Comments on: What President Obama’s Budget Means for Poor People

By: Mona Colyer

Mona Colyer — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 00:46:07 +0000

How much is enough?

Who decides?

How does the 6th chapter of Matthew apply to any of this?

By: Mona Colyer

Mona Colyer — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 22:46:07 +0000

How much is enough?

Who decides?

How does the 6th chapter of Matthew apply to any of this?

By: Loan_Services

Loan_Services — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 16:58:35 +0000

Some good points raised in that post. Will be back to check for more.

Loan Advice
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By: Loan_Services

Loan_Services — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 16:57:33 +0000

Hey, great post, very well written. You should blog more about this. I’ll definitely be subscribing.

Loan Advice
good-jobs.org, airprints.com

By: Sunglasses

Sunglasses — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 00:48:19 +0000

Great post.. In my opinion.. The poor aren't getting any better . They are becoming increasingly depended on the government to make up for their own economic growth. I think the right thing to do is give them jobs or business that help them to become independent…

By: ShazamMan

ShazamMan — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:16:40 +0000

As Cal Thomas said in a recent Christianity Today interview, "Who remembers Abraham Lincoln's budget? Who cares?' Liberals such as Sider and Wallis think that throwing
money at a problem is the solution. It isn't. I agree with Hammerud's comments. If
Wallis and Sider were true evangelicals, they would be concerned with the proclaiming
of the gospel. I'm not surprised that hearing the news about the budget left Wallis in
tears. He's been beating the poverty drum for years, while ignoring the real problem of
humans, which is sin.

By: cmrk3

cmrk3 — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:16:19 +0000

The cap on charitable giving only applies to people making over $250,000. So it doesn't apply to most of us! Obama, however, would have to pay over $20,000 in taxes if this cap for rich people went into effect because of the amount he gave to charity http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=new...
which was $172,050 out of $2.66 million (6.5%).
Obama's favorite charities are anti-poverty organizations such as CARE and the Negro College Fund (and a wide range of other charities of all types). They gave nothing to Rev Jeremiah Wright's church but they have given them 50,000 between 2005 to 2007.

By: Shasta4737

Shasta4737 — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 00:54:10 +0000

Right now things just seem worse for poorer people. If you have to rent, there is no help if you can't pay it. Food prices have increased and food stamps just went up a couple dollars this year. Help for heating didn't appear to go up at all at least where I live in Indiana. Heating bills went up this year. The basic costs of living just seem to go up,up, up.
If you think it is difficult right now for middle-class people to get by, can you imagine what it is like for the poor who have to count every penny?
I voted for President Obama and still have hope, but so far I only see him helping middle-class homeowners (and the wealthy with bail outs).

By: ShazamMan

ShazamMan — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 19:47:45 +0000

As Cal Thomas recently said in a Christianity Today interview, “Who remembers Abraham Lincoln's budget? Who cares?” The answer is not to throw money at problems. Government is not the answer, it is part of the problem. As another poster said, governments are wild beasts in Scripture. Obama is quickly leading the US to become a totalitarian socialist state in which the government does everything — which means it won't do much of anything well. This is all leading up to the reign of the Antichrist, who will, to much acclaim, take power with promises to solve every crisis, but in the end won't be able to do so.

By: hammerud

hammerud — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 20:59:26 +0000

Thanks for the input. Regarding the kingdom, man will never bring it
in and it is not in the process of coming. It will come all at once,
big time. It will come when Jesus returns, after the tribulation
period. Man can't bring it in because of our fallen nature. Too many
people like me around.

By: arachne646

arachne646 — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 20:41:23 +0000

Of course we all wait for the reign of Christ for perfect justice and a perfect community, but my experience as a wife and mother approaching 50, in British Columbia. Canada, is that the health care I have had, and I have witnessed, and I have been employed in (non-union job) has varied from so-so to exellent depending on such things as the philosophy of the government in power, and the difficulty of getting professionals to work “up-country” which is over 90% of our land area. From journals I have read, Europen tawes are higher than ours, and health care covers more (Eg. fertility treatments). Our christian community believes that the kingdom is in the process of coming, and one thing we work on is getting the forgotten people to the services that exist, making sure they get a chance to vote, and making sure voters know that poverty exists.

By: hammerud

hammerud — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 18:19:13 +0000

From what I have heard the health care in any of those countries is
very poor. Maybe I'm wrong, but that is what I have heard. We will
not have a real good government, unfortunately, until Christ reigns
during the millenium, and then, of course, on into eternity. We
should try our best though, but our fallen human nature always finds
ways to mess things up.

