He felt her faith.

Homily 380 – 20th after Pentecost
Holy Transfiguration Orthodox Church, Ames, Iowa
November 3, 2019
Epistle: (200) Galatians 1:11-19
Gospel: (39) Luke 8:41-56

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.

I have to imagine that the woman with the flow of blood was lonely. Being a Jewish woman, with a flow of blood, she was ritually impure.

Today, that doesn’t resonate with most of us, because we don’t understand the concept of ritual impurity. But in the Jewish world, the implication of being ritually impure was that no one could have contact with you.

If they had contact with you, you made them ritually impure. This was more than an inconvenience – they couldn’t enter the synagogue, nor the temple – they could not participate in the life of the people of Israel.

Even today, the observant Jews offer the Mikveh, or purity bath, to cleanse the ritual impurity. Not just blood – and not just women.

The Christian equivalent may be baptism and confession – baptism being a one-time thing, confession occurring afterward.

But the mikveh would not cleanse this woman, as the blood was continuous, from what we are told. For twelve years, this woman had been essentially a leper to other people. No physical contact.

And it was up to her to avoid contact with others, such contact making them impure.

She had seen doctors, to no benefit. She was, by other accounts of the same occurrence, destitute, having spent her money on those doctors.

So: here is a woman, ritually impure, charged with keeping herself from contact with others.

And she is in a crowd of people – likely for the first time in over a decade – people who were heading for the synagogue. Jesus, the object of her quest, was there. The ruler of the synagogue, a very high-ranking and powerful man named Jairus, was there.

And she was there.

Unlike others – blind, crippled, leprous – she didn’t call out to Christ. That would be unthinkable for her, since then all those around would know of her impurity, and would themselves become impure.

She didn’t wish to cause trouble. She tried and was largely successful at remaining hidden from the throng. When she was called out by Jesus, she trembled. In fear, I imagine.

Her faith healed her – seemingly hidden even from our Lord. He felt the power leave Him. He apparently didn’t feel the touch of the woman.

He felt her faith.

The compassion of Christ is evident here. But there is more.

The ruler – Jairus – saw that even the unclean were healed by faith. Jairus witnessed the cooperation – the synergy – between faith and actions.

I’m sure on some level Jairus was a bit dumbfounded. Particularly since he was in the midst of asking Christ for his own miracle – the healing of his young daughter.

I cannot imagine the grief and fear that Jairus must have felt. To know that your daughter lay dying. The only source of hope was this miracle worker who happened to be in your town.

And he was interrupted by this unclean woman. It wasn’t the woman who interrupted, though. It was the healer.

The daughter died – but was raised again. The woman was told not to fear, and to be of good cheer and go in peace. Jairus and his wife were dumbfounded by the joy of the return of their daughter but told to keep quiet.

What do these events say to us? Several things, but I’ll focus on a couple.

To start – place no limits on God. God does not demand anything for His mercy. His mercy for us comes not from obedience, but from love. It doesn’t demand compliance, only acceptance.

Never assume what God will or won’t do. The only thing that God won’t allow is the prayer which causes us to move in the wrong direction, away from Him.

God wants to be a Father for us. As we know, children are completely dependent on their parents, particularly from birth until maturity. We have to learn to be dependent on God in a similar way, as children.

Children do not concern themselves with tomorrow. I was blessed to spend this past week with my grandchildren and see that lesson demonstrated over and over.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to get a child to understand delayed gratification. Yet, they don’t worry about the food for tomorrow, or clothes for tomorrow, or anything about tomorrow.

They live in the moment of their parent’s love.

Where God wants us to live also. We can be carefree – we can love without boundary or expectation – because our concern is not for tomorrow, but only today. The message of Scripture both old and new testament is consistent in that.

Finally, like Jairus, the message Christ has for us is to not be afraid. Only believe.

Believe what? A doctrinal test of some sort? The baptismal creed and symbol of faith? The Torah?

