As we begin the new year I am thinking of a comment I heard a minister make a couple of months ago: “We spent millions and millions of dollars on the war on poverty in the 1960’s that was a complete failure,” he said, “and today we have more poor people than ever.”
There are so many things wrong with what he said.
In the first place, the War on Poverty was anything but a failure, and in fact was a major success in significant ways, what with the start of Food Stamps, the WICK program, Head Start, Aid To Dependent Children, and Medicaid, to cite several examples. So the minister was simply wrong about that effort.
And even though he was right in saying we have more poor people than ever, he was wrong again about why.
While many factors account for why we have more poor people than ever, a major one is because these successful social programs have had to fight for their lives every year a new budget has been passed by Congress, the results usually being that they have barely held their own over the last fifty years or been cut.
But guess what. The new Republican Senate and House are promising more of the same.
Have you been listening to what they have been saying? They’ve replaced “the sky is falling” cries they were making about the deficit a couple of years ago (which they got completely wrong) with alarm bells because of what they say is America’s dangerous debt, all in service of their desire to cut more taxes to help the rich and cut more social programs to pay for them.
It is clear now that the “new” Republican Congress will spend its energies doing what Republicans have been doing all along, protecting a system rigged in favor of wealth flowing to the top.
I suspect the minister I quoted above is one of those who put Republicans in power. But I have a question for him and others like him. “Really?”
I would love for him to help me understand how this is what his faith told him was the right thing to do, how what the new Congress wants to do contributes to economic and social justice.
It is bad enough for anyone to support the outrageous economic inequity that is the new America, but from where I stand it is unconscionable for anyone who claims to be religious to do so.
Republicans say we have become a nation of entitlements. They are exactly right, only it is not the poor who want a handout. It is today’s wealthy Americans who believe they got where they are with nobody’s help and are entitled to make as much money as they can regardless of how it affects those not so fortunate or the economy as a whole.
There are exceptions to this rule, wealthy people who care about others, who worry about such wealth being concentrated at the top, and are ready to pay higher taxes themselves to help create more equity in the system.
The problem is, none of them is a Republican member of the House or Senate.
You would think that would trouble people of faith who helped put them there because they say they believe in the Jesus who said the priority of anyone who follows him should be caring for the poor.
Perhaps it does, but it’s difficult to see how given what the people they voted for are already saying about their priorities for 2015.
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