President Trump's pro-life proclamation

[Pattylt]

And there is the very real doubt that the private sector would or could cope.

I wish I could remember where I read this. The article claimed that there is no way private charities could begin to afford the needs met by the government. They have neither the funds nor the people to manage it. Several charities were interviewed and all of them claimed that even with greatly increased donations, they would go broke very quickly.

There is also the issue that private charities do not have to follow government law with respect to separation of church and state and can discriminate as they see fit. I commend Catholic charities that they do not do this but many charities do. They’ll have requirements to listen to sermons, already be members of their church or can not be LGBT.

Another problem is access. In cities, there are usually some charities to handle requests but in rural areas there aren’t. The government can reach almost everyone, food kitchens can not. The article sure made it sound like charities don’t want this much responsibility. They much prefer to fill in the gaps as that is manageable.

 

[Dan123]

Another problem is access. In cities, there are usually some charities to handle requests but in rural areas there aren’t. The government can reach almost everyone, food kitchens can not.

Also programs that give out money or something as good as money for food also stimulate the local economy by supporting those businesses. It’s basically a public/private hybrid already. If I give you your $100/mo for groceries you spend it locally, capitalism handles the distribution. If we switch to food boxes like Trump has suggested at one point you need a whole giant infrastructure to ship and distribute them, and you’re taking that money out of the local economy as well.

 

[Pattylt]

That’s a good point!

 

[HomeschoolDad]

That’s a good point!

That is an excellent point! I had never thought of it that way before. A lot of groceries in depressed areas are basically kept in business by government food assistance programs.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

If abortion were not an issue, there are a lot of people, who presently vote Republican because they equate it with a pro-life vote, but would have no reason to support the GOP otherwise. I cannot think the Republican Party is oblivious to this fact.

I stand apart from many other fellow would-be conservatives, in that I see the government as being the entity best able to help more people, more cheaply, more efficiently, and more fairly, in more ways, than any other entity. I have absolutely no problem with paying taxes, and even seeing taxes increased, if it will fund social and welfare programs that help people, especially those who can’t help themselves. The wealthiest countries in the world generally do a splendid, comprehensive job of taking care of all their people, but the United States does not. Only now, with affordable insurance being available to all, do poor families rest easier knowing that they will not be wiped out by catastrophic medical expenses. People in the other wealthy Western democracies don’t have to worry about this, and I don’t see the Church exhorting people in these countries to turn down their social benefits because they violate the principle of subsidiarity. I’d like to see us become more like them.

Perhaps in some idealized, Catholic-from-root-to-branch, distributist, solidarist, Chesterbelloc utopia, the Church and private charity would take care of all human needs, and the government, to the extent there would be one, would just do things like fix potholes (but would there even be public highways?) and issue garage sale permits (or would that be “stifling individual initiative”?). But until that time comes, I am in favor of fairly extensive government aid programs to “promote the general welfare”.

 

[IsaiahSpirit]

Peace of Jesus Beloved Savior, as we know, far surpasses only human fallible understanding of peace, such as seemingly lack of personal inner conflict or lessening The Kingdom of God in society causing much more Spiritual conflict.
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I will not comment on the stereotypes, emotionally charged assertions, nor claims of knowing other inner motives which I have seem in the comments here. But these types of things are the very similar ‘demagogical’ motivations or subjective assertions of others put forth here. When we point fingers at others, in a normal hand or gesture, we point three fingers back at ourselves. So these types of assertions cause ambiguity in forming an objective discussion.
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The worse type of propaganda deliberately paints someone in a bad light with subjective discussions with claims of their ‘heartlessness.’ This is called ‘gas lighting,’ in some circles. Most of the persons cited here have true desire for humanitarian causes; but disagree on how to pursue these goals.
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Bishop Fulton J. Sheen and many others warned of radical secularism along side a watering down of the holistic Glad Tidings, Good News, Gospel with a decrease in assertively compassionately keeping focus on objective moral virtue - all the while increasing a focus on humanitarianism. This is far removed from The Gospel of Life that Jesus The Christ, taught, preached, and gave signs to foster more of The Kingdom of God to facilitate fostering and encouraging a willing atmosphere to receive Grace or Grace more fully, for His Peace to be more in society. He gave his Gospel to all including elders of the people, parties, rich, poor whereby under Herod the leaders had religious, civil, law & justice, even punitive authority in governing The Holy Land. His Parables reflected the free enterprise system. Yes, His cleansing of the Temple of money changers at the Acceptable time of The Lord, after He was well known, is for ‘living stones’ of The Temple of God to be cleansed. However, in the political climate of the day, the money changers were very dishonest in exchange rates in selling shekels & copper coins without images for coins with images on them in every day commerce. Today, many money changers, (i.e. George Soros, with so many examples of rich elitists), sell a moral relativistic (even forced secular education put forth by law makers to teach children these things) culture of death - fostering and encouraging these things using humanitarian reasons or an air of acceptability for complacency.
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(cont…)

