Welfare and the Poor

You have heard it said that it is Christian to support more and more tax financed welfare in the name of helping the poor. The argument is that people that have more are morally obliged to help those who have less and that the best way to do this is by giving out social security cheques.

From a Christian perspective the problems with this are as follows:

  1. It doesn't help the poor to be given cheques for nothing. The Bible's sollution always involves work . Paul says " If a man does not work he shall not eat" ( ). He wasn't saying this to be nasty or selfish rather he was expressing that giving people money for nothing dehumanises them. If people work for money they feel useful and valuable. In OT Israel which is our best advantage of how God runs nations there is the law of gleaning where employers leave the remains of the harvest ( the harder parts to pick ) for the poor. There is provision for those who have fallen on hard times but it always involves work.
  2. By taking money from productive companies in taxes to fund welfare you take away their ability to employ people. Bear in mind that the state takes quite a chunk for administering the transfer from the company to the unemployed person and add to this the significant cost to the company of administering the system and it becomes clear that in order to pay an unemployed person welfare you have to destroy at least one job that they could otherwise be doing. ( MORE DETAIL PRESS THE BUTTON)
  3. There is no thought in the state system for whether the poor person is good or bad or whether the taxed person is good or bad. Charity when it is run by churches, families or private institutions is far more personal because you are actively involved with the person you are helping. It is also far more effective at discerning when the person is genuinely in need and trying and when the person is "at it". The state system by its very nature can not help but provide incentives for immoral behaviour ( underage pregnancy , drugs, dishonesty in working the system, etc) and penalise moral behaviour in the tax payer( hard work, saving, defferred gratification)
  4. When the state provides there is no need for the church to provide for the needy and by loosing this role the church looses its opportunity for mission to people in their time of need. The Bible cannot condone the transfer of moneys from one person to another necessary to support welfare. Any distribution of property that is forced is theft. The Bible does in 2Cor 8 and 9 support helping the needy, very much so, but such gifts are voluntary not forced. ( vs )
Obviously we cannot suddenly withdraw welfare, there has to be a gradual transition to a more Biblical system. Housing benefit is now £11 billion, the equivalent to 6p in the rate of income tax The way to return the money to fund this would best be through indirect taxation. This could be 10p of the price of petrol and diesel, 50p off the price of wine, £3 off a bottle of spirits, 20p off a pint of beer (7.2 billion) and bring VAT down to 10%. The reason I think indirect tax reductions are the way to fund this is that lower income households are more likely to have parents or children who are unemployed , this means that they would have to pay more to help their kin. Indirect taxes make up the bulk of this sector's tax bill thus refunds in this area most closely match the group that are going to be making the extra payments.
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