Dear Editor:
I'm responding to Fran Bachant's letter published May 11 in the News Tribune.
I'm wondering which president Bachant quoted? I would bet it was one of our liberal socialist Democrat presidents like Obama who use the poor as pawns to create enough guilt in voters to get elected.
It now seems that a majority of the voters are now receivers of or non-payers of taxes than actually pay any taxes. As long as the liberal Democrats can keep demonizing conservatives, who by the way are mostly Christians, and all other fiscally responsible voters as cruel and unfeeling then the poor will continue to be imprisoned by our government on the plantation of dependency.
I for one am sick and tired of having my Christian faith being bashed by socialist Democrats who play on creating guilt by expecting Christians to go along with any government welfare program regardless of how corrupting, mismanaged or inefficient it may be in order to get elected! Yes, Christians are compassionate, but are also not easily fooled by smoke and mirrors.
It's beyond my comprehension as to how anyone can truly believe that an unfeeling, uncaring, bureaucratic government can do a better job of helping the poor than organizations like churches, the Salvation Army, or the myriad of other Christian and secular charity organizations designed to assist the poor.
In 2007 the U.S government spending on welfare was about $325 billion and has grown to about $700 billion in 2010. (Re: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_2004_2019USb_40t ). That equates to growth from about $4,000 to $8,000 per employed person in just 3 years and that doesn't even include state and local spending!
If every employed person would be allowed to keep that $8,000 per year, donate it to a legitimate charity, deduct the contribution from state and federal income taxes at a 25 percent tax rate the net would be about a $2,000 savings in taxes. Of course our statist politicians would tremble in fear at even the suggestion of that scenario.
As long as people like Bachant and others who believe that the government can and should make all the decisions on our behalf based on emotion and good intentions instead of logic, economics and results then we will continue our decline into a third world country.