It truly shows a lack of either belief or faith in the God of scripture for these GOP lawmakers to refuse to give and provide and not take away what the little bit that is already being provided to the poor.

It is truly a test from God when we face these types of decisions to make. Our leaders are truly blind if they can’t see that they are being put to the test, all their cries concerning their walk and concerns concerning the things of God.

The Bible says:

Malachi 3:10
“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this,” says the LORD of hosts, “if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows”.

Tithes were for the purpose of providing for the poor, fatherless and widow. Some foolishly think that this applies only to the church but it applies to everyone in all and every situation in a Christian’s life.

This applies so to government where God will bless the land of that government for doing His will by caring for its poor, fatherless children and elderly etc…

By the way, I will be at this rally and I hope many others will also.

Does it seem like we’re brainwashed?

“That is our money they are spending, and I want it to reflect our values and priorities.”

If it’s ours, we want it to be spent how we would spend it, why do we let an inefficient system skim and manipulate and spend it wrong? Do we need them to acomplish this, or is it a middle-man scheme?

D. attacks the GOP, but in reality his criticism is for the left. It shows a lack of belief in the left’s version of church state separation. What we’re saying is we want a government to follow biblical guidelines on how they spend our money. But the underlying reason is if we did it ourselves, we couldn’t trust the bad rich guys to spend their money right. So give it to the middle man and let government spend everybody’s money the way the way d. would have them spend it.

If you want it to reflect your values, keep it away from the government.

In our efforts to help the poor, let us not make them slaves of the state. Watch especially for socialized medicine - ostensibly designed to help the poor - that will end up limiting freedom for all. Respect for justice and for everyone’s personal relationship to God is the true Christ led measure of compassion.

D Walker - the last time I checked, God gave us a free will. People should have the choice (Dems love choice except in the case of the FOCA abortion conscience clause that McCaskill voted against last night). You can’t have your cake and eat it too. If you are going to tax people into forced giving, then don’t complain when charities suffer and suffer they will when people don’t have any money left over to give to charity or realize that the charitable recipients backed by religious faiths backed Obama who is going to give them all their needs through charity.

Ah, the hazards of blogging: no editor! I knew the sentence that “mikew” picked on was a potential hornet’s nest, and I probably should have left it out. But honestly it’s a leap from there to brainwashing.

Here’s how I see it. Democracy is an inherently flawed system, where at best none of us will ever be completely happy with the choices our representatives make. And that’s okay–it’s probably even a good thing.

That said, the money they spend is my money–our money, your money (assuming you pay taxes)–and it is very much a right and even a responsibility of mine as a citizen to advocate for it to be spent in a way that I can support. Again, I can’t imagine I will ever see a state budget that reflects 100 percent of my values. But why bother having a representative democracy if I’m not going to get involved from time to time, and urge others to do so also?

As for this violating the church/state divide: nonsense. Hogwash, even. Everyone has, or ought to have, an opinion about the state budget and everyone’s opinion is or should be based on his or her values. My values are tied to my religious beliefs, but that’s my problem…er, I mean privilege. Lots of people of different faiths and many of no faith at all will have the same values I do. Many people of my same faith (Christians, even fellow Episcopalians) will disagree with my values. So be it.

Since I’m on a rampage I guess I should add that I don’t think this is a stricly partisan issue. (Wasn’t it President Clinton who eviscerated welfare? Aren’t “Blue Dog democrats” sometimes indistinguishable from “compassionate conservatives”? And I believe that George W. Bush’s administration spent a lot of money on AIDS initiatives.) Neither party gets it right, or wrong, all of the time.

Check your state constitution. Check your U.S. Constitution for that matter. Nowhere will you find it the responsibility of the government to take care of these problems. What about the justice and compassion of the families of these people? Where is their responsibility?

People need to stop relying on the government. There is a very specific set of duties the government has to do, and this isn’t one of them.

Pam you are right that this is our tax dollars, and I am glad to see you exercise your rights as a citizen. And this is not a seperation of church and state issue either. This is First Amendment all the way, and we have a right to speak about it.

The government’s job is to defend citizens from Rights violations, crime and foreign nations and building and maintaining infrastructure. Charitable organizations are in charge of taking care of the charity cases. How about we make a law that let’s you Opt In to extra taxes to take care of your conscience, so the rest of us don’t need to pay more taxes.

On the other hand, good luck, hopefully I can quit my job, lie around and collect your social welfare.

Pamela
Yep, right on about the separation thing. I guess I was making the same point in a reversed manner.

My real point is that if all we’re doing is having the government spend our money (charitable) the way the majority of us would - and with no real specific authority to, then why not just let us do it? I see the “social justice squad” these days - people who would do nothing but scream about separation during Bush - trying to moralize for liberal causes and entitlement. It seems hypocritical and I get the distinct impression that what it’s really about is telling those with money how to spend it morally by taking it from them simply because they don’t believe a big bad business owner would do what they consider right.

I’m tired of the term social justice already. The hallmark of real social justice is equality. I’m not saying not to help the helpless, but the fact that you can get super rich in America is proof of social justice, not lack of it. The same can be said about self-inflicted poverty.

Why wouldn’t government also have some role in helping out its citizens that are in trouble; doesn’t it send aid to foreign countries all the time? What about the $50 million Bush promised for AIDs relief in the continent of Africa?

Neither extreme, helping too much or not helping out at all, is healthy for any good society or democracy.