Posted on 04/30/2014 12:43:48 PM PDT by nhwingut
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum said Monday he’s not convinced the GOP cares about poor people as much as Democrats do.
“People ask me, ‘Do Republicans care as much about the poor as Democrats do?’” Santorum said at a New York meeting of conservatives. “I’m not sure we do. I’m not sure we do. And the reason I’m not sure we do, is because I don’t hear us talking about them very often.”
The remarks came during the Q-and-A portion of the event, where Santorum was promoting his new book, “Blue Collar Conservatives.” He was asked whether he supports the earned income tax credit, a wage subsidy for low-income Americans, which some conservatives proposed as an alternative to raising the minimum wage.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
Correction: Rick claims that he does. In reality, he works against it. Anybody who supported free markets would have voted against the minimum wage every time it came up. Rick voted FOR it. Every time. Rick is all for using government -- that means we Americans' money by force -- to provide charity, except charity is a purely moral obligation and receivers know it; government "charity" is purely amoral and wields evil fruit.
Nix on Santorum. He's a big government guy. The party and candidates I will vote for are the ones whose destination is REDUCED GOVERNMENT as the solution to moral and economic problems. Smaller government means a more moral and a more prosperous America.
As Senator, too many times Rick played the role of good soldier under Bush. No doubt about it. He also voted for No Child Gets Ahead. He tried to push hard on social issues, and sold out on other matters to get ahead, and have impact. Dumb move.
Some people learn from their errors, and Rick is one, obviously. In any case, I am for Ted Cruz. Period. Bob
If you listen to an entire Santorum speech, as I did earlier this month in Harrisburg, I doubt you’d be disappointed. Bob
Government distribution of charity reduces it to an AMORAL act. Receivers expect it and regard it as an entitlement. So we see what amoral charity begets.
Federal government has no place in charity. That's the job of self-governing people.
The way I read scripture, I see a mandate for government, the church, and individuals to care for the poor. That the mandate exists for individuals does not negate the mandate for the other two.
The Founders knew their scripture and structured the entire Constitution on the Christian ethic. Why, Danny, didn't the Founders include some reference to a Christian American government's scriptural obligation with regard to charity, then, setting forth a place for it in the way the American government was set up?
I'll tell you why. Because the Founders saw ZERO scriptural mandate for the Federal government to provide charity for the poor. You do, but they sure as heck didn't.
The Founders understood that government is a FORCE. As a force, is a "dangerous servant and a fearful master." That is what the Founders understood. Dangerous -- use sparingly. I am a "conservative" -- I want to be conservative in the use of government, the same way I'm conservative as to how much junk food I eat.
Just think, we have six months until the Election. Plenty of time for Hoof and Mouth Disease to snatch Defeat from Victory.
Don’t hear a peep from Ricky for Months, them boom, stupidity on Parade.
Sometimes I think we are infiltrated with Collaborators.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
If you look at the first Congress acts, you find some acts of charity. They provided for sick and disabled seamen and military. They provided for certain widows and orphans. They gave away land. They forgave debts of people who had had misfortune. They provided bankruptcy laws.
I didn't look it back up, but I believe the second congress gave aid to the indians and provided disaster relief to certain cities.
they didn't make specific provision for it because Congress had all the authority they needed to act as needed.
I say again: delivery of charity, taking care of the poor among us, is a moral act, an act of charity offered as such and received as such. When government doles out charity, it is a) funded by force and b) amoral. It is extended as an entitlement and received as one.
It is one illustration of how the force of government -- government is solely a force -- should be used conservatively, sparingly. Used in excess, it becomes consuming, "a dangerous servant and a fearful master," as George Washington supposedly said. It's a political principle, to strive to keep government to a minimum. That is the only thing I'll vote for anymore.
The Federal government's role should be minimal and I believe it should be recognized and embraced that this is a Christian nation founded on Christian principles. That's the crux of conservatism, to me. The less government, the more people can live morally.
Colonial state judges were said to spend a good portion of their time apportioning the care of orphans and indigents out to the various towns and cities so that all paid their fair share.
