"No one can, without being grossly unfair, make divine Providence responsible for what clearly seems to be the result of misguided governmental policies, of an insufficient sense of social justice, of a selfish accumulation of material goods, and finally of a culpable failure to undertake those initiatives and responsibilities which would raise the standard of living of peoples and their children. If only all governments which were able would do what some are already doing so nobly, and bestir themselves to renew their efforts and their undertakings! There must be no relaxation in the programs of mutual aid between all the branches of the great human family. Here We believe an almost limitless field lies open for the activities of the great international institutions."
-Humanae Vitae, encyclical of Pope Paul VI, 25 July 1968
Our struggle is with the politics of fear and favoritism in our own time, in our own country. Our struggle, like so many others before, is with those who put their own narrow interest ahead of the public interest.
-Senator Ted Kennedy, speaking to the Democratic National Convention, July 27, 2004
Census Report Shows Republicans Have Turned Deaf Ear to Middle Class and Working Families
Politics of greed writ large as Congress adjourns for the summer
What to expect in a future Democratic Administration:
1. Good-Paying Jobs-According to IRS data released on 7/28/04, total adjusted gross income on U.S. tax returns fell 5.1% from 2000 to 2002. When adjusted for inflation, the income of all Americans fell 9.2% during the first two years of the Bush Administration.1 Tax policy should make it financially viable for U.S. firms to avoid outsourcing U.S. jobs overseas, and enforce worker standards among our trading partners by enforcing our trade agreements.
2. Tax policies that reward work-Under the Bush Administration, the wealthiest Americans have received a windfall. Current inheritance tax law, which taxes unearned income on only the top 2% of estates in America, is a target for elimination by Mr. Bush. Their priorities are making permanent the dramatic cuts in the top income tax brackets and in further cuts in capital gains taxes. Social Security payroll taxes, which disproportionately affect working people, are currently being used to subsidize tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans-a reverse Robin Hood strategy for rewarding Republican campaign contributors. Catholic Democrats support tax policy that again serves to address the needs of all Americans, and not just the best-connected.
3. Eliminating hidden taxes imposed by the Bush Administration-the failure to fund local emergency services adequately under the new Department of Homeland Security has imposed huge new budgetary liabilities on local governments, forcing them to increase everything from sales taxes to property taxes to school and other use fees. The vast majority of Americans disproportionately bear the burden of these Bush tax increases.
Catholic Democrats seek to provide adequate resources to ensure that America's first responders have what they need to protect their communities, without forcing those localities to choose between teachers and police, or between librarians and firefighters.
As inflation rises and the Federal Budget Deficit explodes under the Bush Administration, the Federal Reserve has indicated its intent to raise interest rates in order to attract new international capital and to retard the growth of inflation. Higher interest rates are a hidden tax on people with low and middle incomes by virtue of the higher cost imposed for owning a home and the larger chunk of family income taken by interest payments on credit card and other family debt.
Catholic Democrats advocate for returning the Federal Budget to a period of fiscal responsibility like that achieved during the Clinton Administration, living within its means and insuring that federal spending does not crowd out private investment.
Moral scorecard:
Our duty to care for one another as Catholics is not optional. Pope John Paul II wrote in his Familiaris Consortio (1981): "The Christian family is called upon to offer everyone a witness of generous and disinterested dedication to social matters through a 'preferential option' for the poor and disadvantaged." Although greed itself may merely represent that extreme form of self-preservation, the accumulation of wealth without generosity to others if antithetical to Christianity. The Pope wrote again, in Centesimus Annus (1991), "But it will be necessary above all to abandon a mentality in which the poor-as individuals and as people-are considered a burden, as irksome intruders trying to consume what others have produced. The poor ask for the right to share in enjoying material goods and to make use of their capacity to work, thus creating a world that is more just and prosperous for all. The advancement of the poor constitutes a great opportunity for the moral, cultural and even economic growth of all humanity."
The raison d'etre of the Bush Administration has been the further enrichment of the already well-to-do, as noted in his famous fundraising remarks where he referred to the "have-mores" as his "base." If Jesus did indeed "change my heart," as Mr. Bush famously intoned during the 2000 Campaign, it is difficult to see what part of his heart actually follows Jesus command to "love your neighbor as yourself." Throughout scripture, it is how we treat the less fortunate that is the critical test of our adherence to the Will of God.
Woe to him who builds his house on wrong, his terraces on injustice; Who works his neighbor without pay, and gives him no wages. Who says, "I will build myself a spacious house, with airy rooms," Who cuts out windows for it, panels it with cedar, and paints it with vermillion. Must you prove your rank among kings by competing with them in cedar? Did not your father eat and drink? He did what was right and just, and it went well with him. Because he dispensed justice to the weak and the poor, it went well with him. Is this not true knowledge of me? Says the Lord. But your eyes and heart are set on nothing except on your own gain, on shedding innocent blood, on practicing oppression and extortion. -Jeremiah 22:13-17
Next he will say to those on his left hand, 'Go away from me, with your curse upon you, to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you never gave me food; I was thirsty and you never gave me anything to drink; I was a stranger and you never made me welcome, naked and you never clothed me, sick and in prison and you never visited me.' Then it will be their turn to ask, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty, a stranger or naked, sick or in prison, and did not come to your help?' Then he will answer, 'I tell you solemnly, in so far as you neglected to do this to one of the least of these, you neglected to do it to me.' And they will go away to eternal punishment, and the virtuous to eternal life. -Matthew 25:41-46
