On Forbes, Doug Bandow surveys how both the religious left and religious right are using explicit faith teachings and moral arguments in the federal budget and spending battles:
Does God really insist that no program ever be eliminated and no expenditure ever be reduced if one poor person somewhere benefits? Perhaps that is the long lost 11th Commandment. Detailed in the long lost book of Hezekiah.
The budget does have moral as well as practical implications. However, as Ryan Messmore of the Heritage Foundation observed, “The budget is indeed a moral document, but it is also a morally complex document.” The fact that one is poor does not entitle one to any specific form or level of government benefits.
David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World—which actually lobbies government for more government spending rather than provides food for the world’s poor—stated that “there’s a lot in the Bible that says you have to help poor people.” That’s right. That “we” have to help the poor. Not that we have to force others to help.
Yet, as Mark Tooley of the Institute on Religion and Democracy noted, these groups “aren’t calling for individuals to shed their wealth for God’s Kingdom. Of course, they primarily want an all powerful state to seize and redistribute wealth according to some imagined just formula, after which the lion will lie peaceably with the lamb. It’s a utopian dream, not based on the Gospels, always monstrous when attempted, and premised more on resentment than godly generosity.”
Concern for the poor permeates Scripture, but nowhere does God set forth the means to achieve this end.
Read “God: The Shakedown Artist For The Welfare State?” on Forbes. (HT: RealClearReligion).
Also see the special Acton resource page: Principles for Budget Reform.
