Yes.

People need to understand that one part of the Church’s teaching cannot be viewed as incompatible with the other part of the teaching.

In this case, people have a tendency to view Solidarity and Subsidiarity as opposites. That’s much the same mistake as trying to put Paul up against James and say that James’ “not by faith alone” is incompatible with Paul’s “by faith, apart from works of law.” If you see a contradiction like that in God’s word (God does not contradict Himself) then you know you’re interpreting something wrong.

Solidarity is produced when persons, families, voluntary membership organizations, parishes, et alia VOLUNTARILY band together into larger units to do some worthy task.

Compelling them to band together (“or else!”) is not Solidarity. It is faux Solidarity. It is the devil’s aping of God’s Solidarity. What God achieves through love, the devil tries to achieve through fear.

Excellent piece.  This tendency to can also arguably be seen in regard to charitable donations.  Conservatives give more to charity than liberals, perhaps precisely because liberals tend to see taxes and government programs as doing their part to help those in need.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/conservatives_more_liberal_giv.html

Of course, the unfortunate thing is that the government model of providing for those in need tends to pervert true charity.  Instead of a voluntarily giving out of love (and thereby modeling the love of Christ), a forced tax is in place.  Instead of grateful reception, the receiver tends to perceive a government benefit that is *due* him or her.

“Compelling them to band together (“or else!”) is not Solidarity. It is faux Solidarity. It is the devil’s aping of God’s Solidarity. What God achieves through love, the devil tries to achieve through fear.”

Well said R.C.

You have grossly misrepresented Catholic Social Teaching, especially “Caritas in Veritate” in pursuit of your party-political agenda.

The first part of your quote is from para 38, the second part from para 11.

To say that “Solidarity ... sense of responsibility ... cannot be MERELY delegated to the State ” does not mean that there is no role or a minimal role for the State. This responsibility is not an either/or.

Subsidiarity is about doing things at the lowest EFFICIENT level. Depending on the task, the efficient level might be the UN, multinational, national, federal, state, county, city, neighbourhood, street, family AND/OR individual levels of organization.

Consider national defence and policing. Does Subsidiarity mean the end of UN peacekeeping forces, NATO, US armed forces, State National Guard, FBI, State police, county police, city police in favour of only armed private citizens protecting themselves and their families?

This is the either-or line of reasoning used to argue for the end of Social Security.

Paul Ryan wants to cut spending to the poorest and give the money to the richest in tax cuts. This is dressed up as Subsidiarity. You try to make Ryan’s “Preferential Option for the Rich” sound like giving people dignity.

I urge everyone who plans to vote, to prayerfully read “Caritas in Veritate” http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en.html

The following passage shows the Pope’s view of social welfare spending:

“25. From the social point of view, systems of protection and welfare, ... are finding it hard and could find it even harder in the future to pursue their goals of true social justice in today’s profoundly changed environment. ... These processes have led to a downsizing of social security systems ... with consequent grave danger for the rights of workers, for fundamental human rights and for the solidarity associated with the traditional forms of the social State.

” Systems of social security can lose the capacity to carry out their task ... Here budgetary policies, with cuts in social spending ... can leave citizens powerless in the face of old and new risks; such powerlessness is increased by the lack of effective protection on the part of workers’ associations. ...

“The repeated calls issued within the Church’s social doctrine, beginning with Rerum Novarum, for the promotion of workers’ associations that can defend their rights must therefore be honoured today even more than in the past, as a prompt and far-sighted response to the urgent need for new forms of cooperation at the international level, as well as the local level. ...

“27. Life in many poor countries is still extremely insecure as a consequence of food shortages, and the situation could become worse: hunger still reaps enormous numbers of victims among those who, like Lazarus, are not permitted to take their place at the rich man’s table, contrary to the hopes expressed by Paul VI[64]. Feed the hungry (cf. Mt 25: 35, 37, 42) is an ethical imperative for the universal Church, as she responds to the teachings of her Founder, the Lord Jesus, concerning solidarity and the sharing of goods ...”

Above from Leo: “Paul Ryan wants to cut spending to the poorest and give the money to the richest in tax cuts.”

I could comment in various ways about this unsupported assertion from Leo, which amounts to that which Leo criticizes in this blog (i.e. “you have grossly misrepresented…in pursuit of your party-political agenda”), but I think I must rather limit my response to just sharing a public chuckle. Ha Ha Ha Good one, Leo!

A very interesting article.

Actually, Leo, subsidiarity is NOT about doing things at the most “efficient” level. “Efficient” is an ambiguous word that can mean anything one wants it to mean. And, frankly, subsidiarity often is grossly inefficient, but it is nonetheless the right, moral, human way to do things. Stated practically, subsidiarity is the principle that decisions should be made by those most immediately associated with the situation, and that higher order persons or agencies should not interfere or impose unless they are invited or the lower order person/agency is failing. For example, a mother and father should rightfully direct the care and education of their children. No one else has the right to intrude upon this UNLESS it is clear that the mother and father are failing in their duty to their children and causing them harm.

Also, while I agree that the presentation of subsidiarity and solidarity are (perhaps necessarily) oversimplified, it was a decent attempt to cover complex issues in a way that might engage the average viewer and encourage him to reflect upon these matters, especially the tension between “non-dispensable” issues and those that are more prudential. These are complex topics, and would be hard to thoroughly present in less than 15 minutes.

Finally, I think your statement about Ryan’s budget proposals miscasts the ethical conflict and mis-applies the oft-touted Preferential Option for the Poor (POP). Stated simply, POP is the principle that, ALL OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL, we should give preference to those in need. It is not a license to take property or money from one person via the lever of government or any other means, so that we can hand it to someone else. Neither you nor I nor any person has the right to take the property of one person, give it to someone else, and claim that it was morally justified due to the Preferential Option for the Poor.

