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Posted on 04/26/2011 6:29:39 PM PDT by TheDingoAteMyBaby
A coalition of evangelical, Catholic, Methodist, mainline Protestant, African-American, and Latino Christian leaders will announce a new coalition on Wednesday to fight cuts to anti-poverty programs and congressional plans to make those cuts even deeper.
A joint statement released by the coalition—and signed by 32 leaders—states:
“As Christian leaders, we are committed to fiscal responsibility and shared sacrifice. We are also committed to resist budget cuts that undermine the lives, dignity, and rights of poor and vulnerable people. Therefore, we join with others to form a Circle of Protection around programs that meet the essential needs of hungry and poor people at home and abroad.”
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.orlandosentinel.com ...
Crummy leftists! Spend your money, not mine. You are thieves.
Betcha Hansen of ELCA signed!
And I'm opposed to voting the government to rob people to do the job of the church.
If they are so committed to doing that stuff, they should be doing it themselves, not encouraging someone else to do it for them.
I don't think God counts that.
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.
WWJD? Dig into his own pockets to help the truely needy.
I wish all the Catholics I worked with for so many years got that message. They voted dem for that reason, even when confronted with the abortion issue.
The democrats helped the poor. That took priority over abortion. Hence they voted dem.
By their own admission.
And these were not twice a year Catholics. They were very active in their local parishes and had quite a knowledge of Catholic history and doctrine and were very faithful in their attendance.
I DO pay my fair share.
Neither mr. mm nor I nor our three kids are exempt from paying taxes of any kind even though we're "religious".
I was taking aim at these so-called “churches”. Not individuals. If the “church” groups want to play the game, it’s time for them to put a little skin in the game. I don’t need some “church” with their phony “reverends” telling me that I need to pay more taxes. That’s the politicians’ job.
They are, for the lack of a better term, Bernardin Catholics. The late Cardinal of Chicago, he worked hard to keep Catholics in the Democratic Party after the pols began to turn pro—choice. So he gave them cover by making “pro-life” include opposition to the death penalty and anti-war. Cuomo’s Notre Dame speech epitomized Berdardin’s equivocation. Yes, abortion was bad, BUT what about the homeless, or any other cause that the DNC tried to bring up. The pronouncements of the Bishop’s conference were, except on the abortion issue, something that might have been issued by the DNC. So many bishops were brought up in Democratic households.
I see.
Any church that gets involved in politics that way and feels that they have the right to tell the government how to spend it’s money to do their job, ought to lost its tax exempt status.
It’s not their money to spend. If they want a say in how to spend it, they ought to contribute as well. Telling the government how to spend someone else’s r spending someone else’s money is out of line.
I grew up and worked in Western NY, a liberal stronghold if there ever was one.
It wasn’t until I moved to the country that I met Catholics who actually held to the teachings of the Catholic church on the abortion issue and voted accordingly.
And that was well into adulthood for me.
There, I fixed it.
What kind of "Christian" groups call on the authority of the state to "help" others?
Can't they practice Christ's admonition to help their brother on their own initiative, without leaving it to the State?
As Dinesh D'Souza noted, you can't force people to be virtuous. If you do, it's not virtue at all.
What a joke. So many Christians are so misguided, and have trodden so far down the path of relying on the nanny State, they might as well just declare themselves Marxists and stop the pretext...
If an individual robs his neighbor at gun point, it’s considered stealing. No church leader would condone such a thing.
What if an individual votes for politiians who promise to use the police power of the state to take money from his neighbor and give it to him? How is that not stealing?
Slowly, with those bishops who are reaching retirement age, look for more traditional-minded bishops to be appointed.
STOP RIGHT THERE. Code words for the progressive left.
As I tell my brother, God only required a flat tax of 10% from everyone, rich and poor. What's good enough for God should be good enough for the Federal government.
Thomas Sowell gave them the solution:
To Cut Deficits, It’s Best To Pick Low-Lying Fruit
By THOMAS SOWELL Posted 06:31 PM ET
Since everybody else seems to be coming up with plans on how to cope with the skyrocketing national debt, let me try my hand at it too.
