Tag Archives: Government

News

House Republicans offer deal: delay Obamacare for a year, no government shutdown

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This new House bill is a good compromise – even Tea Party stalwart Ted Cruz has endorsed it.

Excerpt:

During a speech on the Senate floor Monday afternoon, Texas senator Ted Cruz endorsed the latest House bill to fund the government. This continuing resolution would not defund Obamacare, as Cruz has demanded for months, but it would delay Obamacare’s individual mandate by one year and end employer subsidies for members of Congress and their staff.

During his speech, Cruz praised the House of Represenatives for trying to compromise and criticized Senate majority leader Harry Reid for refusing to negotiate. Senator John Cornyn, Cruz’s Republican colleague from Texas, then pointed out that the House will reportedly pass a continuing resolution that will include a delay the individual mandate and the Vitter amendment.

Cruz said that the Senate should pass “whatever” the House passes this evening.

“If the House of Representatives asks tonight I believe this Senate should come back immediately and pass the continuing resolution the House–whatever the House passes,” Cruz said. “I don’t know what it will be, but it will be yet another good faith effort to keep the government running and to address the trainwreck of a law that is Obamacare. And I very much hope that this body begins to listen to the people.”

Cruz’s comments mark an apparent shift in his position on defunding Obamacare. During his 22-hour speech on Obamacare last week, Cruz said he could not support a compromise.

[…]Monday evening, the Club for Growth endorsed the House compromise but Heritage Action opposed it.

Not sure how I feel about this compromise, because this Wall Street Journal article makes it sound like a good deal.

Excerpt:

Air traffic control will continue, in addition to airport and airplane safety inspections.  All Federal Highway Administration activities will also continue.

[…]The IRS will cancel audit appointments.

[…]The Department of Education could have to delay its issuing of competitive and formula grant awards later this year.

[…]Workplace dispute cases would not be resolved until after the shutdown, as the National Labor Relations Board would halt all case handling.

[…]Agency functions that protect national security and ensure human safety are exempt from the shutdown. Military operations, border security, coastal protection (including the Coast Guard), law enforcement, criminal investigations, counter-terrorism efforts and care of prisoners are all expected to continue. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the U.S. Secret Service, and the U.S. Marshals Service will all continue to function. The Transportation Security Administration will continue to staff airports.

On Friday, the Pentagon warned that a government shutdown could force the Defense Department to furlough about 400,000 civilian workers, delay military contracts and defer training.

The move would impact about half the department’s 800,000 civilian employees, most of whom were required to take six unpaid days off earlier this year as a result of the automatic spending cuts imposed under so-called sequestration.

Because of the unique role the Pentagon plays in protecting the country, defense officials are planning to exempt large numbers of people and projects. All active duty military personnel will not be furloughed – and large numbers of civilians supporting the war in Afghanistan and other essential military initiatives will stay on the job.

Pentagon leaders created a long list of exemptions, including counseling services for sexual assault victims, some child care facilities, and some base cafeterias.

[…] The U.S. Postal Service will continue to function as usual.

Social Security payments will continue to go out, and the administration is expected to continue taking applications for benefits, as in plans released Friday. In that plan, the agency said it will furlough 18,006 of its 62,343 workers.

Medicare and Medicaid payments will also continue, although the programs could encounter difficulty if the shutdown stretches into weeks.

[…]Food and Drugs: The Food and Drug Administration will continue its review of imports into the U.S., according to the Department of Health and Human Services’ plan released Friday.

Inspection of meat, poultry and egg products will continue, as these functions fall under the category of human safety. The HHS will furlough 40,512 workers, 52% of its staff.

Disease: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will cease disease surveillance, which could be particularly problematic as flu season approaches.

Medical care of inpatients and emergency outpatient care will continue.

The National Institutes of Health clinical center will not accept new patients into clinical research, but it will continue to provide medical services for current patients. In the 1995-96 shutdowns, calls placed to NIH’s disease hotline were not answered, according to the CRS report.

Obamacare: The Affordable Care Act will continue to be funded.

Other: Handling of hazardous waste, disaster assistance and power grid maintenance will continue.

On balance, it doesn’t sound like the catastrophe that the left-wing media make it out to be, at least for a couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, Senate Democrats are refusing to negotiate.

Commentary

Thomas Aquinas on law, economics and government

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I found three posts at the AEI Values and Capitalism blog authored by a recent graduate of Grove City College.

Here the 3 posts:

I’m going to snip the most interesting parts from each of the 3 posts.