I am sure you are very well-intentioned and you seem well-read. This is all good. One thing that we cannot do, however, is to impose our good intentions upon others, especially under the threat of violence (i.e., via political or governmental means). The ends do not justify the means, and this is the key problem with politics and government… all of it.

Great point Leo! :) You will face many political conservatives who just got to feeling justified. It won’t be pretty, but you are absolutely right! There are certain areas the government, led by people with a vocation to help the poorest of the poor, AND by individuals on all levels and groupings. Pope Benedict XVI called for ===>(http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1004736.htm)the State to assure guaranteed access to health care (not that it should completely control it). That is one example of how this Ryanish version doesn’t work. Socialism (Nanny State) is not the answer, but there are certain areas that the Free Market should not control.  I will let the CCC speak for itself:

CCC 2425
The Church has rejected the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies associated in modem times with “communism” or “socialism.” She has likewise refused to accept, in the practice of “capitalism,” individualism and the absolute primacy of the law of the marketplace over human labor.207 Regulating the economy solely by centralized planning perverts the basis of social bonds; regulating it solely by the law of the marketplace fails social justice, for “there are many human needs which cannot be satisfied by the market.” Reasonable regulation of the marketplace and economic initiatives, in keeping with a just hierarchy of values and a view to the common good, is to be commended.”

Leo - you clearly didn’t read what I wrote. I never once advocated for no government involvement. In fact, I said something quite different all together. I built upon precisely what Pope Benedict and CST says on the matter. Your projecting.

    The power of individual charity is now miniscule in light of modern medical costs.  Catholic nursing homes RECEIVE
60% of their operating income from medicaid.  When a nun in such work eats dinner, medicaid is paying for 60% of her meal….60% of her clothing.  Ryan wanted to cut $800 billion in ten years from the fed side of their budget.
    Medicaid costs about $400 billion a year.  The Vatican has $1 billion in savings.  The Vatican could not cover medicaid’s bills for one complete day out of 365.
    Each US parish gave about $3600 to Haiti relief.  If a parish wanted to cover one elderly person’s bills in a skilled nursing home with heart monitors etc., they would have to come up with not $3600 but c. $60,000 depending on your area.  If a parish wanted to take care of three of their elderly, $180,000 would be the cost…not $3600 for a whole country.
    Medicaid also covers 37% of child births in the US.  It is fantasy to think that cutting its funds will not increase abortions.
    I give monthly to curtail abortions in Beijing; it is miniscule compared to modern taxation’s abilities..  The power of a government to tax and do good is astronomically superior to private charity of little people.

ps…that is $60,000 per year in a nursing home.

Bill - you miss the point. The money is ours, whether it is the federal gov managing it or us at the local level. It always baffle me when people think Government has some magical source of money that nobody else has. That we couldn’t possibly afford it without the federal government. That’s nonsense. It’s our money. And when they decide to print or borrow money they don’t have to pay for things, it’s still our money (as the value of every dollar in our bank accounts were just inflated). It’s just a matter of who best to give the money to for spending and who is in the best place to make the best decisions.

So, first, it’s not about one level of government having more money than another. Each branch has as much money as we give it! It’s about who should be managing it.

The question is WHO can better decide how to spend the money distributed by medicare/medicaid/other programs?  The answer is the person/org closest to the situation. This is subsidiarity. The further away from the situation the decision makers are, the more corrupt the process will be, the more inefficient it will be, the more expensive it will be and the worse care the person on the end will get.

Therefore, second, the high medical costs. Medical costs are inflated, too, due to an inefficient, bureaucratic and corrupt system. Making it more bureaucratic, with more fed gov involvement (i.e. Obamacare, affordable care act) is going to make the problem worse. Either costs will continue to go up or quality will go down. These are just facts of the market, whether we like it or not. We have to learn how to spend our money smarter by letting the right people make the decisions, not kicking the can down the road and up the social structure (which hasn’t worked so far).

Matthew,
    You’re simply saying that local is more honest than federal.  And you may well be correct at the small town level. Not the case in Hudson County N.J. when I grew up there and where there was a history of job cronyism and job patronage much like those Popes of the distant past that used to make their nephews Cardinals as teens.  Perhaps your local area’s people are better because your power structure is watched by everyone in town.
    I did one year of welfare work in NYC after college and I was one of very few caseworkers actually making every single visit to homes.  The majority of NYC dwellers doing that work in their local city would tell welfare clients to come in to intake and then they would write the report as though they had gone to the home.  Their supervisors were simply promoted caseworkers who had done things that way earlier.  That is why you sporadically see child abuse cases in the newspapers wherein the caseworker didn’t see scarred children.  Often they never visited the house because it was in a dangerous neighborhood but they were supposed to visit the house.
    So my experience does not match your faith in local as best but that could be due to locale.  Maybe very small town is good unless a clan dominates that small town.  Racism in the South ultimately was broken down by Federal intervention which doesn’t speak well of local as best in that context.  Each person has a different context in judging the local as beneficent issue.
    Ryan is not only about local but about reducing aggregate money in the plans since otherwise he would be arguing for state rights over Federal money not reductions.  I would begin to listen to his thrift if I heard him denouncing the 4 trillion the Eisenhower Institute costed Bush’s Iraq war at….the search for weapons of mass distruction.  He voted for that war twice which means he too is capable of wasting money big time in a future adventure while decreasing money to the elderly and birthing.

