Dear Editor:
Should churches take over welfare in America? That sounds like a good idea if you admire Iran and Saudi Arabia where religion overshadows secular government. Some would see such an idea as coming from the Cliven Bundy wing of America's religious Taliban.
Google the phrase"costs of welfare" to see fringe ideas on right wing sites that enumerate the 180-plus government programs that help fellow citizens. Notice how conservatives zero in on the growth of welfare from 2008 to 2012. Their alarm never mentions the elephant in the room. That elephant is America's second great depression and another failure of capitalism. Without government assistance there would have been massive suffering. Just as overlooked is how politicians of both major parties created this disaster at our expense to allow a few to enrich themselves.
The antidote to welfare is employment. People with decent jobs do not need welfare. Last fall Walmart opened a store in the District of Columbia and had 38 applicants for every associate position. That was five years after the economy crashed. In the crash one third of all jobs lost were low income jobs. Today, almost 60 percent of the new jobs created are now low skilled low paying jobs. Millions of Americans have been bankrupted and have lost their homes.
For the first time since the Great Depression of the 1930s, neither political party has any program to provide jobs and return prosperity to middle class citizens. Yet by 2010 Republican and Democratic administrations transferred $13 trillion dollars of public money to the banking industry. That was a complete waste. If the government had bought up underwater housing loans and required banks to restructure those loans it would have cost taxpayers $1.3 trillion, according to financial analyst Naomi Prins. Where did the $10 trillion taxpayer dollars go? It went to bonuses, salaries, more derivative gambling and to shore up banks with toxic assets.
Blaming victims of the housing crisis is the special province of conservatives. Citizens driven from their homes as jobs in America went away, need temporary help from their government. Minorities, the young and the disadvantaged have been hit the hardest. It's easy to pile on those least able to fight back. That's just cowardice. Take on the money center banks and politicians who serve them, help restore the middle class and you can claim some measure of bravery.