No – believe that God loves. That He loves us more than we know how to love. If we begin there, we will find healing, and we will find peace.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God. Glory to Jesus Christ!

Culture wars

I have to admit to being a bit befuddled. I found some stats on abortion (on Wikipedia) that indicate rape and incest are cited in less than 1.5% of abortions. I may be waaayyy off base here, but it seems to me that those opposed to abortion are allowing the less-than-1.5-percent to dictate why the other 98.5 plus percent of abortions are allowed. 12% of abortions were sought due to concerns over the mother’s health.

Perhaps we need to delve more into the “life of the mother” exception, but it seems to me that the exception for rape and incest would be a massively excellent trade off for the other 98% of abortions.

This defines, for me, why conservatives lost the last round of the Culture War.

Ideological purity made sure that compromise was not possible. Christ’s position seems to be that we don’t need the government to hold ourselves to a higher standard. Christ, and the Church, also seem to favor the idea that while the norm is to prohibit abortion, pastoral considerations demand that some, rare, abortions be tolerated in order that the mother may continue her repentance.

Personally, I would never counsel anyone to seek an abortion for any reason, except where the life of the mother is in immediate jeopardy. Even in that circumstance, there would need to be a careful consideration of all the issues and outcomes.

However, those who do seek abortions must (in my view) be welcomed back into the fold of Orthodox Christianity and allowed to seek their repentance. The reason the abortion was sought would seem to mitigate the penitential aspects. A woman using abortion as a method of birth control would need to be dealt with in a much different manner than a child who had undergone rape or incest.

Another huge part of the debate, for me, is the issue of contraception. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, in 1965, defined conception as implantation in the womb, rather than at fertilization. The original recommendation for this definition came out in 1959.

Is there anything in the Scriptural or Orthodox Christian Church Traditions that explicitly contradicts this definition in favor of fertilization? I can’t seem to find anything that would say life begins at fertilization. I can find overwhelming support for life of a person existing in the womb, but that to me implies implantation.

Plus, studies have indicated that between 60-65% of fertilized eggs/embryos/future persons fail to implant in the womb and are eliminated from the woman’s body during the subsequent menstrual cycle. Is God creating children to send to their near-immediate death?

I offer these thoughts as genuine inquiries, and honest seeking of information. It is not my intent to be polemical about the issue – too many lives are at stake.

Studies have shown that access to contraception dramatically reduces the abortion rate. Biology (i.e., Natural Law) seems to indicate that there is near zero possibility of a child where the embryo fails to implant in the uterus. I say near-zero because ectopic pregnancies do occur, and I would imagine there are cases where ectopic pregnancies result in childbirth – although I would imagine these are true miracles, and could likely be counted on one hand. Wikipedia cites four cases worldwide.

I do think this is something that we have to talk about. The position of the Orthodox Christian church, in the opinion of modern pastors and spiritual fathers, is far from consistent. Please feel free to comment. The only guideline is to support your claim with evidence. It is insufficient to say “The Church believes x, therefore the issue is closed.” You should provide the evidence of how that conclusion was reached, with emphasis on the Scripture and the teaching of the early Church fathers (and mothers!).

Church and State

It is inevitable, I suppose, that election time brings clergy weighing in on political topics. I have experienced clergy who advocated republican positions, and those advocating democratic positions.

A couple of my orthodox clergy brethren have gone so far as to indicate their belief that voting other than a republican ticket is a sin. I disagree.

Personally (and, if I’m honest, professionally) I think the Church has lost it’s influence in the political realm. The Church used to be a place where all of society gathered as one community – rich and poor, king and slave. It forced the rich and powerful to encounter the poor and weak. It forced them to see each other as persons, rather than caricatures. Unfortunately, the rich and poor of today never encounter each other – except perhaps across a police line.

The Church forced the rich to look at the poor and the message was: “Do something! Christ commanded it!” And to the poor, the message was: “Yes, we will help – but you have to work, as the apostle commanded. If you are unable to work, we will give you charity.”