Bill - you’re still completely missing the point. And you’ve thrown a wide range of various social challenges into the mix that each have to be considered individually. The principles I’ve supported here are not local is always better (or more honest) or that bigger government is always bad. I’m talking about the principles applied to find which level of government is best suited to help solve the problem while recognizing the trade-offs involved with each one.

It’s not that local is always more honest, you misunderstand. It’s that local tends less toward corruption and dishonesty because it is easier for individuals who care to hold them accountable. That doesn’t mean they don’t sometimes need help from higher up the chain.

And really, more to the point of my post, I’m saying that just because something is raised to a higher level of government involvement does not negate the role and responsibility of the lower levels below it and, ultimately, that of the individual. That’s the key takeaway here.

As far as Ryan, he is trying to balance the fact that it is also immoral to spend more money than you have. And he’s one of the only politicians willing to take on that cliff we’re currently headed toward honestly. So I give him kudos for that, even if you disagree with how he gets there, very few others have put forth anything that deals with these issues seriously.

It’s easy to sit back and criticize. It’s much harder to put something real on the table. Obama and the democrats have done absolutely nothing to deal with REALITY when it comes to these challenges.

  I think something that is constantly overlooked and never stressed enough when discussing this issue it that our country is currently insolvent.  Any way you look at the balance sheet we’re bankrupt.
  Another depression worse than the Great Depression is foreshadowed.  How can the current gov’t social safety net policies go unchanged and continue to benefit the poor if everyone is broke?
  It’s absolutely irresponsible to relegate care of the poor solely to subsidiarity through gov’t intervention if gov’t insolvency threatens to make everyone poor and dependant on the gov’t for help as well.
  It seems to me criticism of Ryan’s budget comes not so much from a preference and charity for the poor, but is more truly rooted in a repugnance for individual and personal self sacrifice and responsiblity.
  We’re bankrupt folks, I would hope that everyone begin to look at the personal part they play, prepare themselves for the necessary self-sacrifice required and stop depending soley on gov’t subsidiarity to provde the answer.

Dismas,
    Ryan voted twice for a war that the papacy challenged and that a group out of Brown University costed out at $4 trillion dollars in the long term…a war to find weapons of mass destruction that were not there.  How is Ryan thrifty if he can cut $8 billion from medicaid but spend $4 trillion on a war that will go down in history as bizarre at best.  Dismas, Ryan spent 500 times more money on a quixotic war than he will cut from medicaid.  He would be thrifty if he opposed medicaid growth and costly dumb wars both.  He doesn’t.  He supports the Afghanistan war which has no chance of success which is a requirement of a just war.

On the internet go to: ” What Catholics REALLY Believe Source ” or hppt://whatcatholicsreallybelieve.com

See the answer to question: # 6 - ” Is there a conflict in the Church’s teachings on Social Justice, Solidarity, Subsidiarity, Commutative Justice, the Commandment to Love our Neighbor, the Commandment not to covet our neighbor’s goods ? Please define Commutative Justice. “
The answer is provided using the “CATECHISM of the CATHOLIC CHURCH, Second Edition”.

Unfortunately, subsidiarity and commutative justice (without which no other form of justice is possible) is left out of Church teaching by those who wish to distort Church teaching for their own political agenda.
The Federal, State, Local Governments, and each of us must pay our bills or it violates God’s Commandment against stealing.
Although there are a few, how many Bishops and Priests preach ‘COMMUTATIVE JUSTICE’ and ‘SUBSIDIARITY’ ? ? ?

You can debate all you want.
Obama is evil in the non-negotiable areas where prudential judgment is NOT permitted.
1) - Abortion - he not only supports abortion (the murder of innocents for convenience) but is using our tax dollars to promote abortion in the USA and abroad.
2) - Homosexual Marriage - Obama supports and promotes sodomy.
Obama is against DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) and refuses to have his justice department enforce the existing law.
Further, he removed the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” rule in the US Military.
3) - Freedom of Religion - Obama violates his Oath of Office on the Bible to uphold the US Constitution - 1st Amendment “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”.
By his own executive order, he violates of free exercise of religion by forcing us by using our tax dollars to violate our religious beliefs - in regarding to abortion and contraception.

If you vote for Obama, you may not recieve Holy Communion per Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict)—- BECAUSE there is nothing proportionate in the USA to the murder of approx 1 MILLION innocents through abortion each year.
On the internet see: “Worthiness to Recieve Holy Communion, General Principles” by Cardinal Ratzinger 2004.

Anne,
    I would not vote for Obama in any scenario.  I’m leaning toward not voting but praying that God picks the less damaging person.  Democrats make abortion probable through laws and Ryan will make abortions probable through cut backs in medicaid which pays for 37% of all births in the US…pre natal, delivery and post partum.  The Bishops should have hired a research team to detail the probabilities of abortion under Obama through laws versus under Ryan through cut backs.  Medicaid now pays for over a third of all births in the US.

@bill bannon - even though I don’t have any insights into how or why Ryan voted the way he did regarding the Afghanistan war, I can say that holding an individual US Congressman personally responsible for, a) it’s existence and b)it’s cost, is absolutely BEYOND absurd and downright calumny.

bill, if you are Catholic, you are REQUIRED/OBLIGED to VOTE.
This requirement can be found in the “Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition” - #2240.

There is zero documentation on the false statements from “Catholics for Obama” regarding Medicaid and abortion. This is a statement they can not prove.  In fact under Obama, Medicaid pays for abortion, voluntary sterilization, and contraception.