First post talks about the Bible and private property:

What, if any, role does government play in defining, bestowing and taking private property? This question underlies many modern-day political debates, but it’s actually an issue scholars have debated for centuries. At the heart of this debate is the tension between private property and government confiscation: Does private property exist? If so, does government have the authority to take it from the citizens it governs?

[…]“It is false to say that human beings are not permitted to possess their own property,” he writes, implying that individual human beings have a right to the external goods they own and no one else may possess ownership over their goods. The eighth commandment—”Thou Shalt Not Steal”—assumes the principle of private property. God, by commanding man to refrain from stealing from his neighbor, assumes that man can and does own material goods.

[…]In his book “Foundations of Economics: A Christian View,” Dr. Shawn Ritenour of Grove City College puts it quite simply: “Our property is God’s gift.” The socialist idea that property rights come from government is false. Property rights come from our Creator.

So that’s the first thing to get clear. The Bible assumes the concept of private property.

Second post talks about when the government is justified in taking the property of citizens:

Theft is not justified on an individual level or a state level. Stealing is stealing. But if this is true, does government commit theft when it taxes its citizens? According to Aquinas, not quite. “If rulers exact from their subjects what is due them in justice in order to maintain the common good,” he writes, “there is no robbery” (emphasis mine). Government may justly take from its citizens their God-given property only if it promotes justice for the common good of society.

But this criterion is vague. The common good may be defined in a variety of ways. But Aquinas does not leave the reader without qualifying his statement:

But public authority is committed to rulers in order that they may safeguard justice. And so they are permitted to use force and coercion only in the course of justice, whether in wars against enemies or in punishing civilian criminals. (emphasis mine)

Government may take from its citizens, i.e. taxes, for the two-fold purpose of defended them from foreign enemies and convicting domestic criminals.

So the government can take money from citizens for defending them from external threats and internal threats. But what about helping the poor? Who is going to help the poor, if it’s not government’s job?

Third post talks about whose job it is to help the poor:

We must help those in need directly, through private institutions and through the church, not allowing government to become a substitute for our individual responsibility of loving our neighbor. Aquinas writes:

But because many persons are in need, and the same things cannot assist everybody, the dispensing of one’s own goods is committed to each individual, so that each may out of them assist those in need. (emphasis mine)

Because of the magnitude and specificity of each individual’s needs, the government cannot adequately provide for every one of its citizens. As Christians, we must work to provide for our neighbors in accordance with the command in Scripture to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Property is a gift from God—not government—to his people for the purposes of self-preservation and assisting those in need. When private institutions, churches and individuals fulfill their mandate to love our neighbors as ourselves, no need for government involvement exists.

Just a helpful reminder to everyone about what one of the pillars of the Christian faith thought about fiscal policy and the role of government. By the way, if you’re thinking about studying economics and you’re a Christian, I recommend Grove City College.

Christianity and economics

Here’s an interview with Dr. Shawn Ritenour, economics professor at Grove City College. The interview is conducted by Dr. Paul Kengor.

Excerpt:

Kengor: …it seems that the very foundation of economics, not to mention the American republic in some respects, is the right to private property. Do you agree? If so, is that Scriptural?

Ritenour: The foundation of economic activity and policy is private property. All action requires the use of property and all economic policy is about how people can legally use their property. To benefit from the division of labor, we must be able to exchange our products, which requires private property. Private property is definitely Scriptural. The Bible explicitly prohibits theft, fraud, moving property barriers, debasing money, violating labor contracts, as well as coveting. These prohibitions apply to both citizens and rulers. In my text, I apply this conclusion to issues such as confiscatory taxation, government subsidies, business regulation, and monetary inflation.

Kengor: I find it very telling that Karl Marx was first and foremost against private property, not to mention against God as well. In the “Communist Manifesto,” he wrote plainly: “the theory of the Communists may be summed up in a single sentence: Abolition of private property.” And yet, there are some religious left Christians who claim that the Bible, especially in certain Old Testament passages, preaches a form of socialism and even communism. A student of mine had a teacher at a private Christian school in Ohio who instructed the class that as Christians they should be communists. Can you address this argument?

Ritenour: Communism can be condemned strictly on the basis of the Christian ethic of property (among other reasons). Nothing in Scripture either commands or implies that the means of production should be controlled by the state. There are passages in the early chapters of Acts that are often cited as promoting “Christian communism,” but, in fact, actually illustrate Christian sharing. The various Christians still owned their property, but were generous in sharing whenever they saw a need. When Peter rebukes Ananias in Acts 5, he explicitly says that both the property that Ananias and Sapphira sold and the monetary proceeds from selling it were theirs to do with what they wanted. That is not the gospel according to Marx.