 

[IsaiahSpirit]

At the Foundation of These United States of America with the Constitution put in place in the Year of our Lord 1791, when Ten Bill of Rights were ratified, with The Preamble already in place - knowing the Creeds of The Declaration of Independence - many deists classified themselves as Christian or Judaeo Christian. Even Thomas Jefferson had his own personal Bible whereby he extracted the Miracles. But they knew where we obtained our freedoms, even though they used terms like ‘Creator,’ ‘Nature’s God,’ and ‘The Laws of Nature.’ The took it for granted that there was an objective Divine and Natural Law.
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Even in many colleges today, whereby it should be a place of freedom of religious and/or conscience expression with free speech and a free press (posting things on student bulletin boards) because of the gradual biased ‘thought police,’ these things are severely hindered in various ways. One way is for the administration or professors ahead of time, claiming that these ideas will cause emotional hardship, so counseling will be available. This is oppression. This type of thing permeates the educational, medial, and in political factions claiming certain things do not belong in the public forum or use emotionally charged rhetoric regarding those who proclaim Christian ideals or other ideals such as the self evident Creator given right to life, whereby the right to liberty does not give the strong the power to take away helpless innocent life, and the pursuit of happiness does not give the strong the right to do either.
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Saying that murdering of children by abortion used to be practically unthinkable as a society is not a slogan. This is objectively true. And it is self evident that the gradual acceptance of anti-Nature’s Laws morality as enticements for giving consent to be governed by those with radical agendas, and a mass murder of children, now sick & elderly by a culture of death happened. This is diametrically opposed to even the 1950s. GOD, CREATOR, Nature’s GOD, and The Laws of Nature didn’t change. So what did? Using humanitarian or claimed psychological healing efforts to justify being complacent to anti-CREATOR Laws and Practices.
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It isn’t taking care of the poor as the issue; it is what will someone accept against the Creeds of our Land, and more precisely against The Kingdom of GOD, which Jesus Beloved Savior said the world attempt to violently enter.
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Peace.

 

[IsaiahSpirit]

A truly deep heartfelt well wishes to everyone here.
We are our brothers and sisters keepers. Do children deserve those who will foster and encourage forced education of immorality by a heart-string justification mentality? Do The Little Sisters of the Poor deserve the oppression and persecution against their inalienable right of conscience? Does the baker and his family still being persecuted with legal attacks deserve this? Many others suffer, and some do not realize they are being oppressed this way.
The Creeds and Ideals, more precisely The Freedoms afforded, have been more and more oppressed. Consenting those who run for office in the executive, legislation, judicial or appointed by the other branches in local, state, and national offices is the whole reason we got into this mess. When are ‘We The People,’ going to exhort one another effectively to help end the educational system, main stream media system, political factions, bias to distort what is at stake? This is one venue that this bias can be overcome.
There is also the ‘underground’ media, using objective truth assertions and ideas, similar to ‘the underground railroad.’ Yes, some of them assert these things with lack of charity toward persons, (I mostly avoid those, since we shouldn’t fight fire with fire but assertiveness from The Fire of The Holy Spirit), but at least we here about The Creeds of our Land much more objectively.
Since the 1970s, much of the radical secular bias flipped on moral issues or reasonable approaches to places that need humanitarian efforts - (rarely reported in main stream media, at all.) This is contrary to the Founding Creeds and Principles of our Nation. We did not become a world power until long after slavery ended. And it took 100 years of diligent abolitionist efforts, to bring about equal opportunity and integration in religious, educational, and employment venues-> all done without legislating or adjudicating anti-Laws of Nature to entice for humanitarian secularism apart from them.
Peace of Jesus Beloved Redeemer be with you and yours.