Not to sound like a broken record, but on internet, please go to ” What Catholics Really Believe Source”.  It includes all the links needed for documentation.  Check out the answer to # 13.
On the site there is also a search engine site to the CCC so you can see the wording in # 2240.  No one is asking you to take anyone’s word for it. - Only our Church documentation if you are Catholic.

Bill - your numbers on Ryan, medicaid/medicare cuts and abortion are all off (and your earlier number comparing the cost of the war to the cuts to the budget are way whack).

But first, if we don’t contain spending/costs in these programs they will go broke - meaning nobody gets anything (or at least not anywhere near what is being promised). There will be cuts somewhere, that is a fact. The fact that few other politicians are willing to make the cuts are what is immoral.

Second, the kinds of cuts he is talking about making are not that drastic (in the big picture). They are going back to levels of spending we had in the previous decade in most cases. Were things so bad back then? So if you want to know how such cuts will affect various things like abortion, you can get at least some kind of idea by going back a decade or so. The scare tactics that you’ve bought in to are leading many people astray on these issues.

Bill, you are right on, just like Leo is.

Paul Ryan wants to privatize (bring the responsibility of) health care and other areas of human need, which cannot be satisfied by of the market. Further, he attempts to say it is church teaching… That brings him to borderline heresy, since it is just the opposite.
CCC 2425
“The Church has rejected the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies associated in modem times with “communism” or “socialism.” She has likewise refused to accept, in the practice of “capitalism,” individualism and the absolute primacy of the law of the marketplace over human labor. Regulating the economy solely by centralized planning perverts the basis of social bonds; regulating it solely by the law of the marketplace fails social justice, for “there are many human needs which cannot be satisfied by the market.” Reasonable regulation of the marketplace and economic initiatives, in keeping with a just hierarchy of values and a view to the common good, is to be commended.”

Concerning voting, yes we need to vote as “good” catholics. It does not say who we have to vote for. If I vote for someone other than Romney or Obama, there is no sin in it. I will not vote for Romney and Ryan because I know what the conservatives have done the last time we gave them a chance. I can’t stand how our nation leads the industrialized world in avoidable mortality because of our lack of the universal healthcare that our pope believes should be the State’s responsibility. Sure the market can be a part OF it, but it cannot be the governor because of the profit factor (and the teaching in 2425)...

People need to take responsibility, but what Ryan proposes has nothing to do with that. His real agenda is clearly to promote tea party politics in the guise of Catholic social doctrine. He is a wolf in sheep’s clothing if there ever was one…

Daniel, that’s a very inaccurate analysis.

Which part and how so? It was a pretty basic claim, backed by the CCC brother…

Matt
  Go by my beginning posts…the one to Dismas was way off. 
Ryan wanted to cut $800 billion from ten years of medicaid not $8 billion which lower figure makes it 500 times less than the Eisenhower Institute’s 1 trillion for Iraq.  Yes that one post is incorrect because I lowered without noicing what Ryan wants to cut….$800 billion not $8 billion.  The earlier post was accurate.

  If Ryan were to get more republicans in Congress, he could stick with his $800 billion.  You ignore that medical costs are increasing at their own private very fast rate which makes going back to previous levels of funding a non starter.
You ignore as a Christian the problem of Ryan wanting to not cut military but yes cut the lower income people on elder care and child delivery.
    Which expensive war Ryan voted for….Iraq or Afghanistan…is no problem for you in terms of just war?

Anne
  You making up obligations for Catholics and I think all here know it….even the ones who love Ryan blindly.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if families took care of their families.
And neighbors took care of their neighbors.
Just like Jesus preached.
SUBSIDIARITY.  CCC - 1883, 1885, 1894, 2209.
And FEDERAL, STATE and LOCAL GOVERNMENTS paying their bills rather than going deeper into debt. COMMUTATIVE JUSTICE without which no other form of justice is possible)  CCC 2411.
We would all plan differently rather than relying on the pagan government god to meet our needs.

CCC: ” 1885 The principle of subsidiarity is opposed to all forms of collectivism.
It sets limits for state intervention. It aims at harmonizing the relationships between individuals and societies. It tends toward the establishment of true international order.”
CCC: ” 1894 In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, neither the state nor any larger society should substitute itself for the initiative and responsibility of individuals and intermediary bodies.”
CCC: ” 1883 Socialization also presents dangers.
Excessive intervention by the state can threaten personal freedom and initiative.
The teaching of the Church has elaborated the principle of subsidiarity, according to which “a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to co- ordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good.”
CCC: ” 2209 The family must be helped and defended by appropriate social measures. Where families cannot fulfill their responsibilities, other social bodies have the duty of helping them and of supporting the institution of the family.
Following the principle of subsidiarity, larger communities should take care not to usurp the family’s prerogatives or interfere in its life.”

Anne,
    If your neighbor needs a heart monitor and kidney dialysis when they are 80 years old, you are not going to be able to help them…..unless you have a spare $60,000 a year laying around to pay for the skilled nursing home.

If the government was not so involved, medical care would not be so expensive.
Obama is throwing seniors under the bus.
80 year olds will not get significant health care. This is called euthanasia.
This is what has happened already and can be verified on internet.- - - -
1.  Women over age 74 will no longer be able to get mammograms re cancer.
2.  Hospitals are already being financially penalized for re-admitting seniors for recurring serious illness within a certain period of time.  This is age discrimination only against seniors.
The god government determines who lives and who dies.