Kengor: I like the way you turn the religious left’s thinking on private property on its head. You note that “God prohibits our coveting the property of others.” With that being the case, isn’t it wrong for the government to use the mighty arm of the state to forcibly remove property from one person to give it to another?

Ritenour: I see no other way around that conclusion, especially when we realize that, in our day of mass democracy, the state usually accomplishes policies of wealth redistribution by inciting envy and covetousness among the populace.

Kengor: What about profits? Reconcile the profit motive with the God of Scripture. We have people in this society who portray profits as greedy or unjust.

Ritenour: Profit is the reward entrepreneurs receive for more successfully producing what people want. This is no easy thing to do. Entrepreneurs must invest in present production of goods they sell in the future. Neither entrepreneurs nor government bureaucrats know exactly what future demand will be. Therefore, production necessitates bearing risk. If the entrepreneur forecasts future demand incorrectly, he will waste resources and reap losses. If he forecasts the future correctly, he serves his fellow man by producing goods people want. It seems only right that such producers are rewarded with profit. In a free market, the only way entrepreneurs earn profits is to serve customers better than anyone else.

If you would like to learn more about the relationship between Christianity and economics, then I recommend “Money, Greed and God” and “Indivisible” by Jay Richards. The former is about what the Bible says about economics, the latter is about developing a Christian worldview of fiscal and social issues. If you really want a comprehensive assessment of the Bible and politics, then I recommend Wayne Grudem’s “Politics According to the Bible“.

Further study

News

Quebec citizens dissatisfied with expensive government-run daycare

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IMFC researcher Andrea Mrozek writes about a new survey in the Montreal Gazette.

Excerpt:

For 16 years, the Quebec government has been providing highly subsidized daycare. Canada-wide and indeed internationally, this $7-a-day system is praised as a leading example and the path to follow.

The question is whether Quebecers actually feel that way.

Our recent poll about Canadians’ daycare desires shows some interesting results in Quebec (imfcanada.org/daycaredesires/Quebec). When asked what Quebecers ideally prefer for children under age 6, a competent caregiver or a parent, 70 per cent of Quebecers say a parent.

In short, a clear majority of Quebecers believe that the best place for children under 6 is with a parent — in spite of having a provincially funded system that gives preference to daycare centres.

A second surprising result also emerged. When given options about how governments should help parents with child care, almost half of Quebecers polled (45 per cent) said money should go directly to parents. This option was placed next to other options like subsidies to childcare centres, child-tax deductions or providing funding exclusively for families in need, among others.

Surprisingly, more Quebecers believed that money should go directly to parents; by way of contrast, 25 per cent of Canadians outside Quebec said governments should provide cash payments directly to parents.

These poll results leave us with a lot to think about with regard to how governments enact childcare policy. Seven in 10 Quebecers believe the best place for a child under six is with a parent. Yet the government’s public policy on that point does not remotely reflect this desire.

In fact, when the government introduced its policy of subsidized daycare, other family funding and programs were cut. Scholars have shown how other family benefits were cancelled as Quebec ramped up spending on institutional daycare.

Some may think the Quebec program is very popular simply because so many parents use it. That may not be the case. Anytime a government provides a service at lower-than-market costs, it provides an incentive to use that service. The reality is that child care is actually very expensive, regardless of who provides it. When the government provides it, we are all paying for it through increased taxes.

In our poll, we asked simple and somewhat idealistic questions as to where children under 6 are better off. “What is best for children” is not necessarily the same as asking about what is possible for families. The two ought not be confused, of course. There might be many parents who think their presence would be better for their kids, but they simply cannot afford to stay home. Personal circumstances are just that, personal, and they vary from family to family.

Still, there should still be a place for idealism — for a blue-sky view of how we would like things to go. And public policy should assess opportunity costs and unintended consequences. Where public policy is divorced from citizens’ desires, it does taxpayers a disservice. In effect, it means taxpayers are paying for something they would rather not use.

Quebec is the most liberal province in Canada, and it only survives because it receives massive transfers of wealth from the other business-friendly provinces. But that doesn’t stop them from sneering at their enablers, or from passive expensive socialist programs. But they do serve as a lesson to us – government doesn’t do child care better than moms and dads. And we shouldn’t be paying them massive amounts of money them to do things that they don’t do well. The ideology of feminism isn’t more important than the needs of children.

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