Morality of Government Social Programs

This post is aimed primarily at Christians and more specifically at conservative Christians.  I have probably mentioned it before, but I think it deserves mention here.  I am a conservative Christian (unless you are one of the misinformed people that do not believe Mormons are Christians).  I am not saying you should stop reading if you are not Christian, as this does apply, to a lesser degree, to most religions and maybe even some to Atheism.

First, ask yourselves if it is morally right for governments to take money from their subjects (in the form of taxes) to protect them from criminals.  If you don't know what I am talking about, governments spend tax money on police, prisons, and sometimes even rehabilitation facilities and mental wards for this purpose, not to mention other forms of law enforcement.  Most people I know have no problem with governments doing this, and many even think that the U.S. government is not doing enough to protect them.  Also, ask yourselves if it is morally right for a government to enforce religious laws, or laws with a religious basis.  As you ask yourself this, consider certain parts of the Ten Commandments, for instance, "Thou shalt not steal," and "Thou shalt not kill."  In fact, I cannot think of many U.S. laws that are not based on Christian moral laws found in the Bible.

Now, let's discuss government social programs.  Most conservative Christians are strongly opposed to government social programs (except, rather hypocritically, Social Security).  Why is this?  I actually am not sure, but I will try to think of some potential reasons anyway.  One argument I frequently hear is that it is wrong for the government to take their hard earned money and give it to other people.  One guy told me that it takes away the free agency of those with the money, because it forces them to give to the poor, instead of allowing them to choose how to use the money.  Some people say that poor people deserve what they get, because they are obviously lazy otherwise they would not be poor.  I have heard it compared to theft.  Most conservative Christians use arguments that all come back to a feeling that it somehow violates their freedom, for the government to use tax money to help those in need.

The first argument, that it is wrong for the government to take their money and give it to other people, is clearly flawed.  In fact, this is the only thing that the government does with tax money.  Tax money is given to police officers in the form of wages.  It is given to contractors to build prisons, roads, military bases, tanks, Humvees, aircraft, and all sorts of other things.  Our government does not save any tax money (actually, they pretty much always spend more than they get), so they cannot be reasonably accused of hoarding it.  Now, note that the one thing these all have in common is that the government gets some value out of the money, in labor or goods.  If you think this is the difference though, consider also that the government donates money, without any explicit obligation, to 3rd world countries, to feed people who are starving.  They even donate money, in the form of weapons, and sometimes even troops, to help warring countries, again without any explicit obligation.  Is this morally wrong?  Is it morally wrong for the government to spend our money to help people in other countries?  Maybe you would say that it depends on our business relationship with those countries.  For instance, you might say that it was not immoral to help out Kuwait, because we were buying oil from them, and if they were captured, it might increase the price of that oil, or even make it entirely unavailable to us.  Is any of this really that different from helping U.S. citizens when they need it, though?  Some of the poor in the U.S. can, and will, escape poverty, if they are given a leg up in the form of financial help.  These people will ultimately become tax payers and will most likely eventually pay enough in taxes to pay back their welfare benefits.

The second argument is absurd.  If using tax money is immoral because it deprives the payer of their agency to choose how to spend it, then it is equally immoral to prevent a murderer from killing, or a thief from stealing.  If a man wants to murder someone, but the government imprisons him, is this not taking away his agency to choose what he does?  You might say that his actions would have hurt someone, while the tax payer's actions would not have.  Aside from the fact that there is no way to know this (the tax payer might have used the money to hire a hit man, or to get drunk and beat his wife), would it not result in harm if the money was not given to the people that need it to survive?  The only difference is intent.  In court, the difference of intent is the difference between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree murder.  The harm was still done, and the fault still exists.  Intent cannot reverse the harm done.  Laws are designed to limit agency to reduce harm done and to increase fairness.  A law that does not limit agency is pointless, so this argument really just does not make sense.

I hope that the argument that the poor deserve poverty has been sufficiently debunked by our recent recession that no one still believes it.  With over 8% unemployment (which does not count those who are unemployed and still want jobs, but who have given up searching), it should be clear that a significant portion of the population who are in poverty are people who are trying to get jobs.  Claiming that these people deserve poverty because they are lazy is a foul lie.  In addition, out of those who are not employed and are not looking for jobs, many are single parents.  In fact, I would also include in this category couples with children, where one is disabled and the other cannot work much because someone has to care for the children and the disabled spouse, parents where their spouse is lazy and they are stuck caring for children and the lazy spouse, as well as anyone living in a place where there are no jobs available nearby and they cannot afford to move somewhere where jobs are available within a reasonable distance.  Most people who fall into the category are already working more than 40 hours a week caring for other people, and it is a shameful travesty of justice that we allow them to remain in poverty given how hard they are working.  I would even argue that most of these people are doing work that is much more important and valuable than anything that anyone working regular profitable jobs are doing (what do you think is more important, managing one large business, or raising the children who will eventually be expected to take over jobs including your job, the jobs of the entire government, and every other job in the U.S., not to mention a bunch more that have yet to be created).  If you still believe that not working a normal job justifies poverty, you need to read my opinion on the Death Penalty.

As far as arguments that compare Social Welfare to theft, the government has a legal right (according to an amendment to the U.S. Constitution) to tax us.  Thus, according to the law, taxing us is in no way theft.  While the Constitution does strictly limit how this tax money can be used, and the limitations do not include any allowance for it to be used for social programs, violation of the Constitution is also not theft.  Furthermore, any fault for such misuse of tax funds is not the responsibility of the entire government.  It is the responsibility of the President (who has sworn to protect and uphold the Constitution) and the Supreme Court (who's job it is to review laws and determine if they legal according to the Constitution).  It is in no way theft though.