Anne,
    Government is reigning in med costs by denying doctor requests right now.  My sister in law has been denied an MRI for two months now by medicare because medicare feels the doctor is over ordering.  The legal system and its lawsuits for malpractice is one of the forces that have been increasing costs.  I felt dizzy years ago and went to a hospital with health coverage and they kept me two days and $30,000 worth of tests and found nothing.  I then went to an internist who immediately said it was an inner ear infection and he was stunned that they never considered that.  But he said I really had top of the line tests.  What happened? The hospital was intent on being thorough so that no law suit would follow.  That fear made them skip the simple….inner ear infections can make one dizzy.  If you ever begin to feel dizzy, check that first because untreated, you can lose your hearing.

Hey Matt:

Thanks for your analysis. I agree for the most part. The thing I’m most confused about is that there are still so many in need- even with all the current aid that is provided by both Church and state. I have worked in community mental health for over 12 years now and see so many children who need help and can’t get it because of cutbacks at both state and federal levels. I worry so much that if Medicaid, for example, gets cut, many more children and mentally ill adults will not receive the services they need. This will still result in extra costs as they end up in jail, detention centers, state hospitals or sadly, committing violent crimes that hurt those around them. Its easy to say that these programs are making us go broke, but how can we justify spending so much on other programs (military for example) and cut programs that help the least. Surely we can’t expect local charity to pick up the costs. Even Catholic charities here in my state receive the vast majority of their ability to provide cousneling and foster care services through Medicaid funding. The monies received from the Church and donations only account for a small amount they receive. Just some random thoughts :)

So Matthew…just a friendly question….Ryan’s own budget doesn’t get into balance for some 30-40 years (even assuming one buys his growth projections this far out).  And Ryan’s budget does indeed call for reducing the top income tax rate to 25% (ROmney said he wanted to reduce it to 28%) and for eliminating the capital gains tax. So while medicare, medicaid, and social security are being dramatically scaled back for future (not current) recipients the top earners will be getting another massive tax cut.  I’m not making this up…it’s in the Ryan plan!!!

Why am I wrong to think that this plan doesn’t really have much to do at all with making painful sacrifices to reduce the debt and deficit and in fact has alot more to do with using the deficit and debt as a pretext to dramatically scale back programs for the elderly and needy so that the “job creators” can have an even bigger share of the pie? The economic (supply side) rationale and its merits aside, is this plan really consistent with Catholic social teaching?  Do you really expect us to buy that it is? 

This is nothing more than a long desired ideological assault on the social safety net as far as I’m concerned. 

Better to just come out and say that abortion trumps every other issue and that accepting Ryan’s Randian economics is a necessary pill to swallow to help the unborn.

Scott,

There will always be needs in the world. And we must do our best to help them within reason. But the trap we’ve gotten in to is that we justify ANY amount of taking of other people’s money (higher taxes, etc.) to try and quench an ultimately unquenchable fire. I don’t mean to come off cold at all. It’s just a hard situation. The fact is that the money is not there for us to spend millions of dollars on every senior to improve quality of life. So at some point, we have to recognize there are limits and live within those. It’s a fallen world.

Now, can we do a better job of helping those in need? Absolutely! And we should work hard to do so. Again, the trouble I have is that in most of these cases, the federal government having ANYTHING to do with administering and determining the guidelines for is not only very ineffective, but also dangerous (as we’ve seen first hand with the attack on our own religious liberties now).

The question is how do we get what money (resources) we do have to the people who need them? And, just as importantly, what is the moral way to distribute them. Taking from one to give to another because YOU think it is the right thing to do is not really a Christian mindset. We should encourage and inspire others to give more, but to take is not Christian. Now I realize this is a murky line drawn between taking what we want and recognizing that we all owe some amount of taxes. And that is certainly a prudential judgment when it’s within reason. But the level of taxing we would have to do to fund the level of spending you (or at least many are advocating for based upon emotional appeals to “help the least among us”) are literally impossible.

Not only that, these taxes are not magically taken in isolation from some rich guy’s savings account. Those are the dollars used to invest in an economy that is the engine that makes ALL of this possible. This is what so many democrats and those like @jsmitty above miss.

It’s much easier to say, oh they just wanna give more money to the rich. This is (for the most part) ignorant piffle. It’s a matter of whether or not we think the money will help us more in a rich investor’s pocket or in the government coffers. In almost all cases of the advancement of our society and the improvements in quality of life, the answer has been the former (i.e. in the private investor’s pocket).

It is the advancements that have come from private individuals who are free to risk their own money in order to advance society in smart ways which have made America the wealthiest country on the planet. And it’s those same advancements that have led to even the option to work for better work conditions, better health care, access to information, and an overall better quality of life. It is so backwards and myopic to think that these advancements were legislated into existence. The legislation always followed the option even being available…which means having an economy that can sustain it in the first place.

Most of the biggest advancements in health care and quality of life for the entire world in the recent 50 years have been produced from what so many people call our broken and corrupt health care market and capitalistic economy. And in the process, we’ve taken the quality of life here order of magnitude past where it was (and where it still is in much of the rest of the world). We miss the forrest for the trees.

is it perfect, no. But there’s something to it and if we’re not careful and continue chasing our own passionate desires to help the least among us WITHOUT also recognizing what makes our pursuit of it all even possible and as good as it is, we’ll end up not only not improving the system, but undermining it completely.

Jsmitty,
  ps….the medicaid cuts by Ryan ($800 billion ...Bloomberg) are immediate over the next ten years.  If you exhaust your savings in late life in a nursing home at $60K a year, medicaid now pays for you as indigent til death.

OK great so the prudent thing from the standpoint of Catholic Social teaching to do is to cut taxes at the top, shrink benefits at the middle and bottom…Got it. Next question…

So what’s the evidence that lower income taxes and capital gains taxes actually help anyone but those at the top?  Didn’t we try this in 2001 and 2003 with Bush?  Am I wrong to suggest that the results were found wanting? 