The message to the poor was don’t steal. The message to the powerful was to be merciful, because they stole from their hunger, not their greed or avarice.

Similarly, our message in this day and age might be, Don’t seek an abortion if you get pregnant. And if you do get pregnant and have an abortion, God is merciful to forgive and the Church will not judge you.

Personally, and somewhat professionally, I would say that I am opposed to abortion, but hope I can be empathetic and understanding (and generous) to those who seek abortion. I am opposed to gay marriage, but there is an inherent discrimination and inequality of same sex families and couples that is also offensive to my sensibilities as a follower of Christ.

For me, Christ is the God of all – Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, and Socialist. To the Church it is never either/or, but rather both/and.

And I am deeply saddened that the Church seems to have lost that ability to preach to both.

A thought on the beginning of Great Lent

“Neither asceticism, nor vigils, nor any kind of suffering are able to save, only genuine humility can do that. None of the other virtues could save a monk, because none of them could so effectively overcome the natural tendency to rely on oneself, to look to one’s own achievements as the reason for one’s happiness and well being. The elders were well aware of the treachery of this kind of thinking and warned against it. They were especially concerned that no one should imagine that the work of asceticism alone could bring one closer to God. The martyrdom of obedience for instance – suspending one’s own wishes and desires by placing oneself under the authority of another – would do more to loosen the tenacious grip of one’s ego than any amount of fasting. It is for this reason that Amma Syncletica said, ‘Obedience is preferable to asceticism. The one teaches pride, the other humility.’ “ (Douglas Burton-Christie, The Word in the Desert, pg. 237)

Insurance and Political Evolution

I was having a conversation over the holidays with one of my very best friends, and the subject of Facebook came up. He said, “you like to be provocative with your status, don’t you?” I had to agree. After all, I am a curmudgeon.

But that did get me to thinking about how difficult it is to be provocative without offending. Perhaps that isn’t possible. But I never set out to offend.

I think what I find difficult is not the beliefs of different political groups, but the methods and means they use to achieve their different goals. Back in the day, I was a Reagan Republican. I helped start the College Republicans and the Young Republicans (two different groups) in the county where I went to college. I worked (as in paying gig) for a Republican candidate for the State Legislature.

Professionally, I worked in for-profit healthcare and pursued a career in maximizing the return to our investors.

Then a major life event, common to most in the early 1990s, happened: my for-profit hospital, my identity as a person, was sold. I was without a job, with a family to support, some 1,150 miles away from any support structure. For the first time in my life, I (and my family) had no insurance. I struggled daily with the lack of insurance.

I strained my back, for which my physician indicated I’d need surgery that cost (in 1994) $35,000. I knew the actual cost – at least at one of the hospitals I’d run – and the margin was astronomical. At that point in my life I lived with my in-laws, worked some short-term consulting jobs, and had never owned a house, or a new car. I drew unemployment while looking for work, and my wife worked a retail job with no benefits. $35,000 was out of the question.

Within the healthcare industry, there was a consensus that the major issues of the day could be solved by universal coverage.  Figure out a way that everyone can be covered, and the idea of cost-shifting will go away, and the people with insurance will no longer have to pay for the people without insurance.

But then the idea of universal coverage morphed into governmental coverage.  Suddenly, healthcare was no longer a right, but rather for those that could afford it.  And at that point, my personal views began to morph as well.  The Orthodox Church holds a tradition of “Unmercenary Physicians” who treated everyone for zero payment.

Some said, “The Emergency Room will not deny care.”  That is true, to a point.  The Emergency Department is required by law to treat anyone in a life-threatening condition.  That does not, however, mean healing or solving the underlying cause.  It means move that patient from critical to stable.  The particular law is called EMTALA, Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act.  Allegations of EMTALA violations strike fear in the hearts of healthcare administrators everywhere.  The defense against these allegations is simple – the patient was stable when discharged.  The fact that they died on the bus on the way home is not the hospital or emergency department’s fault.

