How NOT to help the poor

CreedIsChrist said:

I find this baloney. If government was the issue how do you explain places like Africa with barely any government authority and no sense of control. Same with Bangladesh and New Guinea and parts of the world where they are 500 years behind us and have no electricity and run on weak parliamentary republics and democracies that do absolutely nothing to help their people nor barely have the control to do so.

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The best examples of unfettered unregulated capitalism without social safety nets are third world nations where the poor die by the thousands and live in utter misery. Good point.

Veritas said:

I'd rather give my WHOLE dollar

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"Render onto Caeser what is Caeser's". If it's something you have to pay in taxes, It's not your money. Jesus had no issue with paying taxes, even to a pagan government that persecuted Jews, and which he knew would one day crucify him. Interestingly, some of his followers tend to complain rather loudly about paying taxes to a government they themselves help elect. Something to ponder.

There is no question that virtually everyone, no matter which political party they support, wants to help the poor. Just because somebody may think there is a different or better way to help the poor than you, does not mean they don’t care about the poor.

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I reworded a statement from the blog to cover a different situation.

There is no question that virtually everyone, no matter which political party they support, wants to reduce the number of abortions in this country. Just because somebody may think there is a different or better way to reduce the number of abortions than you, does not mean they don't care about reducing abortions.

From the National Catholic Reporter:

Finally, the platform says the party “strongly supports a woman’s decision to have a child by ensuring access to and availability of programs for pre-and post-natal health care, parenting skills, income support, and caring adoption programs.”

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I know that the above statement will be objected to on the grounds that Democrats are not trying to reduce the number of abortions in the most effective way.

And I will counter by saying that the same thing can be said about those who believe that private charity could pick up the slack if government programs ceased to exist, and that tens of millions of people (in the US alone) wouldn't be reduced to destitution.

My parents, who grew up during the Great Depression, have told me what life is like in a country that experiences a devastating financial crisis when there is no unemployment insurance, social security, etc.

I hope that the survivors of the Great Depression will write their memoirs so that those Americans who didn't live during the "good old days" will be able to learn from their experiences.

To sum up, I don't think that there is that much difference when one person says, "I believe that women should carry their children to term if they want to, and that people be required to help those children if their families are struggling" and "I believe that women should carry their children to term whether they want to or not, and that people should help their families if they have a little spare cash they're in the mood to give to charity."

But I will propose a positive solution. Here it is. Do you want private charity to work? Then do what the Jewish synagogues in NY do. People are required to buy memberships. Twenty years ago the going rate was over $3K a year, often more. My friend was so upset, because the only synagogue she could afford to join to get her children bar and bat mitzvahed was the shabby sort of inner city one...

But if the Catholic Church required a "membership" fee so that it could afford to launch charitable programs that were as extensive as the government's, then maybe it would work.

It would be on a sliding scale of course, based on a percentage of income....but that percentage would have to be at least quadruple what they're currently getting.

ShannonMcCatholic said:

And I gotta say, that with most programs, I am with Veritas on this...the government is just really bad at running programs overall. I am on the fence about healthcare--I tend towards thinking some sort of hybrid program is the way to go to ensuring everyone has access to the care they need---I'd start with making insurance companies operate as not-for profits. (Which I know many object to, but I believe that is an important first step, and how things work in some countries that do not have totally gov't run healthcare) Was it in this thread that somebody wrote that "You trust the government to run the military..."? But--I mean c'mon...trust hardly seems the right word there, and our defense spending is huge and inefficient....

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We had a government subsidised hospital here, Charity and it was run by LSU medical school and nuns.

It was horrible. It was destroyed in Katrina and it will not re open. It was where indigenous ppl could go and ppl with out insurance. it had the best trauma ER anywhere for gun shots but ppl would die waiting for their doctor appointment, you would get one maybe 6 months to a year just to see a doctor.

I envision this is what government run health care will be like all over.

AMDG said:

Ooo-ooo-ooo! Can I answer? If it's like the military, you have to first ask permission. If the answer comes back "yes", prepare for a battle that will take years and intimidation like you wouldn't believe.