What’s the reason—given that taxes as a share of GDP is lower than at anytime since WWII, and given that rates at the top are far lower now than they have been for most of that time—for thinking that additional tax cuts at the top will produce widely shared prosperity?  This seems a belief more on blind faith in the supply side fantasia than, oh say… common sense, recent experience or any rudimentary conception of equity. To me it discredits the whole Ryan program’s central claim of being about shared sacrifice and fiscal responsibility.  It’s just about redistributing wealth and income further upward on the hope that the producer/investor class will magically rain down dollar bills on everyone. 

Matt if having a small number of wealthy investors at the top (regardless of the welfare of everyone else) were the key to general prosperity, then Nicaragua and Bolivia would be booming economies now. 

Earth to Matt (this isn’t the 1980’s anymore and Reagan’s not coming back).  I’m not a Democrat and I am strongly pro-life and won’t vote for Obama under any circumstances.  But it would be alot easier to attract Catholics to the GOP if that party would return to sanity and practical governance and drop these quixotic pursuits of some arcane right-wing social vision more akin to an Ayn Rand novel than anything in the real world or Catholic social teaching.

Hi Bill!

I’ve really enjoyed reading through this conversation.  Curious as to what you propose doing to save Medicare.  Certainly you don’t believe that the program can continue as-is with no adjustments (or do you?)  Ryan has never called for shutting down entitlement programs, just for firming up their fiscal foundations & implementing them in line with subsidiarity.  Our first impulse shouldn’t be to turn to the United States government for help, we should turn to our families, then the local community…widespread direct recourse to a federal bureaucracy is ultimately unsustainable and the reason we need painful cutbacks in the first place. 

Do you see a way forward that doesn’t necessitate both cutbacks and a more appropriate implementation of government social programs?

Matt Salisbury,
    I never mentioned Medicare once.  The very latest version of the republicans on Medicare does not seem unreasonable….but its too nuanced for an ad or a campaign speech.  Politifacts site is good on it.
    I will not vote for Obama but pray that God picks the least damaging person ( the electoral votes in my area are sewed up anyway). I suspect Ryan would cause more abortions and euthanasia incidents than Obama in the long run due to mediCAID cuts instead of medicaid discipline ( mandate that children take parents into their homes if that is not dangerous and is medically feasible.)
    I think Romney and Ryan are beginning to lose though.  In the video, Romney insulted every American with an elder on social security…which is the whole country almost.  Total welfare dependent are only 4.1% of the US but ” not taking care of their lives” applies mainly only to a percent of that percent.  Cutting mediCAID while being totally capable of future expensive wars is the thrift con job that will sink them with moderate Christian readers.  Fear of rich men taking away the safety net will sink them with non readers.
    Have you noticed since Vietnam that most wars cost more in lives and money than they produce which was not true
of WWII which saved Europe from Hitler and saved China from Japan’s planned enslavement of them.  I love the small smart war concept. Panetta has killed most of the Al Qaeda big wigs outside the Iraq war area with drones.

@ Matt Salisbury

I agree that we have to do something with entitlements.  Cutting them back, shifting the costs, raising taxes or some combination of the above will all have to be done in the future. 

I’m not sure that a premium support model would really work for the same reasons I don’t think Obamacare will work. (Ryan care basically turns Medicare into Obamacare—something few have noticed) There is just not enough price transparency in medical services and private insurers just don’t have enough leverage to force down reimbursements to think that any significant cost savings can be obtained through “cost conscious consumers.” 

Another question—does “subsidiarity” really work with health insurance; any public or private plan needs massive anonymous risk pools, no? Modern society will never again have subsidiarity in financing medical care so I think its a red herring to bring it up.  There’s nothing subsidiarist about Aetna, UHC any more than Medicare.  All are large heavily regulated and subsidized national risk pools. 

But more to the point—I’d be much more inclined to give the Ryan plan a hearing if it wasn’t coupled with massive tax cuts that do more to blow up the budget than any conceivable cuts to medicare and social security could do to narrow the fiscal gap.  Bottom line—the Ryan plan is just using the soaring debts as a pretext for the last ditch attempt on the right to launch its long awaited assault on popular 20th century social insurance programs.  Let’s just be honest about that and drop the Catholic lingo entirely and evaluate that on its own merits.

Jsmitty, you are right on. I do think that it is integral for Catholics to take in our social doctrines as much as possible, especially over watching Fox or MSNBC. Your argument works, because it follows what our Church has been teaching, namely that there are some areas that the market cannot satisfy. I posted CCC 2425 twice and it doesn’t seem to get much attention. It is obvious why… Let us think about CCC 2425 and then what our pope and other leaders say about healthcare. I see it going directly against the Ryan doctrine:

http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1004736.htm

Pope Benedict XVI and other church leaders said it was the moral responsibility of nations to guarantee access to health care for all of their citizens, regardless of social and economic status or their ability to pay.

Access to adequate medical attention, the pope said in a written message Nov. 18, was one of the “inalienable rights” of man.

The pope’s message was read by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state, to participants at the 25th International Conference of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry at the Vatican Nov. 18-19.

The theme of this year’s meeting was “Caritas in Veritate - toward an equitable and human health care.”

The pope lamented the great inequalities in health care around the globe. While people in many parts of the world aren’t able to receive essential medications or even the most basic care, in industrialized countries there is a risk of “pharmacological, medical and surgical consumerism” that leads to “a cult of the body,” the pope said.

“The care of man, his transcendent dignity and his inalienable rights” are issues that should concern Christians, the pope said.