 

[upant]

Well suppose their a waiter/waitress and the hours they get are unpredictable, over the limit one week and under the next?

they could pick up the extra needed hours with community service.

You may also do a combination of work, work program, and community service activities to meet the 20 hours per week requirement.

 

[Poet]

Well suppose their a waiter/waitress and the hours they get are unpredictable, over the limit one week and under the next? Or suppose the openings in the area are all for part time work because the companies don’t want to pay benefits, and the schedule changes week to week. This is the reality for a LOT of people I know who aren’t even on benefit programs.

I’m in this position. My hours are erratic. For several reasons, I work part time. I have a large house to support for a large family and it’s mainly on me to provide that support. I live in a metro area where housing is not cheap.

And I don’t need government programs.

Over my years of raising children, we have qualified for WIC and reduced or free lunch. However, we’ve never felt we need them. We’ve always felt the definition of ‘need’ was extremely generous and we’ve always known that we had enough cushion that our kids would be fed even without that help.

So what we have is government taking $100 from Joe to pay $25 rent for a building in which they pay $40 to Anne and her staff to process paperwork, and pay another $10 for printer, paper, ink, phone lines, etc, in order to give $25 to Jill to buy milk, cheese, and cereal. And Jill, in my experience, is as likely as not, not to actually need that money.

So Joe is paying $100 in taxes to give $25 to Jill who may actually be quite capable of feeding her children without his money.

I suspect charities and churches run much more efficiently, and of course, there’s always the option of people giving directly to those who need help.

But the fact is, the higher we’re taxed, the less we have to give to charity. My boss doesn’t give me a raise every time the school district or local or state or federal government increases my taxes. They can’t, because the increase in my wages gets passed to clients who by the laws of economics, are less likely to buy as the price goes up. And if they’ve also just had a tax increase that cuts into their disposable income, they’re even less likely to hire me if the cost of doing so goes up.

To the post I quoted, having part time or erratic hours or not having benefits does not ‘necessitate’ government assistance. Keep in mind, too, that plenty of part time employees without benefits are married to full-time earners whose benefits cover the whole family.

And for those who, like me, are actually largely responsible for supporting a family on an erratic, part time income, I highly recommend budgeting and living below your means, and putting aside savings for emergencies. It can be done because I do it and I actually don’t feel I’m living with any want at all. I not only feed my family, pay my mortgage, and set aside savings on my part time and erratic hours, I do it while giving to charity.

If and when I’m not satisfied with my lifestyle on these part time/erratic hours, I’ll get a better-paying job.

I stress again the point that part time or erratic hours usually do not necessitate government assistance.

 

[Poet]

I have absolutely no problem with paying taxes, and even seeing taxes increased , if it will fund social and welfare programs that help people, especially those who can’t help themselves.

While I applaud your charitable spirit, please remember that you can always give more voluntarily. But when you cast a vote to increase taxes, you are not only increasing taxes on yourself, but on me. See my above post.

I CAN help myself at this point, but the more the government increases taxes on me, the LESS I can help myself and the more I’ll be FORCED to rely on charity or government programs.

If you want to give more, you can do so. You don’t have to wait for or demand increased taxes on me in order to give more. And I stress again: the more we raise taxes, the more we may force others into financial stress that then requires others to help them. Why not lower taxes and let more people be able to take care of themselves?

 

[MamaJewel]

they could pick up the extra needed hours with community service.

Who watches the children for free while the community service is being done?
Another individual doing community service by watching the children of a person who is also doing community service? Childcare is a big challenge for many parents.

And I don’t need government programs.

Praise God that you don’t. I had a large family, and like you, my ex and I didn’t utilize social programs unless we thought it was necessary (like WIC when our child had chronic anemia).

Well, when ex left the family, I was more than grateful to have access to govt programs. Thanks to my fellow taxpayers, my children are healthier, more educated, etc. than if those govt programs hadn’t been available. The 1 bag of groceries a week wouldn’t have been enough to sustain us.

The child with chronic anemia had an undiagnosed chronic illness that would eventually require $18K to 24K a month to treat for just one of the meds. Thankfully, said child grew up, was afforded SSI, Medicare, and Voc Rehab. and by stacking advantages, received a college education with highest honors and is now a full-time employed, tax paying citizen who hopes to pay it forward for someone else.