By: arachne646

arachne646 — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 18:06:33 +0000

There is a middle ground between a third-world style democracy which the Bush/republican view cherishes, where the minimal government is concerned only with keeping peace and order; the people have a vote but no voice, effective education, or power, only the rich citizens and foreign corporations do–
And a democracy which is more balanced in the range of incomes of citizens, and in which taxes are higher, and government services to citizens are greater.
In European countries, citizens are by no means deprived of rights, and are provided with exellent free health care, university education, and generous paid vacation legislated. They are free to belong to any of a range of parties in the parliament which governs.

There is no one answer to how a democratic govenment must be called, or structured. Many successful Christian democratic socialist governments in provincial and national governments have been democratically elected, defeated, and re-elected with no problems to freedom, human rights, or democracy. Check it out.

By: BluegrassRiver

BluegrassRiver — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:11:00 +0000

I want to be supportive of ideas and budgets that assist in reducing poverty. What I am troubled about though is that if we want to be moral about our budgeting, then can we be moral by being huge borrowers? Too much debt is not a good thing and we must temper ourselves.

The conservative financial firms on Wall St. we are assisting were never managed by people in poverty and they are the first to be assisted, right?

By: xfree9

xfree9 — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 15:37:36 +0000

It matters not that we are throwing gasoline on the fire; it matters that we are throwing SOMETHING on the fire with really good intentions.

By: WaveTossed

WaveTossed — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 22:19:50 +0000

What the budget means to the poor would depend upon the programs being budgeted.

Many government aid programs treat a pplicants in such a degrading way that I wouldn't want my worst enemy to have to go through that type of treatment -- I know this first-hand back over ten years aago when I was in need of government aid.

One government program that does work is vocational rehabilityation . I was able to obtain training such that I've been able to remain employed for 12 years in a good-paying anc challenging job.

I really would prefer for private entities to give out aid to the poor and let them have 100% tax deductions. Hoewver, I prefer Obam'a approach to GWB's approach.

By: 1Grace

1Grace — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 17:24:52 +0000

I don't understand this logic. The poor are not getting any better , they are becoming increasingly depended on the government to make up for their own economic growth . I can see where increased funding for education would be a great help ,
The programs listed all require little or no incentive for anyone to increase their contributin to this world but to take .

Your taking proven methods of getting a head in this world to making it a guarantee that no matter how hard you try , or little , things will be Ok . Thats not moral .

By: nuclearferret

nuclearferret — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 02:19:11 +0000

“And the amount for economic foreign aid for poor nations should be higher. …”

“Large deficits during a bad recession are wise. Ongoing deficits mean putting current purchases on our grandchildren’s credit cards.”

Deficits to boost US infrastructure and other investments may be wise. Sending foreign aid to poor nations, keeping them dependent on the US government while borrowing the money to do so is ridiculously unwise. Perhaps President Obama should be using his great powers of persuasion to have China directly provide that foreign economic aid…it is their money anyway. Or should we just be considering the borrowing a means of buying friends in countries incapable of paying it back? Explain the morality of that to our grandchildren.

By: hammerud

hammerud — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 00:58:51 +0000

Your Title, “What Obama's Budget Will Mean for the Poor, ” I believe it will mean that the poor will have a lot more company. Most of the country's money will still go to the top privileged few. I've mentioned before that governments are depicted in the Book of Daniel as wild beasts. Governments need to be respected (Rom 13) but a government “of, by, and for” the people should be limited in its power. We appear to be moving away from that and becoming more of a people “of, by, and for” the government, the benevolent entity that supposedly is going to take care of all of us. When the government has power over virtually everything, as in the old Soviet Union and in Red China, the privileged few at the top always did fine. Everyone else was poor. Those governments didn't seem to do very well in helping the poor, and I'm not sure they really cared beyond maintaining social stability. Governments, remember, in God's view are wild beasts, not benevolent loving entities.

By: ando

ando — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 23:45:32 +0000

The proverbial devil is always in the details. Pouring more money into a problem doesn't always work. We need to figure out ways to “teach a man (and woman and child) how to fish. To take the next step into accountability and personal responsibility. Yes we should always try to help the true “least of these”. But my family has to make sacrifices. I know that a lot of so-called poor families in the US have nice tvs with cable or satellite tv, drive nice vehicles, and generally live for today. Obviously not pc to say, but coming from a lot of experience and personal observation. The great majority of the so-called poor in the US have it much better off than those in the developing world.

I have a lot of respect for Ron Sider, but I think he has a blind spot to government and the poor. The govt. has a role to play in promoting the general welfare, but the citizenry and especially the church need to be on the front lines. We need a total reform of the system that rewards greed and at the same time rewards irresponsible behavior.