And Justice for All

Children at the Salvation Army/Dewald Community Center pledge allegiance to the United States flag, Author Tech Sgt. Joseph Harwood, Source http://www.dvdshub.net/image/1655087 (PD-Federal govt.)

Greatly blessed as she is with natural resources, America’s greatest resources have been her people, her ideals, and her faith. We are at risk of losing all three.

• According to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, 83 welfare-related programs (excluding Medicare and Social Security) together in 2011 constituted the single largest item in the federal budget [1]. In total, federal spending on these programs was approximately $726 billion [2A]. State spending (primarily on Medicaid and CHIP) constituted an additional $283 billion [2B].
• By 2014, overall federal expenditures amounted to $3.5 trillion [3]. But fourteen cents of every dollar had to be borrowed [4].

Despite this, the gap between rich and poor is widening, millions are working longer hours for less pay, and the middle class is disappearing [5].

What does this tell us? Most will answer that question from their own frame of reference. Those well-off view the nation as well-off; those struggling view the nation as struggling.

Perhaps though the answer to our question is not to be found in figures alone – no matter how finely we may slice and dice them.

If a full third of the national budget (or any fraction approaching that) must be dedicated to welfare-related programs, we are a nation in serious trouble, a nation that is not using its resources wisely. And budget cuts are not the remedy.

America has always been an engine of productivity. We have had the benefit of labor and talent from across the globe. We have cherished the ideals of freedom and equality, if not always lived up to them. And we have bowed our heads in thanks to a Power greater than our own.

At least we have in the past. Many today give mere lip service to religion or claim no religious affiliation at all. This is their right.

Without a foundation in morality, however, ideals become little more than high-minded language; and laws, little more than arbitrary man-made rules. Not surprisingly, that is precisely how our elected officials have been treating them.

If justice is irrelevant to the calculation, jobs can be sent overseas without any thought of the consequences. Corporate profits can take priority over the wages of breathing men and women. Lobbyists can be treated as more important than individual voters, and elections anonymously purchased by those with means to spare [6].

But justice is not irrelevant, and never has been. Not in this country. And not in God’s eyes.

” ‘You shall not pervert justice; you shall not show partiality, nor take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous. You shall follow what is altogether just, that you may live and inherit the land which the Lord your God is giving you‘ ” (Deut. 16: 19-20).

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[1][2A][2B] US Senate, Committee on the Budget, Republican Website, “CRS Report: Welfare Spending the Largest Item in the Federal Budget” by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), http://www.budget.senate.gov/republican/public/index.cfm/files/serve/?File_id=34919307-6286-47ab-b114-2fd5bcedfeb5.

[3][4] The Heritage Foundation, “Federal Spending by the Numbers, 2014: Government Spending Trends in Graphics, Tables, and Key Points” by Romina Boccia, 12/8/14, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/12/federal-spending-by-the-numbers-2014.

[5] US Senate, Committee on the Budget, Democratic Website, “Sanders Review of Republican Budget Conference Agreement Shows It Takes Us in the Wrong Direction” by Sen. Bernard Sanders (I-VT), 5/4/15, http://www.budget.senate.gov/democratic/public/index.cfm/press-releases-news?ID=63af069f-0a5d-428a-b94f-94620790f8d0.

[6] US News and World Report, “How Citizens United Has Changed Politics in 5 Years” by Gabrielle Levy, 1/21/15, http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/01/21/5-years-later-citizens-united-has-remade-us-politics .

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