Most charity is still a state function. Medicaid and unemployment are administered by the states, but the Fed's got involved with matching funds to promote better care and a more level playing field among the states, in part because there was sort of a race to the bottom among the states.
Worse, you even had communities dropping orphans, disabled and other indigents at the state line. You still see that behavior some. For example, the Nevada mental institutions that were recently highlighted and sued for discharging hundreds of patients and putting them on a bus with a one way ticket to another state. Nevada Greyhound therapy for mentally ill
Care for indigents has been a government responsibility since long before this country was founded. And it was recognized as such by our founding fathers.
SSA, Medicare and SS disability are not really charity. they are insurance programs. Mandatory insurance programs that were designed to reduce the amount of indigent care that government had to provide. You might question if that's working. But the question is what would the federal and state governments be paying to take care of people if there were no such programs?
Franklin's advice that a hand up was better than a hand out is still good advice. But today what are we doing? We off-shore the jobs through government trade policy of record low tariffs, even providing a tax incentive for off-shoring relative to domestic production. Then we say it's not government's responsibility to care for them? Tough luck, if they haven't found another job, they must be lazy. They should have all moved to Alaska because there's a seasonal fishing job open. Their tough luck if they can't afford long distance job searches. I say B.S..
Government policy created this unemployment crisis, and government needs to care for them until government get's it's head on straight and raises the import tariffs back up and fixes our economy.
I'm not saying it can't be improved.
But I don't see the real problem right now as being the charitable programs. The charitable programs are in excess because government policy, specifically trade policy has killed our industries and off-shored our jobs, resulting in high unemployment.
Restore the import tariffs and bring the industries back, and people will go back to work and the charitable programs will go back to reasonable.
WE have inter generational poverty that has been created by government programs.
And third world conditions in inner cities. The cause for much of this is government programs in my opinion.
I'm not disputing that. But we don't even have jobs for people who want to work, much less for those that don't. You can't address inter-generational poverty until you have jobs available.
Jobs would help eliminate the inner city problems.
I'm all for tweaking programs to eliminate fraud.
And I'm all for tweaking them to eliminate disincentives to go back to work. But no amount of tweaking is going to help when the jobs are all in China.
That isn't the definition describing the Christian voters who voted for Santorum and Huckabee.
Many of these religious voters are conservative only when it comes to social issues (home schooling, gay marriage, right-to-life, etc.).
When it comes time to rape the taxpayer for funds to redistribute in Jesus' name, they have no qualms with doing so. They don't mind socialism on behalf of their pet causes, those that can make them feel like they're good Christians while looting their fellow man's wallet through the power of government.
I would bet half the religious conservative FReepers fit this category based on the comments I've seen here since '98.
That is just your ignorance, for one thing Huckabee and Santorum were running against Mitt Romney, it is why freerepublic endorsed Huckabee at the end.
You are the rare bird, an anti-Christian social liberal, who votes with the Evangelicals, the vast majority of your types are hard lefties.
You guys just don’t realize how rare it is that one of you votes with the right, in general, you are dedicated big government liberals who have ruined the nation, even you agree with your type on many issues and can barely stomach the right.
Actually, I’m a social conservative and economic conservative. What I’m NOT is some a-hole who decides God wants tax money to spend on socialism and votes for Santorum, Hucksterbee, and their ilk.
The people who defend Santorum and Hucksterbee are the flip side of the same coin as those who defend Romney. The former consists of looters in God’s name while the latter loots for crony capitalism.
So you don’t like Huckabee and Santorum, neither do I, maybe that is why they are nothing more than political distractions and haven’t held any office for so many years, and never will.
He’s right. We need to focus on small businesses and start ups and farms (opposing agenda 21). We also need to look at the internationalism that has wiped out the US middle class.
These are serious problems. Both the Rinos and the Dems pay no attention to these issues.
Singapore government does not care about poor people also!
There is no food stamps, no unemployment, no welfare for able bodied adults!
Guess what? There are NO POOR PEOPLE in Singapore. Their economy is booming. Their unemployment is MINUS 40%. For those in Rio Linda that means they have 40% more jobs than citizens of Singapore of working age.
Those 40% (2 million) jobs are filled by foreign workers on 2 year work permits.
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