I began to see, because of my own dependence on the social safety net and my increasing certainty that healthcare should not be the territory of the privileged few, that the Republican Party was telling us “I got mine, so you get yours.”  I slowly became politically agnostic, then increasingly Democratic.

Part of the problem I faced was that I couldn’t find a consistent ethic I could support.  I am pro-life, but I am also separation of Church and State.  The Republican Party adopted the pro-life stance, except for the death penalty.  My Baptist heritage of old told me “The church should not resort to the civil power to carry on its work. The gospel of Christ contemplates spiritual means alone for the pursuit of its ends.” (from the Baptist Faith and Message, Section 17).

The emphasis on governmental activism seems antithetical to the Christian ethic, at least as expressed by the Baptist Faith and Message.  When I began participating in the Orthodox Church, I saw the same thing – the Church is not about law, but about personal transformation.

My accounting background put me squarely in a supply or demand dilemma.  Some, particularly the GOP of Reagan, believed that if the supply was managed, the demand would change.  If you made abortion illegal, the demand for abortion would decrease.  The same can be said of economics.  If the suppliers can increase supply, the prices will drop and demand will increase.

Unfortunately, the empirical evidence doesn’t bear this out.  Supply and demand are mechanisms that determine pricing, not supply and demand.  Scarcity does not lower demand.  Rather, demand creates scarcity.  Think “Tickle-me Elmo” of a while back …

For the past few years, since the beginning of the second Iraq and Afghanistan war, I have leaned very heavily toward the leftist, progressive political agenda.  What I found is that only one really “leftist” position, that of abortion, was inconsistent with my religious faith and personal beliefs.  Even then, I could rationalize that because ultimately, I didn’t believe the government should play a significant role in controlling the supply of abortion.

My friends on the GOP side have made an excellent point in that the Gospel of Christ does not contemplate a government redistribution of wealth.  So I find myself once again swinging back toward political agnosticism.

Today, I find myself still holding somewhat progressive ideals.  I cannot agree with the methods advocated by the GOP, particularly the Tea Party, to move away from Government dependence.  However I do agree with their ultimate goals – that charity and social justice should be supplied and administered by the people, not the Government, and that individual liberty should trump governmental programs.

So, at the end of the day, where do I stand?

To be honest, I’m in no-man’s land.

First and foremost, the Gospel of Christ contemplates nothing less than personal transformation by God.  The Orthodox Church would say we are always in that process of being transformed, and rarely understand we reach the completion of that transformation.

Politically, we have created an environment where people are dependent on the Government for basic needs – food, clothing, shelter, and yes, I will continue to throw in healthcare, particularly since over 55% of the spending on healthcare in the United States is governmental – Medicare, Medicaid, Tri-Care and the Veterans Administration.

While I strongly believe the social safety net should be better provided as a voluntary offering, until that exists, it is essential to maintain the governmental safety net.  The GOP seems to believe that the best way to move toward anything is to simply force the issue – starve the beast, so to speak.  I don’t believe we can nor should do that until the demand for the services is decreased.  Once the economy is turned, the effort to reduce taxes and make government more efficient, and the privitation

I do think there is an appropriate role for government to play.  There is danger in private policing and militia.  There is danger in private education.  There is danger in privately held infrastructure.  Everyone, including the 1% most of all, benefits from strong public schools and colleges, strong public infrastructure like roads and bridges and parks, and strong public safety professionals like fire, police, ambulance, and military.  I also happen to see healthcare as a public safety issue, but again, until the private sector can come up with charitable hospitals that can survive, the government is likely the only way to provide entree into that system.

