A ridiculous narrative lives within the politics of the United States of America. Many people think people are getting free stuff and want free stuff. It’s an idea rooted in the myth of the welfare queen used by Republicans now and effectively used during Ronald Reagan’s to paint a lie that millions of people are stealing your tax dollars.
Welfare What?
About 5.6% of the government’s expenditures were on welfare programs and down from 10% in 2015. It’s not a lot of money to ensure people don’t die of starvation. Meanwhile, 15% of the budget is spent on the military while we have outspent every country for decades.
We can spare a few pennies to help the poor if we can spare much more to kill people.
Corporate Handouts
The biggest welfare recipients are corporations. While Republican and Democratic loyalists bicker about who should or shouldn’t get scraps at the table, the owners of our country are fleecing us. 🐑
How much welfare would be needed if corporations paid their workers a living wage? Many people with jobs are on welfare because they are not paid enough to live. Employers steal $15 billion a year by not paying people a fair wage. Corporations have been incrementally stealing the American way of life of yore for decades.
If you want to be mad at someone be mad at corporate lobbyists and the politicians getting bought by them.
What Would Jesus Do?
Jesus wouldn’t say to you, “Pull Up Your Bootstraps!” no, he would give you his bread and love. Jesus would be ashamed of the people that are worried about giving scraps to their fellow countrymen.
This Bible verse says it well.
“If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be. Take care lest there be an unworthy thought in your heart and you say, ‘The seventh year, the year of release is near,’ and your eye look grudgingly on your poor brother, and you give him nothing, and he cry to the Lord against you, and you be guilty of sin. You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him, because for this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.”
— Deuteronomy 15:7-11 ESV
Shouldn’t this close the book on whether giving to your fellow citizen is the correct path? Why would anyone stand in the way of goodwill directed to improve the lives of their countrymen?
What God?
Religions don’t get a monopoly on doing the right thing. Look no further than the stoics to see that the rules of living well don’t need to be imparted by a higher authority.
We all have the ability to do the right thing. Doing the right thing includes giving the least fortunate of us a leg up. It means pulling people up by their bootstraps and giving them the footing they need to prosper.
Do you agree that we should end the bickering and start cleaning up the mess?
Let’s save the republic with facts, reason, and science.