recent years the range of such intervention has vastly expanded, to the point of creating a new type of State, the so-called “Welfare State”. This has happened in some countries in order to respond better to many needs and demands, by remedying forms of poverty and deprivation unworthy of the human person. However, excesses and abuses, especially in recent years, have provoked very harsh criticisms of the Welfare State, dubbed the “Social Assistance State”. Malfunctions and defects in the Social Assistance State are the result of an inadequate understanding of the tasks proper to the State. Here again the principle of subsidiarity must be respected: a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to coordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good.100

By intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility, the Social Assistance State leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients, and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending. In fact, it would appear that needs are best understood and satisfied by people who are closest to them and who act as neighbours to those in need. It should be added that certain kinds of demands often call for a response which is not simply material but which is capable of perceiving the deeper human need. One thinks of the condition of refugees, immigrants, the elderly, the sick, and all those in circumstances which call for assistance, such as drug abusers: all these people can be helped effectively only by those who offer them genuine fraternal support, in addition to the necessary care.

• Centesimus Annus

While the Church supports public welfare systems, it criticizes a welfare state for blocking out individual/nonprofit/Church/union help, not to mention it is unsustainable.

 

[Jimmygill88]

• Centesimus Annus

While the Church supports public welfare systems, it criticizes a welfare state for blocking out individual/nonprofit/Church/union help, not to mention it is unsustainable.

The British National Health Service which is free to all at the point of delivery was founded in 1948 and is something that we are all very proud of. The State Retirement Pension which was originally put into payment is payable to all retired workers and was originally instituted in 1908 and we are also very happy with that principle too. I see no reason to dismantle any of these systems in order to placate the right wing