The most important aspect of societal life in the US to me is that we avoid the political and economic apartheid that dominated the rest of the world.  Democracy as a great experiment holds fundamental that each person, each individual, within society has the same influence in governmental affairs as any other individual or person.  In this respect I think the Occupy movement has the right idea.  Apartheid is antithetical to democracy.  I’d hate to see our democratic experiment end and prove unworkable.  We have to re-establish the public good.

There is an appropriate role for regulation – primarily to prevent the powerful from abusing their position.  Ideally (in my view) the powerful would hold a strong obligation toward the other, and would never think to abuse anyone.  The Orthodox Christian faith promulgates the belief that our obligation is to the other person, and not ourselves.  We have to recognize that some (most?) will not hold this position, particularly the foundationally amoral “corporation”.  Thus, those with moral beliefs should advocate regulation to protect us from those without moral beliefs.

Most importantly, though, each one of us needs to envision the world we want.  We also need to establish mechanisms within the community where the visions can be expressed, safely and respectfully, and community consensus can emerge.  Once everyone is “on the same page” the community can begin to be the change they want to create.  The “town meeting” format in the New England heritage is particularly appealing.  Perhaps larger urban areas can be broken  down into smaller, town meeting amenable units.

As for me, and for my house, we choose to follow Christ.  I want a land where that is possible, and where everyone in society has food, clothing, shelter – and health.  It is idealistic, and likely will never come into actual existence, but isn’t it a loverly goal?

More on distribution of Wealth

On Father Ted’s blog (see the blogroll on the right) there was an article he quoted from the Wilson Quarterly, summer 2011,  on the distribution of income.  Well, after much research I was able to locate a PDF of the full article (69 pages worth!) at http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/atkinson-piketty-saezJEL10.pdf   While the article is quite technical, I think the “gist” of the differences is that the authors of the article are discussing income, not wealth, and are utilizing tax data. The objectives of the authors was to compare U.S. income distribution to that of the other developed nations.

So, the authors were discussing income and not wealth. Interestingly (well, to me anyway) it would seem that because wealth is defined as assets owned less liabilities owed, most even middle-class and upper-middle-class individuals have a negative net worth, particularly now that housing values have destroyed what little equity most had in their homes.

There is no way to measure of both income and wealth. And one may rightly infer that because the income at the lower extremes is dropping, the opportunity for the lower extremes and even the middle of the distribution to accumulate any wealth is evaporating. The lower and middle classes are finding they have (generally) enough to pay their bills, but nothing left with which to accumulate wealth.

Robert Riech, who is not an economist, I still believe has the right thought in saying that our economy is driven by sales, which is more closely related to income than wealth. As income is concentrated in higher income classes, particularly the uber-wealthy top 0.1%, the portion of that income that re-enters the economy through spending is diminished. The lower classes spend very nearly 100% of their income, while the uber-wealthy may spend less than 25% (including the luxury items).

Upper echelon income groups tend to invest their income, which (in theory) should create opportunities for those below. The issue is that those people are looking for higher and higher returns on their money (capital), with venture capitalists looking to earn 40% or more returns on their money. The whole system of capitalism is built on the payment of a return on deployed capital, which was verbotten under Jewish laws about usury. Sharia laws today prohibit Moslems from investing money for a return except under quite strict regulations.

As those groups look to deploy their capital, they are increasingly looking to investments overseas, where one may achieve the same sales with a lower labor and (in some cases) raw material cost. This belies the “trickle-down” theory that all will benefit when the wealthy deploy their capital. Quite the opposite – companies in the US are sitting on the largest cash reserves in their history. Apple has more cash in the bank than the US government, at $78 billion. Trying to have the wealthy put more cash in corporate hands is useless – they simply aren’t deploying the capital they have now. Why? Simple, really – no one can afford their products. Why make a product that no one can afford to buy? From a management perspective, it would be madness, and likely incite shareholder revolts and lawsuits. A company’s first and only obligation is to maximize the return to shareholders (which is the problem with giving them the same rights as living, breathing people).