But figuring that if we get national health care, all the doctors will be in the government's pocket so the whole thing becomes moot--no other doctor would dare give a second opinion (especially one that didn't agree with his employer--he knows "which side his bread is buttered" so the poor patient get's the "short end of the stick".)

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This is why I am against government run health care. In a government run system, the right to sue is completely gone. Now, I support national health insurance for the exact same reason. Nationally subsidized health insurance means an increase in the insurance rolls which by default means more money in the insurance company coffers for lawyers to target, and a potentially larger client base from which to draw a plaintiff.


This is also why there never will be government health care in this country. The Democratic Party advocates national insurance SOLELY because of trial lawyer money. The Republicans advocate their positions because of medical industry money. It's all a force. Your choice comes down to who do you want writing medical policy? Do you want it written by litigators who only want you having any coverage because it gives them more lawsuit opportunities, but at least will give you that? Or, do you want the policy written by the current health care industry which has an interest in keeping things as they are due to profits?


Those are the only real choices you have on health care because patients as a whole are unorganized and without an interest group simply won't have any say.

Fantine said:

But if the Catholic Church required a "membership" fee .

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Sorry, Jesus already paid the price. Can't believe that there is a thought about charging for worshipping God or for the Sacraments of the Church (free gifts of grace from God).

D'Ann said:

Fish... we don't need big government programs. We need people helping people. We don't need the government buying into the bank business, the insurance business or the car industry.

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Right and wrong. It did not make sense for the government to give a bailout to the banks. It hasn't worked and wouldn't have worked anyway, because it was to attack an issue on the supply side of the equation, the availability of credit, and not the main problem, which is that the unemployment crisis has caused demand to collapse and demand had been collapsing ever since the 2005 gas runs.


I disagree about insurance. Government should help insure that the poorest of the poor can get health insurance, by subsidizing the premiums so that they are still private insurace consumers but have their health care

As for the car industry. The time to ban Japanese autos from American soil was in 1985. Japan did ultimately win WWII because their products helped to kill our manufacturing base and Americans just lapped it up. Unfortunately, that genie is out of the bottle and so now we do have to bailout the auto companies or millions will get laid off causing further strain on the American economy

We need government to run the government and not tax us all to death. The more business that the government buys into, the more tax money we all are required to pay... and quite frankly, most people's pay checks are not that much and we can't afford to keep paying for big government programs that do not help the poor or give the poor jobs. The big government programs only help the politicians. They do not help me or others in my shoes.

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Middle and lower class rates should be lowered. Upper class rates should be raised. Middle and lower class rates have remained largely unchanged since the days of Eisenhower, when the highest bracket was 90%. What has changed since then is that we stopped asking the super rich to pay their fair share, and that is what has caused our budget problems. We now balance government on the backs of the poor and the middle class. We should go back to balancing it on the backs of the rich who should be happy to pay those taxes back to society because it was society that allowed them to get so rich in the first place.


I intend on becoming wealthy as an attorney. I'm not going to cry if I have to pay a little more in taxes because the way I see it, I'll just be greatful that I am able to live in America where I even had the opportunity to be a success. Most rich people who cry about taxes are just greedy.

We all are poor in one way or another. That being said, it has always been and always will be the privately owned charity groups and neighborhood folks helping each other that will make the difference. It won't be this big government and it's high taxes. It won't be the politicians and their socialistic idealogies...

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Name one politician in Congress, besides Bernie Sanders, who is a "socialist" in the true sense of the word.

Because guess what... people do care about each other. We do care about the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the disable and the elderly and sickly and terminal ill folks. It is the PEOPLE who make the difference, not big government, not politicians, not giving out money to people who abuse the government while the government goes after the workers for more tax dollars...

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Government shouldn't go after the workers, they should go after the rich. The problem was that Johnson and Reagan devised the policy of going easy on the rich and we haven't been able to break out of that.

Higher taxes is not the answer...

