Friday, March 11, 2011

Refusal to Compromise on Fiscal Responsibility is "Dangerous" and "Unchristian"

Now the Christian Left is accusing Wisconsin's Governor Walker of being a bad Christian because he cut off the unions' means to keep the bottomless pit of money and cushy benefits fund keep on coming - a.k.a. collective bargaining, even though the collective bargaining tactics employed by unions have hurt hard working taxpayers for years.  Diane Butler Bass accused Gov. Walker of being "dangerous" and unchristian" for being unwilling to compromise when it came to fiscal responsibility with regards to the budget.  Gov. Walker's fiscal policy is in fact responsible, pragmatic, harmless and ethically sound.



Then we have Jim Wallis asking What Would Jesus Cut?  Of course he's against the GOP making cuts to both domestic spending and international aid.  He claims that these cuts will hurt the poor and are unfair. He complains about the tax cuts for 2 percent of Americans and the fact that Republicans support an increase in military spending.  For some reason Jim Wallis makes the assumption that the high taxes imposed under Clinton were just and that the lower taxes imposed under Bush were unjust.  Both John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan made tax cuts which spurred job growth and helped many people, including the poor, to obtain jobs.

Hunter Baker tackles Jim Wallis' claim that cuts in spending is a sub-Christian position:

"The implication is that this is obviously a sub-Christian position. But is it? Probably the most essential purpose of government is to protect the life and freedom of citizens. The government achieves this goal through military means. Unless one takes the position that Christianity implies corporate pacificism, then it is unclear the Republicans have blundered according to Christian ethics. Now, match the question of military spending versus international aid and/or domestic spending. Are the latter obviously superior to the former? No. It depends on not only what the stated objective is for the different types of spending, but whether they actually achieve their purposes. To simply state that the Republicans want to bolster military spending while cutting international aid and domestic spending is to achieve nothing at all by way of an indictment."
Here Hunter Baker deals with Wallis' position on taxes and asks " If there is a community need, is it righteous to grab a rich person and employ the power of legal coercion to extract the needed funds?" 


Then, Hunter Baker explains what's wrong with Jim Wallis' redistributionist philosophy: 


"Still another problem with this redistributionist attitude about taxes and spending is that it assumes a zero sum state of affairs. For example, one could assume that the most people would be better off under a system like the old Soviet Union that spread resources out to citizens in a way that prized equality of rations. The United States system didn’t do that nearly as much, not nearly at all. But which of the two systems provided a better life for people? The answer is easy. The United States and its emphasis on liberty did. Why? A more free economic system produces far more wealth than an unfree one. If your equality system produces a little, bitty pie, it may give you a lot of philosophical satisfaction, but it doesn’t do as much actual good for people as the system that prizes free productivity and success over equality." 


No, fair isn't better. It just means equally poor or equally miserable but not equally better off in society.  If so, then Communism would have worked in the past, but the cold hard facts have proven that Communism has always caused lives to be drastically worse rather than better wherever it has been implemented.  At the very least Communism harms.  Communism has also killed many people.  



According to Courtois who wrote The Black Book of Communism here is the breakdown of the number of deaths which have occurred under Communism: 
  • 65 million in the People's Republic of China
  • 20 million in the Soviet Union
  • 2 million in Cambodia
  • 2 million in North Korea
  • 1.7 million in Africa
  • 1.5 million in Afghanistan
  • 1 million in the Communist states of Eastern Europe
  • 1 million in Vietnam
  • 150,000 in Latin America
  • 10,000 deaths "resulting from actions of the international Communist movement and Communist parties not in power."


Do federal programs achieve what they set out to do?  Is there government waste or is the money allocated properly and used efficiently?  Well, the Government Accountability Office found wasteful spending on ending homelessness.

From Fox News:


The Government Accountability Office report found that in 2009, federal agencies spent about $2.9 billion on more than 20 programs that targeted homelessness. If that money were to be targeted toward the building of homes, at say, $200,000 per home, it could theoretically produce 145,000 houses.
"Take that money directly and give them sort of a voucher so they can go get housing on their own, or get some mental health benefits," Brian Darling, director of government studies at the Heritage Foundation suggested. "But the way it is now when you have all of these different government agencies administering the same program, you have government waste."



It is self-evident that government programs aren't efficient and in fact don't achieve what they set out to do.  Our government can do better with less money.  This government waste needs to stop.  Plus, the assertion that Governor Walker is a bad Christian is absurd.  He is exercising fiscal responsibility which is a good thing.





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