Theologically, when the wealthy look for return on investment, they are asking “what is in it for me?” Some choose to set up charitable foundations, but the NY Times quoting a 2001 study by Independent Sector, a nonprofit organization focused on charitable giving, found that households earning less than $25,000 a year gave away an average of 4.2 percent of their incomes; those with earnings of more than $75,000 gave away 2.7 percent. The conclusion the study authors reached was interesting. Quoting Paul Piff, a PhD candidate in social psychology:

“Upper class” people, on the other hand, clung to values that “prioritized their own need.” And, he told me this week, “wealth seems to buffer people from attending to the needs of others.” Empathy and compassion appeared to be the key ingredients in the greater generosity of those with lower incomes. And these two traits proved to be in increasingly short supply as people moved up the income spectrum.

This compassion deficit — the inability to empathetically relate to others’ needs — is perhaps not so surprising in a society that for decades has seen the experiential gap between the well-off and the poor (and even the middle class) significantly widen. The economist Frank Levy diagnosed such a split in his book “The New Dollars and Dreams: American Incomes and Economic Change,” published in the midst of the late-1990s tech boom. “The welfare state,” Levy wrote, “rests on enlightened self-interest in which people can look at beneficiaries and reasonably say, ‘There but for the grace of God. . . .’ As income differences widen, this statement rings less true.” A lack of identification with those in need may explain in part why a 2007 report from the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University found that only a small percentage of charitable giving by the wealthy was actually going to the needs of the poor; instead it was mostly directed to other causes — cultural institutions, for example, or their alma maters — which often came with the not-inconsequential payoff of enhancing the donor’s status among his or her peers.

So, at the end of the day, I think those of us who choose to follow Christ should adopt the comment of Blessed Theophylact on Luke 12:16-21: “You have available to you as storehouses the stomachs of the poor which can hold much, and are indestructible and imperishable. They are in fact heavenly and divine storehouses, for he who feeds the pauper, feeds God.” (commentary on the Holy Gospel According to St. Luke, p. 147)

There is no “I”

Recently, an article struck me about the redistribution of wealth in America. Someone was saying that we should not be taking what other people did. That got me to thinking (a dangerous proposition) …

How many of those rich who “worked” for their money were given a boost from coming from upper-echelon income households that paid for private schools, elite mostly Ivy League educations, and perhaps even some “seed money” from family accumulated wealth?

To me it is a slippery slope when we talk about what “I” did, because we rarely if ever do anything in isolation. Did the person benefit from a strong public education system, by providing an educated and skilled workforce? What about the public transportation infrastructure? How about even benefiting from the strong banking system, guaranteed by the “full faith and credit of the US” as well as the FDIC? The wealthy have certainly benefited from US tax and economic policy, with the ability to borrow money for (essentially) free that they formerly would have to invest themselves.

Some benefit from the public safety net, as companies like Wal-Mart lower their operating costs by not needing to provide either healthcare or living wages for families on Medicaid and AFDC (Food Stamps). As a currently unemployed student, my healthcare bill for my family would be over $1,700 per month under my former employer’s policy – and I worked for a healthcare company! But I have too many “resources” to qualify for Medicaid myself – thankfully my child at home still qualifies.

It strikes me that the growth in concentration in wealth has also coincided with the “chaining” of America – we now frequent chains and not local businesses. In the “good ol’ days”, we’d buy locally and local business people would spend their earnings locally, through buying homes or clothes or groceries or restaurants. Now, profits go to major centers and headquarters for chain organizations – places like Bentonville, Arkansas. Even banking is now a chain operation. If you’re area is lucky enough to have one of these chains, the prospects for relative wealth are good. That is, as long as the economy supports that particular chain (e.g., Detroit and the auto industry).

It is a complicated web, but the one thing I am confident about is that none of us succeed or fail on our own. The more we focus on the welfare of our own community, the better off we will be.

Politics as (un)usual …

Since the election of Jimmy Carter in 1976, when I was a schoolkid growing up in Georgia (Carter’s home state), I’ve been interested in politics and how America governs itself.