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On working people no. On the rich, yes.

big government is not the answer. It's day to day people helping hand n hand with each other... that will and is the difference... and until we all stop relying on the politicians and government to do what we all should be doing ourselves... we will continue to suffer and our economy will continue to decline... and if we are not careful, we might end up in a horrible depression that will make the 20s/30s depression look like a cake walk

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We are already in that Depression. If they calculated unemployment like they did in the 30s it would be around 18% right now. The only reason that it was glossed over under Bush is because once your unemployment compensation runs out you are considered as re-employed even if you aren't because you dropped from the rolls.

Some like the government freebies... but most of us like working and supporting ourselves and taking care of families and we like the feeling of taking care of our family. Most of us are hard working honest citizens. And we want that integrity and honor back. The government and politicians can't give that to us, only we can. Big government and high taxes is not going to help the poor in the long run.

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I'm opposed to government freebies and to things like welfare. However, we are in a time of economic trouble and I do believe in Keynesian theory. I do believe that we have to expand the government payroll (key word: payroll. I expect these people to work for the government, not get a check from them for nothin) in order to alleviate unemployment and stimulate demand so that private industry can get back on its feet quicker. It only seems problematic now because Bush's borrow and spend economic policy complete obliterated our cash reserves, whereas if we had followed Clinton's fiscal policy, we would have paid off the national debt and would have more than adequate reserves to deal with this crisis.

AMDG said:

Sorry, Jesus already paid the price. Can't believe that there is a thought about charging for worshipping God or for the Sacraments of the Church (free gifts of grace from God).

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emphasis is always on the works... No emphasis on holiness or grace.

ShannonMcCatholic said:

We will if gas goes back up to $4 a gallon or higher. A Prius is around $22,000---which sickeningly isn't really out of step with car prices--it's right around the average price for a Honda Accord.

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Both being Japanese cars where the profits go back to Japan and toward Japanese pensions.

faerieevaH said:

States once more that she comes from a country where health care is a mixture of government sponsored insurance, distributed through private NGO's, and private insurance and that it works very, very, very well!
Then again, I will admit, Belgium does not have a climate in which you can or think about sueing for everything. If a doctor is drunk and leaves a vodka bottle in your belly after an operation, THEN you can sue.

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You have just mentioned a major problem with the Belgian system, the lack of legal rights.

Joachim said:

Both being Japanese cars where the profits go back to Japan and toward Japanese pensions.

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Point taken but we can't very well buy GM, now can we?

Joachim said:

You have just mentioned a major problem with the Belgian system, the lack of legal rights.

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Merrill Matthews : The Failures of Government-Run Healthcare - Townhall.com

But anyone who reads the English press will find a different message, including waiting lines, angry patients, rationed and often subquality care. Consider these recent news stories about England’s National Health Service (NHS) quoted directly from the British press.

• Twice Katie asked for a [Pap] smear test, but was told she was “too young” to need one. Now 24, she is dying from cervical cancer, one of many young women who have fallen victim to a scandalous change in health policy. (London’s Daily Mail, June)

• A man with terminal cancer has been refused a drug by the NHS that could extend his life — despite offering to pay part of the cost himself. . . . David Swain's offer to meet the monthly £2,000 cost of Erbitux was refused, he said, because the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence [a government body] ruled it was too expensive. (Yorkshire Post, March, emphasis added)

• Health service dentists have been forced to go on holiday or spend time on the golf course this month despite millions of patients being denied dental care. . . . Many [dentists] have fulfilled their annual work quotas allotted by the National Health Service and have been turning patients away because they are not paid to do extra work. This is despite the fact that more than 7m[illion] people in Britain are unable to find an NHS dentist. (The Times of London, March)

Does that sound like your idea of a great health care system? The British press — as well as the Canadian press and other countries — regularly runs stories like these about patients who are denied treatment because they are too old, too young, too sick or too costly.

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Joachim, two words... Charity Hospital.

benedictaoo said:

Point taken but we can't very well buy GM, now can we?

