The Undeserving Rich?

In this article from the Associated Baptist Press, author Bob Allen discusses President Obama's budget plan and addresses Christians’ reactions to it. Conservative Christian’s “expressed concerns that portions of the proposal did not go far enough in alleviating poverty,” and that the proposal was “far too large and would create the most massive expansion of government social-service programs since Lyndon Johnson’s Administration.” Christian Liberals, on the other hand, see Obama’s plan as a signal of “a dramatic shift in prioritizing poverty.”

Christians support Obama’s plan because it appeals to moral principles, looking out for the good of the common man. Allen suggests that many Christians, such as Jim Wallis, founder and CEO of Sojourners, believe that “we’ve had a growing trend of massive inequality in this country,” benefiting the wealthy at the expense of the poor. Wallis even goes so far as to suggest that “there has been a class of undeserving rich, who have been helped far more than they should have been helped” by previous budget plans. This goes against the very core of the United State’s common Morality, in that America is supposed to be the land of opportunity, where the poor have a chance to break out of poverty.

In broader terms, the issues of morality discussed in this article spawned from the Moral Majority, which arose in the late 1970’s. According to William Martin in his book “With God on Our Side,” the Moral Majority sought bring the family back to the center of American life and to vote for leaders who would make decisions based on moral principles. As the Moral Majority strengthened, moral principles spread thought the United States and slowly began to flow into the government. In the case of the budget plan, Christian Liberals want to steer away from pouring money into the bank accounts of the rich in hopes that the trickle-down effect will begin to flow. Instead, they want to focus on helping those in poverty directly and "rebalance the budget more in the direction of the common good."

It seems that, rather than trying to put one particular religion at the center of government, it makes more sense and actually makes the government stronger to focus on morality, and making the best choice for the common good of the people. True, the line between moral and immoral is not so easy to draw, but the concept of morality should provide a solid basis for a democratic government.