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Transcript

Social Services Part 1 · Check with Chip

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Check with Chip, brought to you by Operation
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Blue Dot Red, turning the blue dot red one podcast
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: at a time. I heard a couple recent clips of
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  Speaker 1: James Tallarico, a Democrat running for a U.S. Senate seat
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  Speaker 1: in Texas, talking about Christianity and social services provided by
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  Speaker 1: the federal government. Here they are together.
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  Speaker 2: You just say, if he walked onto the floor of
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  Speaker 2: the U.S. Senate, I think he would say, I was
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  Speaker 2: hungry and you kicked me off food stamps. I was
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  Speaker 2: sick and you kicked me off Medicaid. I was a
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  Speaker 2: stranger and you deported me and my family.
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  Speaker 3: You can't call yourself a Christian and deny health care
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  Speaker 3: to the sick. You can't call yourself a Christian and
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  Speaker 3: vote to cut food stamps for the poor. You can't
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  Speaker 3: call yourself a Christian and reject the stranger seeking asylum
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  Speaker 3: at our southern border.
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  Speaker 1: This is a key principle of leftist thinking. The leftist says,
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  Speaker 1: The only thing religion and churches were good for was
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  Speaker 1: feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and in other ways
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  Speaker 1: providing social services. But we have the federal government and
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  Speaker 1: state governments to do that now. So I don't support
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  Speaker 1: institutional religion and I don't give anything to charitable causes
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  Speaker 1: because government is handling it. That's why I don't mind
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  Speaker 1: paying higher taxes to pay for social services. That's my
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  Speaker 1: charitable contribution to the social service system. it has been
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  Speaker 1: a terrible mistake to let the left work its way
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  Speaker 1: into the minds and hearts of Christian leaders and convince
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  Speaker 1: them that it is moral to use the coercive power
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  Speaker 1: of the government to reach into people's pockets for tax
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  Speaker 1: dollars to pay for social programs, never mind that some
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  Speaker 1: taxpayers may consider programs ill-conceived or even immoral, such as
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  Speaker 1: subsidizing and thus encouraging out-of-wedlock birth. The left succeeded in
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  Speaker 1: in making support of big government the 11th commandment. One
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  Speaker 1: of the most damaging things Christian churches did to the
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: political conversation in America was add a religious burnish to
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  Speaker 1: the assertion that Democrats are more virtuous than Republicans because
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  Speaker 1: Democrats favor more government spending for the poor. When I
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  Speaker 1: was a county commissioner, a longtime county worker referred to
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  Speaker 1: social services provided by the county as the Lord's work.
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  Speaker 1: This person was sincere, but it also struck me as
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  Speaker 1: a way of shielding such programs. You can't touch them
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  Speaker 1: without getting on the fighting side of the Lord because
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  Speaker 1: he now works through government agencies. The same argument often
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  Speaker 1: is used by defenders of the federal welfare entitlement system.
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  Speaker 1: Tallarico just said it. You are unchristian if you challenge it.
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  Speaker 1: Some leading Catholic voices have cited the social teaching of
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  Speaker 1: the Catholic Church as to criticize Catholic Republicans for trying
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  Speaker 1: to rein in the federal welfare entitlement system. They equate
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  Speaker 1: spending tax dollars with practicing the faith. It's a major
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  Speaker 1: factor in modern American politics. Catholic voters provide a significant
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  Speaker 1: block of support for the left. Some Catholics see a
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  Speaker 1: linkage between the social teaching of the Catholic Church and
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  Speaker 1: the FDR-LBJ-Obama legacy. that has produced the modern federal welfare
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  Speaker 1: entitlement system. Some secularists have no use for religion, but
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  Speaker 1: cite Catholic social teaching to try to neutralize those of
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  Speaker 1: us who are Catholic, yet question our church's support for
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  Speaker 1: social services provided by big government. It wasn't always this way. St.
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  Speaker 1: Paul told fellow Christians, If you don't work, you don't eat.
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  Speaker 1: 2 Thessalonians 3, verse 10 The Christian position on charity
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  Speaker 1: has softened a bit since then, but there is healthy
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  Speaker 1: debate about what government's role should be in doing the
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  Speaker 1: Lord's work. It is amazing to me that people who
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  Speaker 1: say they care about the struggling underdog are so adamant
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  Speaker 1: about using the federal government to provide social services. We
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  Speaker 1: have decades of proof that that the federal government has
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  Speaker 1: been a terrible vehicle for delivering social services. Look at
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  Speaker 1: the tsunamis of fraud that have broken across Minnesota, California,
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  Speaker 1: and other states. It's too big. It's too expensive. There
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  Speaker 1: are too many moving parts. It's too easy to defraud.
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  Speaker 1: There's no accountability to the people. There's no financial risk
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  Speaker 1: to spur bureaucrats to be as efficient as possible. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: the federal government has an advocacy program urging people to
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  Speaker 1: sign up for food stamps. Several years ago, a successful
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  Speaker 1: entrepreneur who was inducted into the Business Hall of Fame
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  Speaker 1: in Omaha chided the audience a bit. He said there
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  Speaker 1: was a lot of griping in business circles about big
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  Speaker 1: government and the welfare state and a lot of bold
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  Speaker 1: talk about individualism and freedom and making your own way
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  Speaker 1: in the world without interference from government. This man who
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  Speaker 1: made a fortune managing capital, working at the highest levels
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  Speaker 1: of capitalism, spoke a word in defense of government programs.
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  Speaker 1: He said that when he was growing up, his family
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  Speaker 1: never would have made it through the crises they faced
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  Speaker 1: without help from the government. He said he would not
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  Speaker 1: be standing there accepting accolades as a successful free market
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  Speaker 1: capitalist had his family not received government aid. The question
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  Speaker 1: isn't whether American society should provide help for those in need.
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  Speaker 1: It should. We should. The question is whether the federal
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  Speaker 1: government should be a provider. The answer is no. It's
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  Speaker 1: not authorized by the Constitution. It's a proven failure as
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  Speaker 1: a public policy, and we can't afford it. If you
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  Speaker 1: want more detail, fixitnowchip.com. That's where you go to get
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: my books, including the one with the Constitution on the
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  Speaker 1: cover that focuses on fiscal policy. FixItNowChip.com. That's Check with Chip.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Chip Maxwell. Thank you for listening.