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My family has been loyal to GM since there was a GM. I would also say that GM makes quality products. Most of their cars from the mid 90's on benefitted by the research done by the company for the Northstar engine and those lessons are now applied to all GM engines. If you do the maintenance like the owners manual says to, your car can run forever. In fact, even in the old days it could, it is simply that people never read those owners manuals, never did the maintenance and so when the cars died they blamed it on the company and not on their own incompetence.

benedictaoo said:

Merrill Matthews : The Failures of Government-Run Healthcare - Townhall.com

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An important point to consider is that for every horror story that's told about single-payer health care, you could find a similar horror story to tell about private insurance, maybe a greater number. I recommend a documentary called Sicko (Available as a DVD for less than $10 on Amazon.com) to anyone who doesn't believe that there are serious issues with private insurance and that people can and do die who are insured because they are denied things like access to chemotherapy by their insurance companies, often HMOs.

If we were to move to a single-payer system, we'd at least be sure that everyone is covered, and that the system is accountable to the voters instead of to corporate shareholders trying to make a buck. It won't happen, because even the Democrats want a private component, but I still believe that single-payer would be the best system, with the proviso that of course people who could afford to could pay for private care if they wanted to (though obviously they couldn't opt out of paying the taxes).

Joachim, two words... Charity Hospital.

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Most areas don't have charity hospitals. Even for folks lucky enough to live in one of them, though, it doesn't fix everything. Someone having a heart attack can walk into a charity hospital and perhaps still die or have life altering aftereffects, but someone who is mostly health can't walk in and get his blood pressure checked and a Lipitor prescription five years before the heart attack to prevent it. It's actually cheaper in the long-run, and better for the patient, to offer preventative care so that we have fewer grave health issues in this country in the first place.

AMDG said:

Sorry, Jesus already paid the price. Can't believe that there is a thought about charging for worshipping God or for the Sacraments of the Church (free gifts of grace from God).

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What I meant was that if you really wanted private charities to take over our social responsibilities to help the needy, and to do it adequately, you would have to find a way to finance such a project.

About the only way that that could be done, I think, would be by churches requiring certain contributions as a condition of membership, as Jewish synagogues in NY (and probably other locations) do.

Because I agree that it's always good to explore different possibilities for helping the poor other than government programming, I came up with the only idea that could possibly finance it adequately--membership fees.

Jewish people are very generous to charities, and their high synagogue membership fees probably help them to accomplish this.

Of course, there is another possiblity--let private charities take over at a greatly reduced level, with disastrous results.

AMDG said:

Sorry, Jesus already paid the price. Can't believe that there is a thought about charging for worshipping God or for the Sacraments of the Church (free gifts of grace from God).

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But if they could tax it they would. Remember, taxes are good, charity is bad.

benedictaoo said:

Point taken but we can't very well buy GM, now can we?

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Yes you can. It's now Government Motors.

Veritas said:

But if they could tax it they would. Remember, taxes are good, charity is bad.

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Taxes are good if charity is bad.

Bad meaning inadequate.

Unequal to the task.

I made a concrete, serious proposal to bring "charity" up to the task: charge membership fees for church membership, as is done in synagogues, to insure that adequate funding occurs.

Can you think of another way to insure that charity could adequately fund help for the needy?

Other than drastically redefining the definition of "need?"

If you have any concrete suggestions for making private charity capable of alleviating the problems of poverty and need, please list them, because I am interested.

Veritas said:

But if they could tax it they would. Remember, taxes are good, charity is bad.

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Everyone supports giving to charity. You conservative ideologues always have to twist the liberal position to support the selfishness and greed inherent in extreme conservatism on a philosophical level.

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Fantine said:

I made a concrete, serious proposal to bring "charity" up to the task: charge membership fees for church membership, as is done in synagogues, to insure that adequate funding occurs.

Can you think of another way to insure that charity could adequately fund help for the needy?

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But don't you see? That's membership dues, not charity. Charity is voluntary giving.

So I guess a "concrete" method of ensuring that folks be more charitable would be better catechesis to include rote learning of the seven Corporal Acts of Mercy, the seven Spiritual Acts of Mercy and the eight Beatitudes, actual Church teaching on the Principle of Subsidiary (among other things).