The liberals’ easy solution is just to increase taxes on “the rich.” But, if you do the math, there aren’t enough of “the rich” to cover the huge and record-breaking deficit.
Trying to reduce the deficit by cutting spending runs into an old familiar counterattack. There will be all kinds of claims by politicians and sad stories in the media about how these cuts will cause the poor to go hungry, the sick to be left to die, etc.
My plan would start by cutting off all government transfer payments to billionaires. Many, if not most, people are probably unaware that the government is handing out the taxpayers’ money to billionaires. But agricultural subsidies go to a number of billionaires. Very little goes to the ordinary farmer.
Big corporations also get big bucks from the government, not only in agricultural subsidies but also in the name of “green” policies, in the name of “alternative energy” policies, and in the name of whatever else will rationalize shoveling the taxpayers’ money out the door to whomever the administration designates, for its own political reasons.
The usual political counterattacks against spending cuts will not work against this new kind of spending-cut approach.
How many heart-rending stories can the media run about billionaires who have lost their handouts from the taxpayers? How many tears will be shed if General Motors gets dumped off the gravy train?
It would also be eye-opening to many people to discover how much government money is going into subsidizing all sorts of things that have nothing to do with helping “the poor” or protecting the public. This would include government-subsidized insurance for posh and pricey coastal resorts, located too dangerously close to the ocean for a private insurance company to risk insuring them.
This approach would not only circumvent the sob stories, it would also circumvent the ideological battles over whether to cut off money to Planned Parenthood or National Public Radio.
The money to be saved by cutting off agricultural subsidies to the wealthy and the big corporations is vastly greater than the money to be saved by cutting off Planned Parenthood or National Public Radio, much as they both deserve to be cut off.
If spending cuts are to be done strategically, a good strategy to follow would be that of Gen. Douglas MacArthur in World War II. MacArthur realized that he didn’t have to attack every Pacific island held by the Japanese. He captured the islands that he had to capture in order to get within striking distance of Japan.
In peace as in war, there is no point wasting time and resources attacking heavily defended enemy positions that you don’t have to take.
Social Security and Medicare are supposed to be among the most difficult programs to cut without ruinous political consequences. However, it is not necessary to attack all the spending on these programs in order to make big savings.
Instead of attacking these programs as a whole, what is far more vulnerable is the compulsory aspect of these programs. If Medicare is so great, why is it necessary for the government to force people to be covered by Medicare as a precondition for receiving the money they paid into Social Security?
Many people with private health insurance would rather continue to rely on that, instead of being trapped in Medicare red tape. It is not a question of taking away Medicare but allowing people to opt out, saving the taxpayer from having to subsidize something that many people don’t want.
It is not a question of forcing people off Social Security either. But private retirement accounts can offer a better deal. Even someone who retires when the stock market is down is almost certain to get a bigger pension from a decent mutual fund than from Social Security.
By giving young people the option, while continuing to honor commitments to retirees and those nearing retirement age, the sob-story defense of runaway spending can be nipped in the bud.
Being concerned that budget cuts don’t disproportionatly effect the poor is not Christian?
There is a legitimate role for society to hold in caring and helping the most vulnerable. Should it be a first resort? Should it replace private charity? Should it not be subject to fiscal oversight? Should it be free from any cuts at all? The answer to each of these is no.
Is government the best provider of means to help the poor and more importantly move them out of poverty? No. But it can help fund private charities who do provide such services.
It is not the goal or puprose of so many anti poverty programs that is wrong. What is wrong is the waste, fraud, and thievery encouraged by the poverty pimps who are in charge of them.
Having the government budget monies to help the truly needy is not anti Conservative or anti Christian. But such aid should be temporary and the private sector should be the ones adminstering the programs. With the hope that at some point no government aid will be needed to help the poor.
Given the choice between my tax dollars going to help a pregnant women get the healthful food she needs for her baby and my tax dollars going to bail out banks I’ll take the former over the latter.
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