I find myself and I’m sure, many conservatives also find themselves taking the position against government involvement even when deep down inside, we know that there are benefit to some government intervention.
I’m not saying that I completely grasp this issue. I’m still wrestling with it; wrestling with why those of us who are conservative instinctively have a problem, when people say that government needs to do this and that. So far, I have a theory.
Here is what I have concluded. As I process this issue, I find myself objecting more to the politicization of poverty and welfare by Democrats. Even though Democrats use the facade that government is the only institution that can respond and must respond, for them it is less about people being helped and more about promoting the Democrat party.
A recent example is the Stimulus Package. They promoted the stimulus as a measure to repair our crumbling infrastructure. A measure that totaled close to 1 Trillion dollars. With that amount of money, one would expect that we wouldn’t have to spend money on crumbling infrastructure for a long time to come. Unfortunately, no one read the bill. The bill was too important and the need too dire for anyone to actually read it. As a result, the American people were hoodwinked. If any money actually went to infrastructure, it is a miniscule amount relative to what is actually going to re-elect Democrats. Nine-months after promising the American people that the stimulus must be passed, and if it isn’t we were looking at a catastrophe, the president is talking about holding a jobs summit at the White House. The stimulus, that was supposed to be government in action, has not put anyone in action evidenced by unemployment which continues to rise.
It is wrong to say that the stimulus was an abject failure. If we the people understood the true purpose, we would realize that it is not. The true purpose was not to get Americans working again but to give the impression that the Democrats saved the day. They brought our economy back from the brink. Suppose we were able to suspend reality and believe that all is well in our economy, would it be the government that brought the economy back from the brink? No, it would be the Democrats and Obama, just as they want it to be.
Another example is the Healthcare debate. When we consider the problems we have with our healthcare system, and the solutions prescribed by Democrats, one has to scratch their head. The solutions they are prescribing has nothing to do with reducing cost, it has nothing to do with creating competition which can be easily accomplished by allowing people to buy across state lines, it has nothing to do with portability so people are not tied to their employers for insurance; none of that. This charade is all about making the American people dependent on Democrats being elected to preserve their healthcare for generations to come. They have so lost their minds; they prefer to imprison people, which cost the government about twenty-five thousand dollars a year at minimum if they do not purchase a health insurance plan.
Because of Democrats politicizing poverty and welfare in this country, the perception persists among many that liberals really care while conservatives do not. However, that is just a myth. It is a bigger myth than I thought. Let me share an article from a New York Times columnist that debunked this myth.
Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times shares his findings in Bleeding Heart Tightwads. He writes, “Liberals show tremendous compassion in pushing for generous government spending to help the neediest people at home and abroad. Yet when it comes to individual contributions to charitable causes, liberals are cheapskates.
Arthur Brooks, the author of a book on donors to charity, “Who Really Cares,” cites data that households headed by conservatives give 30 percent more to charity than households headed by liberals. A study by Google found an even greater disproportion: average annual contributions reported by conservatives were almost double those of liberals.
Other research has reached similar conclusions. The “generosity index” from the Catalogue for Philanthropy typically finds that red states are the most likely to give to nonprofits, while Northeastern states are least likely to do so.
The upshot is that Democrats, who speak passionately about the hungry and homeless, personally fork over less money to charity than Republicans — the ones who try to cut health insurance for children.
“When I started doing research on charity,” Mr. Brooks wrote, “I expected to find that political liberals — who, I believed, genuinely cared more about others than conservatives did — would turn out to be the most privately charitable people. So when my early findings led me to the opposite conclusion, I assumed I had made some sort of technical error. I re-ran analyses. I got new data. Nothing worked. In the end, I had no option but to change my views.””
The reason I included that fact is because I wanted people to realize that if it wasn’t for the politicization of poverty and welfare, maybe conservatives would entertain the notion of using government as an arbiter for providing for the neediest among us. So far, it is obvious that liberals, who say their hearts are bleeding with compassion, prefer that the government use the power to Tax and Spend in order to make others fund their causes.
My theory thus far as to why conservatives prefer charities to government is based on the old biblical saying, “When you give, don’t let your right hand know what your left hand is doing.” We prefer charities, instead of government intervention as a means of addressing the needs of the less fortunate because with charities, everyone privately donates their money and the only people that benefit are those that are helped.
Whenever government gets involved, as it is in the United States today, the only people that really benefit is the Democrat party and liberals. People boldly call themselves liberals because it connotes that they care for the poor, when in reality they rarely part with their own money to do so. After many years of us spending a lot of money on poverty, a lot of money on the Great Society, a lot of money on creating these many unfunded liabilities of welfare programs to the tune of trillions of dollars; what we keep finding is that these people are still poor. These people are still living in decrepit neighborhoods. They are still attending decrepit schools. Poverty has become a generational curse, plaguing their kids and grand kids.
While these individuals are out of jobs, the same party that says we need welfare for these people because there are just not enough jobs for every American, is also saying we need lax immigration policy for people to come into the country and do jobs that Americans wouldn’t do. That makes absolutely no sense. On one hand, they are saying, there is not jobs for Americans to do and as a result, we need to provide welfare for them. Then on the other hand, they are saying, we need lax immigration so illegals can come in and do jobs that Americans would not do. If there are no jobs, then what are the jobs illegal’s are doing and if there are jobs, why are those on welfare not the first to get it? As I said before, this all makes no sense. Nevertheless, that is a “departure” from what I’m really referring to; that the objection to government by conservatives is more of an objection to the fact that they are being asked to pay more taxes under the façade that government can do more, when in reality the people that gets the benefit are the Democrat party and Democrat politicians.
Is it a fair assessment to suggest that we have politicized poverty and welfare in this country? Yes it is. We have politicized it and that does us no good. Another perfect example is what we witness everyday. When it comes to government funding, any left-wing group can apply, no questions asked. When a right-wing group applies, we hear about separation of Church and State.
I hear people justify this disparity by saying that religious groups are Tax exempt and cannot be allowed in our political arena. So are any other non-profit groups. They are both tax exempt. So what we really have is a situation where non-profit left-wing group can petition the government for money for their agendas and have no one call foul, but if a religious group petition the government for funds for their agenda they hear a mouth full. Pastors and churches should be able to organize in their communities the same way every other group does and shouldn’t have to hear about losing tax exempt status. This is just another aspect of how poverty and welfare has been politicized and it adds to why conservatives object to the growth of government. A growth of government is simply an expansion of liberal agenda while suppressing any opposing agenda.
As Americans, if we are going to take care of each other, it cannot be about the Democrat party. We are not all Democrats. In fact, if you believe as most liberals do, a substantial amount of the affluent people in this country are conservatives and independents. No one is going to tolerate being taxed more and more and then get ridiculed and trashed by Democrats when they talk about we are our brother’s keeper. I believe we are our brother’s keeper. You and I need to take care of our brothers and sisters from our own pockets. Unfortunately, for liberals, more and more the phrase we are our brother’s keeper means government is our brother’s keeper.
Conservatives prefer charities to government because with charities, the only people that get the benefit are the people who are helped. There is no party affiliation. The emphasis is not on the giving, but on actually addressing the problems. When we become more concerned about helping people and less about promoting our political party, we will begin to solve the many problems that this nation faces.
