As your fellow Catholic, I would like to add something supportive to your post. When the government taxes its citizens too heavily, it takes from them the ability to be charitable towards others in proportion to the amount that it is taking by taxation. Each of us must meet basic expenses of ourselves and our families. If, after that and the tax burden, there is little left, we cannot be very charitable individually. That politicians decide to spend our money for us on causes, however worthy, is not to our respective moral credit, even if we were to vote for the politicians that behave that way. God bless you and yours!
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Well said!
I think many in our society don't understand that and think that their forced confiscation, tax contributions equals charity. Government entitlements, welfare if you will, is not charity. Charity is when you leave a bag of groceries on someones doorstep and walk away, charity is when you send a gift card in the mail and don't include a note with your name on it. Charity is what you give to the Church so they can help others.
As a child I saw Robin Hood as a hero. Robbing from the rich to give the the poor who didn't earn it is not charity it is stealing and receiving stolen goods. It is a sin. For some reason we put the stamp of government on it and then say it is not a sin because we all do it together. If we make a law that says we must all commit adultery and then obey the law it is still sin. Paying our taxes and standing by watching the helpless unborn being murdered with our tax dollars is sin unless we do all we can to stop it. Supporting children having children is a sin, but the government says it is good. What the government says has nothing to do with what is right or wrong.
Now for Rick Santorumn. I will vote for him in the primary if he is still in when it gets to my state. As I have said before he is the best of what is left, but, he does support welfare. He does support it to a lessor degree than Democrats. He wants to cut Social Security. Social Security recipients paid into the ponzi scheme and those who have not yet collected will likely get riped off.
Personally I am glad our society takes care of those that cannot take care of themselves. My gladness however does not make it right. People who can not take care of themselves should rely on charity or the goodness of people to take care of them. Then they would be grateful for what they got and the giver would feel good for giving. As it is the recipient thinks it is owed to him and the giver resents his gift because it is not a gift but a burden of a heavy handed society.
Rick Santorum actually worked to decrease Welfare, that is a good thing. I wish however we could get rid of this idea that poor people are entitled to the rewards of other peoples labor whether it be a little or a lot, that is either slavery or indentured servitude.
I am not against taxes, even high taxes if they are needed to defend the country. I am simply against robbing from the producers and giving to the non-producers. When I was a young man defense accounted for 70% of the federal budget. There was no welfare. When I was young everyone supported themselves. Some people that were lazy or incompetent paid the price by living in poorer conditions than those who worked hard or got an education and did jobs that others couldn't do. Now our society feels that it isn't fair that the uneducated should not have to pay the price for their failure to educate themselves and take from those who did. I resent it. I don't resent charity and give generously to many charities and my church but nobody makes me do that.