Another of my young adult children was diagnosed with a life-threatening but manageable chronic illness that taxpayers currently provide $2500 a month toward. Said young adult who is a senior in high school would rather be dead than live with the condition (per the words from child’s mouth to his healthcare provider this past Friday).

Life is hard. God is good. I truly commend you and your spouse, Poet, on your hard work and raising a big family. It’s not easy at times. I’m still hoping to be a tax-paying citizen of the good ol’ USA in the near future, as well as an individual who can make a significant difference in charitable giving in my community. God knows that we need the government to have better oversight with the programs it delivers, so charities and churches can provide greater positive impacts through the works that they do.

 

[upant]

Who watches the children for free while the community service is being done?

Trump’s change would apply to able-bodied adults with no dependents,

 

[MamaJewel]

Trump’s change would apply to able-bodied adults with no dependents,

What about the parents with dependents who want to work and teach their kids the importance of earning one’s keep? Trump needs to fund child care programs beyond Head Start.

Sadly, the “able-bodied adults” I know that are out of work are either 1) a caregiver to a seriously chronically ill child or adult, 2) are injured and awaiting a SSD or SSI hearing, or 3) have undiagnosed or unregulated chronic mental health or drug addiction issues.

Can’t fault Mr. President for trying though. He has some great ideas about vocational education that Obama needed to put in place before the Boomers retired. When the economy was bad, the US needed to match Boomers with experience in construction, plumbing, electrical, etc with people ages 16+ so they could be mentored and trained in those fields. The new kids on the block in my area don’t have the knowledge and experience to design and create sustainable roads, bridges, etc. Our new roads get potholes and fail to drain properly. Same with drainage retention areas.

 

[MamaJewel]

The Republican Party is a “small government” political party, and many of us support that.

Peeps, you’re awesome, but I don’t see where republicans are any more “small government” than democrats are “big government”. Both parties like their pork b… i… g!

As far as feeding the hungry goes, I believe the school lunch program originated in the Department of Defense to make sure we have healthy youth available for future military service. I don’t know the origin of SNAP.

 

[MamaJewel]

Well suppose their a waiter/waitress and the hours they get are unpredictable, over the limit one week and under the next? Or suppose the openings in the area are all for part time work because the companies don’t want to pay benefits, and the schedule changes week to week. This is the reality for a LOT of people I know who aren’t even on benefit programs.

This is the situation in my area. I was speaking with a Dollar General cashier yesterday who told me her hours are totally irregular. She had full time work this week, but she was cut back to 1 day next week. When i asked her how they expected her to afford to live, she said she didn’t know what she was going to do, plus she has children to support. She was very stressed.

The store is a nice place to shop and I had complimented her on it. They are transitioning the winter items to spring items, so some of the shelves were bare. Hopefully they get a big semi full of new merchandise to stock the shelves with and she will be called into work.

The town (3500 people) doesn’t have places to employ people. There is no grocery store or bank. On the main 2 lane “highway”, there is a post office, Family Dollar, Dollar General, gas station, laundromat, feed store, privately-owned thrift store, and elementary school. A small diner will be opening soon and a privately-owned liquor store just opened. A church/ food pantry is about 5 miles down the road from the town. The nearest opportunity for employment is a solid 12 to 16 miles away. I don’t know the cashier will do. She wants to work full-time to support her family, but the work isn’t nearby.

 

[Peeps]

I’m not confident that action would produce that outcome. Is there evidence to suggest that will be the result?

If Christians and other decent people put pressure on the businesses instead of wasting their energy yammering about how mean Pres. Trump is.

Is there evidence that there is a plan to achieve that (rather than just the first part of that…)?

Again, if Christians and other decent people step up and do what we are supposed to be doing according to Jesus.

As for “evidence”–Rau, have you listened to Pres. Trump’s speeches or do you know anything about his life? Apparently his employees are pretty happy–have you ever heard any of them spilling any dirt on Donald Trump as an employer? Wouldn’t you think that there are plenty of Trump opponents who would pay a lot to find an employee who would tell a story about a greedy Donald Trump who pays his workers a pittance? But we haven’t heard anyone step up to accuse Donald Trump of being a “Scrooge” or “Mr. Burns.” Quite the opposite–most of his employees seem to love working for him…which means that he probably pays them a decent wage.

Also, he talks about good Americans who step up to help others–IMO, this is his reminder to all of us that we can’t just relax and allow “policy” to help those who are in any kind of need. We have to do it ourselves, but the more taxes we have to pay for those “programs,” the less money we have to chip in to local charities.