Because an individual’s health is a “precious asset” to society as well as to himself, governments and other agencies should seek to protect it by “dedicating the equipment, resources and energy so that the greatest number of people can have access.”

“Justice in health care should be a priority of governments and international institutions,” he said, cautioning that protecting human health does not include euthanasia or promoting artificial reproductive techniques that include the destruction of embryos.

Care for human life from conception to its natural end must be a guiding light in determining health care policy, the pope said.

In his own written statement, Cardinal Bertone had strong words in support of the need for governments to take care of all citizens, especially children, the elderly, the poor and immigrants.

“Justice requires guaranteed universal access to health care,” he said, adding that the provision of minimal levels of medical attention to all is “commonly accepted as a fundamental human right.”

Governments are obligated, therefore, to adopt the proper legislative, administrative and financial measures to provide such care along with other basic conditions that promote good health, such as food security, water and housing, the cardinal said.

Private health insurance companies, he said, should conform to human rights legislation and see to it that “privatization not become a threat to the accessibility, availability and quality of health care goods and services.”

Cardinal Bertone recommended that government leaders in poor countries use their limited resources wisely and for the good of their citizens.

The governments of richer nations with good health care available should practice more solidarity with their own disadvantaged citizens and help developing countries promote health care while trying to avoid a “paternalistic or humiliating” way of assisting, the cardinal said.

Cardinal Bertone warned of the “war of interests” between pharmaceutical companies and developing nations who have little access to medicines because they can’t pay for them. He said that those manufacturers should not be driven by “profit as the only objective” in the creation and distribution of medicines.

Archbishop Zygmunt Zimowski, president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry, said in opening remarks that to have good health “is a natural right” recognized by international institutions.

Despite such recognition, he said, great imbalances persist and developing nations find themselves with inadequate structures and without the ability to provide basic medicines to their people. Wealthier countries, on the other hand, have a “technical” approach to the sick, which ignores “the sick person in his entirety and dignity,” Archbishop Zimowski said.

The council, created by Pope John Paul II 25 years ago, will continue the church’s mission to serve the sick and promote health for all, the archbishop said.

Demonize Ryan all you want but the fact of the matter is he would only be VP.  Since when are budget decisions made by the VPOTUS?  Neither his party’s planks nor his budget contain intrinsic evil ultimata.  In contrast both the Democartic planks and Obamacare do.
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In some aspect all political ideology, be it Republican or third party, contain in some way some aspect of contradiction to Catholic social teaching.  With this in mind, why would I vote for the inevitable catholic social contradication of a third party when doing so would only ensure another four years of blatant intrisic evil ultimata?
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Those of you seeking some sort of fictional social utopia on Earth through political ideology better think again.  Christ came not to bring peace on earth, but the sword:
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[34] Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword. [Matthew 10:34]
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Christ also said the poor would always be among us:
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[11] For the poor you have always with you: but me you have not always. [Matthew 26:11]

@Jsmitty - there are well known reasons why bolivia and nicaragua are not booming economies. That’s a completely unhelpful and extreme caricature of what I was suggesting. And the Ryan’s budget is nowhere anything close to Ayn Rand…another unhelpful and extreme caricature of his position. This kind of rhetoric is why discussions like this have trouble going anywhere.

You make all of your criticisms of any kind of tax cuts while pretending the economy is not struggling and on the brink of more recession! That’s the main reason for such tax cuts. Obama has even admitted that raising taxes in a recession is a terrible idea (which now, of course, is exactly what he wants to do!). Smart investment is what creates jobs and gets an economy going. And less taxes to the government means more investment into job creating ventures. It’s not complicated. People on both the right and left know this. It’s not some controversial reagan economics from 30 years ago. It’s right now an extremely common sensical thing to do.

We tried the whole spend our way out of a recession approach for the past 4 years with Obama. It hasn’t worked. It’s hurt. It’s slowed the recovery. It’s time to get ideological agendas out of the way and do some common sense stuff.

I do agree with you, though, on the cost transparency issue. That is key to getting costs down and we have to find more ways to do it.

But I disagree that subsidiarity doesn’t work in health care. First, subsidiarity always works…it is about finding the right level of government, not always the lowest level of government/social order. Second, subsidiarity works in EVERY single other insurance market there is (which all involve risk pools).

DANIEL - that is a gross mischaracterization of the context from within which Pope Benedict is speaking. He’s talking about getting basic medical care to the vast majority of the human beings on the planet who don’t get basic care at all! He’s talking about the poorest of the poor in other countries getting at least very basic health care that changes their quality of life 1000%, not spending millions of dollars on every person in the richest country in the world. That is ridiculous to compare the two.

Matt…

Thanks for the reply. 

But you still are evading the basic question.  I’m not talking about raising taxes.  But what makes you think that even lower taxes on “job creators” when taxes are already at historic lows (as a share of GDP) and rates are already low by historic standards (especially for guys like Romney who can book earned income as investment income and pay rates of only 13%—with no taxes for social security and medicare)—what makes you think that lower taxes means more spending and investment?  I think think its far more obvious that wealthy people given even lower taxes would just plow the extra money back into US treasuries anyway. 

Recent history—GWB adopted the precise supply -side argument you are making.  The Bush tax cuts were text book Paul Ryan doctrine and the result—-the weakest post-war economic expansion in history (with wages at the middle that were at best stagnating—and in many cases declining) followed by the worst financial crisis and recession since 1931. 

I’m a life long Republican Matt. I grew up as a Reagan baby in college. But we have to face reality that these policies not only are not working anymore as intended but are helping to exacerbate levels of inequality that are going to become destabilizing over time. 