Now, I want to discuss the underlying concern of all of these arguments.  All of these arguments come back to the idea that spending tax money on Social Welfare somehow violates the freedom of the tax payers that fund it.  We have already established that the government has the right to directly tax the people, through a Constitutional amendment (and, amendments cannot be declared unconstitutional, because they are part of the Constitution, and thus define themselves as Constitutional).  The government technically does not have the right (Constitutionally) to spend tax money on Social Welfare, but it is hard to argue that it violates the freedom of the people, when a majority of the people appear to support these programs.  Our government is based on a democratic system.  Democratic freedom is ultimately defined as the right for people to be governed as they see fit (this is based on many publications written around the time that the Constitution was actually written).  In a democratic system, this is accomplished by designing the government and its laws based on the desires of the majority of the people (because it is impossible for each person to be governed exactly how they want to be, when the population is greater than one).  In short, if the majority of the people want tax money to be spent on Social Welfare, then it is a larger violation of freedom to refuse their desires than to spend the tax money on Social Welfare.  You might consider government Social Welfare programs to violate your freedom, but your opinion is not the only one that matters.

Next I want to look at the religious implications of Social Welfare.  I have already hinted at where this is going.  Now it is time to discuss it.  Since the U.S. is still a vast majority Christian, and this article is designed for Christian readers, I am going to focus on Christian religion.  The Bible has a lot of commandments besides the ten brought down from the mountain by Moses.  Many of our laws are based on those first ten commandments.  Many are also based on an earlier part of the Bible where God granted Adam and Eve (and ultimately everyone) free agency.  Most of our laws are designed to mediate agency such that everyone has an equal share.  There is no specific commandment in the Bible against imprisoning someone against their will, however, this is a clear violation of another person's freedom, so we have a law against it to protect agency.  Many conservative Christians, however, ignore the laws that go beyond agency and the Ten Commandments.  Jesus Himself decreed that people should "clothe the naked," "feed the hungry," and do a great deal of other similar things.  This is Social Welfare.

Does the government have the right or responsibility to enforce Christian commandments regarding Social Welfare?  Most arguments I have heard say "no."  The most common arguments are first, that the government does not have the right to enforce religious laws and second, that it deprives the giver of the blessings if they are forced to give.  The first argument is clearly wrong, given that nearly every U.S. law is a religious law, that is being enforced by the government.  If fact, by this argument, I could start a new religion, make a law for that religion that is the same as a government law, and the government law would immediately cease to be valid.  It should be fairly obvious that the claim that the government has no right to enforce religious laws is absurd.  The second, that it deprives the giver of blessings, is also questionable.  This argument depends on the assumption that Jesus decreed His Social Welfare laws to give people an opportunity to obtain blessings, not because He believed that wealthy people have an obligation to help those in need.  This would imply that all of the commandments are intended to be selfish, for instance, that not murdering is not about protecting the potential victim, but about getting blessings for the potential criminal.  I hope you see how clearly absurd this is as well as I do.

If the "welfare" commandments Jesus decreed are designed to help the poor and not to give blessings to the rich, then the claim that forcing the wealthy to give to the poor is wrong because it deprives them of blessings is invalid.  In short, blessings are a beneficial byproduct of giving, not the objective and thus should not even be considered in this argument.  (Besides this, I think this claim is a lie.  I believe that someone who willingly gives, even if they are compelled to do so, will get any blessings associated with giving.  The only people who will not get blessings are those who would not have given if they had not been compelled to give.  I think the Bible even says as much.)  Given that these religious laws are designed to help and protect people, just like the Ten Commandments, I find no religious reason that the government should not use tax money to provide for the needs of those who cannot afford to do so themselves.  In fact, I find that it is equally acceptable for the government to provide Social Welfare as it is to outlaw murder and theft, from a religious perspective.  Further, I don't see why conservative Christians, who claim to believe and follow the commandments given in the Bible, don't strongly support adding this commandment to codified law.  It seems hypocritical that Christians should support laws banning same sex marriage (a position which, contrary to the claims of certain people, is supported in the Bible), but not support laws enforcing commandments concerning welfare given by Jesus Himself.

There is still the issue of Constitutionality.  This is the only valid argument against government Social Welfare.  The Constitution gives an explicit list of powers the Federal Government has, and Social Welfare is not included in that list.  (Note, however, that all other powers not explicitly prohibited by the Constitution are granted to the states.  This means that the states do have the Constitutional right to create Social Welfare programs.)  There are two ways of getting around this.  Obviously, an amendment could be made adding the right of the Federal Government to create Social Welfare programs to the above mentioned list.  The second, and in my opinion much better, way would be for all Social Welfare programs to be managed per state.  Not only would this be entirely legal, it would also help those programs to be better tailored to the situations within each state (one problem with Federal welfare programs is that they cannot keep up with differences in cost of living between different states and even different regions within states).

This is a call to all Christians to reconsider your positions on government Social Welfare programs.  I am not asking you to become liberals (and I certainly do not consider myself liberal even though I support well managed welfare), but rather, I am asking you to think for yourselves.  Welfare is not a purely liberal subject, but if conservatives don't start playing a serious part in the discussion of how to best do it, it will be controlled entirely be liberals.  We need to make welfare a bipartisan effort.  I think that this is the only way to create a truly good welfare system.  If we don't do this, then we will be pushing away the poor among us, and other, really important conservative issues will ultimately die with the loss of their support.

Lord Rybec