I hope you see that I and other conservatives are not greedy, selfish money-grubbers because we want to see government charities curtailed or ended. We just want to do it ourselves, in our own towns and cities and neighborhoods. We believe we will do a better job of it and not only help the needy alleviate their immediate suffering, but help them to be able to climb out of their situation into prosperity and health.

 

[Peeps]

I think on some level I could buy that. But the scale of government welfare schemes would I think be a challenge to match in a private manner. And there is the very real doubt that the private sector would or could cope & raise the required money.

I do think that part of that large scale is waste and fraud.

And I think that, to our shame, a LOT of Christians and Christian churches do little to nothing at this time because they are counting on the government to do it for them. IF the government stepped away from the kind of aid that was sorely needed during the Great Depression, but could be done privately now, I think that many Christians and Christian churches would wake up and start doing a lot more more hands-on work with the suffering people and allocating more of their budget towards works of charity rather than a new fellowship hall or a raise for the Praise and Worship Band.

 

[Dan123]

And for those who, like me, are actually largely responsible for supporting a family on an erratic, part time income, I highly recommend budgeting and living below your means, and putting aside savings for emergencies.

We’d need to get into personal finances and how much you make to really flesh that out which isn’t something appropriate to do here. But “I can do it so everyone else can” ignores the fact that not everyone’s situation is the same. Some people live with better/worse public transportation in their area. Someone might have gone to an underfunded school and lack some of the education you have. The economics of the area might mean higher unemployment or perhaps many of the jobs are in a field they don’t have skills in. They may live in a state that didn’t expand Medicaid and are paying full price for a health insurance plan despite being below the poverty line, though perhaps you think they shouldn’t need that either. They might be disabled or living with a disease that the government doesn’t recognize as a disability. But more important than any of the above is the things I’m not thinking of, the things I would never think of because I, like you, have a decent paying job and am able to meet all my financial obligations each month. I have blinders that I know are there and I know I can’t see past, and I know on the other side people struggle silently, sometimes ashamed for needing help.

I CAN help myself at this point, but the more the government increases taxes on me, the LESS I can help myself and the more I’ll be FORCED to rely on charity or government programs.

The good thing is we can increase social programs a lot with tiny cuts elsewhere such as military. We spent an extra $90billion on our military last year, we could have done $83 billion and increased SNAP 10% which would make a huge difference to people on the program and still been a huge increase in military spending. It doesn’t have to come out of your pocket. I would agree first I’d like to see programs funded with reductions elsewhere before tax increases.

they could pick up the extra needed hours with community service.

How much is it going to cost us to re-verify everyone’s eligibility every week? Are you going to fund that huge expansion of bureaucracy by spending more tax money or reducing benefits, hybrid, something else?

So what we have is government taking $100 from Joe to pay $25 rent for a building in which they pay $40 to Anne and her staff to process paperwork, and pay another $10 for printer, paper, ink, phone lines, etc, in order to give $25 to Jill to buy milk, cheese, and cereal.

https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/the-supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-snap

Less than 1% was spend on federal administration costs, and around 7% on state administration costs. 92% going to actual food aid. That’s as good as or better than most private charities.

 

[Dan123]

This is the situation in my area. I was speaking with a Dollar General cashier yesterday who told me her hours are totally irregular. She had full time work this week, but she was cut back to 1 day next week. When i asked her how they expected her to afford to live, she said she didn’t know what she was going to do, plus she has children to support. She was very stressed.

It’s more and more common among the lower paying jobs. Most fast food places do it at least in many of their locations (they’re usually independently owned so I’m sure it’s not corporate policy, just very popular). What bugs me is many businesses will pay low wages, give irregular schedules, and then complain they can’t find reliable people. If you aren’t a reliable employer why do you deserve reliable employees? Or as I’ve heard it said “minimum wage means minimum effort”. We have a ‘work hard to get ahead’ mentality towards being an employee but it should apply to the employer as well, be decent and take care of your employees and then you can expect the world out of them and often get it.

Either way I think the answer to your question is they don’t care if she can afford to live. To them and sadly to many the mere fact that she took the job means she must be happy with the conditions. I’m sure someone will say she can just move, as moving expenses and a downpayment on a new apartment I’m sure is something she has laying around.