It’s one thing to cut taxes from 70% to 28% percent as Reagan did in a highly inflationary environment in which rates were not indexed for inflation and there were all sorts of distortions.  Great idea in its context.  But we’ve milked this cow for all its worth.  Now we need to worry at least a little about how to raise incomes for the bottom 75% of the country that is not doing well and has not for sometime. And BTW we’re not going to see big expansions in business capacity and job growth that would come with it, until businesses see the prospect of big increases in sales that can only come from increasing median incomes.  Businesses dont’ race out to hire people without an increase in paying customers.  Even entrepeneurs cannot create customers.  They need a healthy economy to do that.  This is a fundamental fact that all these supply side theorists and Paul Ryans of the world miss. 

You’re wrong on health care too for reasons I’ll explain later.  But I’ve given you enough to respond to already. 

I appreciate the civil discussion.  I think it will be better for prolife cause if the GOP does better, but it won’t I’m afraid until it rethinks some things.

Matthew, first you skipped CCC 2425 altogether in your responses, as you have throughout. It may be because it specifically says the free market should NOT be in control of all areas.

Second, it was primarily directed at poorer nations. That is what makes it such a powerful article. It should be expected that if “Justice requires guaranteed universal access to health care” in poor countries, it would be sickening for it not to apply in an advance nation (ours being the only one in the advanced world not to provide it). My MAIN issue with privatization like Ryan wants is dealt with here as well. “Private health insurance companies, he said, should conform to human rights legislation and see to it that ‘privatization not become a threat to the accessibility, availability and quality of health care goods and services.” There is a reason the Church believes this. Corporations have the tendency to look out for the sole reason they exist, profit. This is the case in poor countries, but even more in richer nations like ours (where they have much more control). That need is for legislation that protects the poor from them. I am not sure how you are allowed to write articles for the NCR if you cannot grasp the overall context of an article… You can read this same tone about essential rights (we are an industrialized nation, but we are not above the essentials) in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 166. “These demands concern above all the commitment to peace, the organization of the State’s powers, a sound juridical system, the protection of the environment, and the provision of essential services to all, some of which are at the same time human rights: food, housing, work, education and access to culture, transportation, basic health care, the freedom of communication and expression, and the protection of religious freedom.” It would be easy to dismiss those like me very easily; prove the Ryan doctrine. Show somewhere in all of our Catholic social doctrine where complete privatization of health care (giving that human need brought up in 2425) would be a good thing. I have shown that where ever health care is a problem, the Church has called for State powers (though of course other agencies, like the free market, can assist once a boundary line for the unfortunate is drawn…).

Daniel

I agree with basically everything you say.  But you shouldn’t be so hard on Matt.  Like alot of strong pro-lifers he’s also a committed full spectrum conservative who thinks (not unreasonably!) that what is good the the GOP will also be good for the unborn.  And he probably is bone tired of Catholics using arguments of “social justice” as a smokescreen to blur the differences between the two parties when abortion should be the most important issue for Catholics. 

I’ve been there many years myself so I get that.  Trouble is, the GOP is slowly imploding as a national party and US conservatism has reached the point where it is making nonsense arguments about health care and the economy—nonsense both from the standpoint of Church teaching and nonsense on the practical merits…and sooner or later pro-lifers need to call them on it. 

Political realities dictate that pro-lifers have to get in bed with anti-government libertarians and anti-tax activists to form a national coalition.  I get that too.  But we’ve reached the point where it is necessary to call the nonsense for what it is—both to help the GOP return to sanity and to help the pro-life cause which is tethered to the welfare of one political party.

Jsmitty,
I think you have a great point. Maybe my frustration of the direction the GOP is a factor in the tone of my writing. The morality for defending the unborn is fantastic, but the lack of concern for the poor (the “if they just tried harder they would not be in their mess”) really scares me. How can we build each other up if we are judging a whole group of people and not taking into account each person’s separate set of obstacles (be it mental, physical, or environmental). I am extremely for subsidiarity, but in order for that to occur, we need to assure a level playing field (everyone having access to good health care, education and child care among many others). Only then can we come closer to actualizing each person’s potential to allow for that true subsidiarity. Re-reading my previous post, I must confess that I shouldn’t have mentioned the part about Matt’s credentials to post on the NCR. I appreciate your charitable response and your comments on here. :) God bless

Daniel - I’ve gotten much worse so no worries.

jsmitty/daniel - without getting into too much nitty gritty in a cumbersome combox, let me say that it’s nice to recognize that (I think) we’re all on the same page in terms of the end goals. And I think that’s a fine place to be as Catholics and having a room to debate how we get there together.

I’m not pretending that the positions I’ve defended are perfect. But I think it’s easy to sit back and criticize them (as there are certainly things wrong with them) but I haven’t seen any alternative put forward that is better. So until that is done, you have a hard time persuading anybody.

Everything I’ve seen put forward to far is unsustainable, unaffordable and would have all kinds of other serious consequences.

Including the Ryan video was to use as a jumping off point, not to be the point of the blog post. It ended up being a distraction. The core point is that the appealing to higher orders of social structure when necessary (subsidiarity) must involve the continued support of the lower orders (i.e. down to the individual). If we don’t get that, then subsidiarity doesn’t work. And the appeal to the higher order will not only fail at solving the problems, it will cause many other problems in the process.

Good thoughts in another blog post this week on Subsidiarity here: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/benjamin-wiker/the-church-and-capitalism-what-subsidiarity-tells-us

fine I’ll read Wiker.

You should read this piece

http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-limits-of-subsidiarity.html

and this one

http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/misunderstanding-subsidiarity.html

both of which are close but partial representations of my thoughts