By: Dale Weckbacher
1 Timothy 6:9-10
But those who desire
to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful
lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. 10 For the love of money is
a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in
their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
NKJV
Many take 1 Timothy 6:10 out of its context and interpret it to mean that a Christian cannot
be rich and should give all of their wealth away to demonstrate their
faith. However, when we look at the
previous verse, we see that Paul is telling Timothy that the desire to chase
after riches can lead to foolish and harmful lusts and destruction. It does forbid us from accumulating wealth
but is a warning to watch that you do not fall in love with money.
It has been said that money is the mother’s milk of
politics. Granted, it does take money to
run a campaign for office for there are ads to buy and candidates must travel
to meet voters. However, when a
candidate begins focusing on donors and fund raising, they begin to fall in
love with the money from donors and can lose connection with the voters.
Efforts to take the money out of politics such as the McCain
Feingold have failed and in fact may have made the situation worse. The theory of the legislation was that by
restricting large donations to candidates, candidates would have to depend on
smaller donations directly from voters.
However, opponents of the legislation claimed it would create a tectonic
shift of political power from the parties to outside special interest
groups. (1)
Unfortunately, the critics were correct and instead of
candidates seeking small donations from voters, they seek large donations from
special interests. Of course, these
special interests expect political favors once the candidate they financially
supported wins the election. For
example,
1) Crony
capitalist companies support organizations favoring amnesty for illegal aliens
so they can have an abundant supply of cheap labor. (2)
2) Environmental
special interests contribute to candidates that will appropriate money for them
to continue their economic growth killing policies. (3)
3) Organizations
like Planned Parenthood financially support candidates that will guarantee they
continue to receive federal funding. (4)
Politicians are definitely in love with money and as such
are more interested in satisfying those organizations that contribute to them
instead of the voters that elect them to office. However, voters continue to elect these money-loving
candidates to office. To solve this
dilemma, we must find out why voters continue supporting these candidates.
Mitt Romney took heat from a comment he made about the 47
percent during the 2012 election. If you
are unfamiliar with the comment he made, let me explain it and provide a link
to it. In his comment, he said that it
was difficult for someone to win election because 47 percent of people in the
country receive some form of compensation from the government. (5)
Crafty money loving politicians are thus able to essentially
bribe these people to vote for them by claiming their conservative small
government opponents plan on taking away their government check. An example of this is the furor that occurred
when President W. Bush announced his plan to privatize a portion of Social
Security (SSI). (6)
Opponents of this plan scarred seniors by claiming this plan
would put SSI at risk by allowing some to put a portion of their SSI
withholding in a private account. They
created fear in seniors by telling them their SSI money would also be at risk
in the stock market and that when it was lost, the program would go broke, and
the checks would stop. The truth,
however, is that Bush’s plan protected the benefits of anyone 55 or older and
was providing an opportunity for those younger than that to contribute a
portion of their retirement savings in a private account that had an
opportunity to grow. (6)
The sad truth about SSI is that if it continues on its
present course, the plan will go broke for according to a study out of Harvard
and Dartmouth ,
Social Security is set to go broke by 2031.
According to this study, the only way to rescue the program is to follow
the rescue plan in Canada ,
which removed the government from the program.
Their plan worked with the Canadian Pension Plan reserves increasing by
six fold. (7) In other words, had we
gone forward with President Bush’s privatization plan, SSI would be in much
better financial shape today. Essentially,
the answer to rescuing SSI is taking the government out of the equation and
letting retirement savings grow in the private market.
If we were to get the government out of other entitlement
programs (i.e. welfare and healthcare), we could save the government trillions
of dollars and create more independent instead of dependent people, thus taking
power to bribe them with government money away from money loving
politicians. Private charities and
churches could not only better administer welfare but also help people with
problems (i.e. chemical dependencies, mental problems, and lack of economic
knowledge), thus solving the problems that caused them to be stuck in poverty. (8) We could also take government out of the
equation for healthcare by promoting health savings accounts so patients are
encouraged to shop around for affordable health care, (9) and allowing people to buy health insurance across state lines as
they can do with their auto insurance. (10) This increased competition among health
insurance providers would genuinely bring premiums down, making health
insurance genuinely affordable.
The answer therefore to taking money out of politics in my
opinion is in making individuals less dependent on government, freeing voters
to vote for candidates promoting more freedom and less government
dependency. Please feel free to add your
comment to this post if you agree, or even if you disagree.
1. Raja, Robert Kelner
and Raymond La.
2. Federation for
American Immigration Reform. Senate Immigration Bill Delivers Amnesty and
Cheap Labor, but Not Immigration Reform. www.fairus.org. [Online] April
16, 2013. [Cited: December 27, 2013.]
http://www.fairus.org/news/senate-immigration-bill-delivers-amnesty-and-cheap-labor-but-not-immigration-reform.
3. Bailey, Ronald. Union of Concerned Scientists Cooks the Books, Media
Swallow It. Reason.com. [Online] Reasomn.com, June 5, 2012. [Cited:
October 14, 2015.] https://reason.com/archives/2012/06/05/follow-the-pennies.
4. Zagorski, Sarah.
Planned Parenthood Received Millions After Lobbying Hillary Clinton's State
Department. www.lifenews.com. [Online] Lifenews.com, August 1, 2015.
[Cited: October 14, 2015.]
www.lifenews.com/2015/08/01/planned-parenthood-received-millions-after-lobbying-hillary-clintons-state-department/.
5. The Daily
Conversation. Mitt Romney's "47 Percent" Comments. www.youtube.com.
[Online] YouTube. [Cited: December 26, 2014.]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2gvY2wqI7M.
6. Sahadi, Jeanne.
Bush's Plan for Social Security. www.money.cnn.com. [Online] CNN Money,
March 4, 2005. [Cited: October 14, 2015.]
www.money.cnn.com/2005/02/02/retirement/stofunion_socsec/.
7. Tea Party.
Social Security Set to Go Bankrupt Much Sooner Than Expected. Teapartyupdate.com.
[Online] Tea Party. [Cited: October 14, 2015.]
www.teapartyupdate.com/social-security-set-to-go-bankrupt-much-sooner-than-expected/.
8. Pew Research
Center Pew Research Center
9. Lankford, Kimberly.
FAQs About Health Savings Accounts. m.kiplinger.com. [Online] Kiplinger,
December 1, 2014. [Cited: October 14, 2015.] http://www.kiplinger.com/article/insurance/T027-C000-S002-health-savings-accounts.html.
10. McLaughlin, Dan.
Why Selling Health Insurance Across State lines Is a Good Thing. www.thefederalist.com.
[Online] The Federalist, May 28, 2014. [Cited: October 14, 2015.]
www.thefederalist.com/2014/05/28/why-selling-health-insurance-across-state-lines-is-a-good-thing/.
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