Who Promotes Bigger Government, Jesus or Big Business


I suppose Pope Francis can be accused of using religion to promote government help to the poor. I can't remember Biden using religion to justify larger government programs but he may have done so. From time to time someone says we need more government help for the poor because it is the Christian thing to do. The link assumes all larger government advocacy comes from religion. The link also makes the assumption that any new expansion of government is "socialism."

Tomes have been written and will be written about all of this. Most of the writing, however, makes broad assumptions about competing sectors of the public and what their various motives are. For example, it is usually assumed poor people and government employees want more socialism because they benefit. Businesses and wealthy people want less socialism because they pay higher taxes and get no benefit. Conservative Christians claim Jesus hated socialism. Liberal Christians say Jesus was a socialist. Conservatives reply Jesus was for voluntary aid to the poor, not government aid.

As every honest person knows, none of the proposals now in the hopper in Washington are for "socialism." They are for government expansion of, for example, medical care, housing, transportation and other services. Direct benefit goes mostly middle to lower incomes. Supporters of these programs are not exclusively bureaucrats and middle to lower income people, however. Beneficiaries also include the very wealthy classes.

Wealthy people, some of them at least, see their own self interest served by these programs. Wealthy stock holders see government medical insurance as a way to lower employee costs. The costs of government provided health care is less per procedure and per person than our system in the U.S. Ultimately, government health insurance makes corporations more competitive in the world markets. 

Then there are the unpredictable things like civil unrest and crime. The 1930's had a lot more of this than is discussed today. Perhaps some wealthy fear this today. Thus, support from the wealthy is not "kindness" or "Jesus based." It is self interest.

Republicans have used over simplified generalizations effectively in past elections. They tried "socialism" in the last Presidential election. It didn't work then and I have my doubts it will work next time.   


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