Now, with the debt ceiling issue, I’m admitting I’m lost.

Politics has been and must be about compromise. If one participant refuses to compromise, the will of the majority will and should rule. If one group of individuals, particularly those in the minority, refuse to compromise, or yield, it is appropriate and proper to label those people fascist.

Wikipedia states: Fascists advocate the creation of a totalitarian single-party state. Ladies and gents, that is what we see in people who refuse to compromise. They are, by definition, advocating the creation of a single-party state – in this case, the “Tea Party”. They are unwilling to consider any other possibility than their own, and they plan on forcing that upon anyone they can.

The foundation was laid in a seemingly innocuous political procedural point called “cloture” back in the early 20th century. This process was designed to forestall a filibuster in the U.S. Senate by the approval of an overwhelming number of Senators, to prevent an extremely small number of Senators (or even one Senator) from bringing the business of the Senate to a halt.

In the last 10 years, cloture has taken on a different and opposite role. Those in the minority, Democrats as well as Republicans, have co-opted the procedure to ensure the Senate does no business and cannot pass legislation without a super-majority (60%) of the sitting Senators voting in favor.

To be honest, I’m so frustrated with the government right now that I can’t even think straight. The Tea Partiers are threatening the entire US Economy with collapse, and will then try to blame the Democrats. It will be extremely important in this debate to declare the true winner – the extreme right wing of the GOP. Whatever happens going forward, they will be the group to get both credit and blame for what happens.

Historically, their position that government spending prevents growth in the private sector is not borne out by observation of the facts. The economy grows when government spends. Actually, when anyone spends.

I keep hearing people talking about “job creators”, and how we need to support them. But right now, even with the lowest taxes and highest percentage of the US wealth ever, those job creators are sitting on the sideline. The government can encourage, cajole, even bribe through even lower taxes, but those job creators will not create jobs.

The reason is simple – there is no demand. Supply side economics failed. The government reduced spending, but the “trickle-down” effect was never observed. So, Reagan, Bush the first, Clinton, and Bush the Second increased government spending, and the economy grew.

A lame-duck Bush the Second, with Obama’s full support and consent, increased government spending exponentially by bailing out the largest banks and financial institutions. Some of that is proving to be shrewed, as the IPO of General Motors has returned some significant cash to the Treasury. But, and this is key, the “job creators” in the finance sector were BANKRUPT and even after the bailout, did NOT create any jobs. Quite the opposite. They paid themselves huge bonuses for being so damned smart, and paid investors, and refused to restructure mortgages or hire US Citizens and legal residents or stop the outsourcing of jobs overseas.

It is time for the United States of America to eliminate the middleman and start employing people directly. I say we begin by investing in our kids. As a friend of mine told me the other day, any reasonably intelligent adult knowledgeable in the subject matter can be a teacher. So, we hire teachers from the ranks of the unemployed until the student to teacher ratio reaches a legal maximum of 12 to 1.

Other thoughts:

Pay unemployed mothers to care for their kids. Unemployed moms (married or not) could be paid $1,500 per month until their kids graduate high school. This benefit will only be paid if their kids maintain a C average or better in school. If even one drops below a C, the benefit is not paid.

Let’s charge an exise tax on the salaries of corporate executives and directors at 90% on the amount total compensation exceeds 10 times the average wage of all entities under their control. If the average wage at Wal-Mart is $12 per hour, then all compensation in excess of $250,000 per year would be taxed at 90%. If the company extended health, dental, vision and other insurance, fully company paid, for the family of every employee, they could reduce that excise tax to 65%. The tax would be reduced to 40% if the total full-time equivalent employment increased by 10%, and would be eliminated in any years the employment increase on the same basis was 20% or more.

Each and every government employee, or employee of anyone doing business with the US government in any capacity, would be entitled to enroll in Medicare at no cost to them.

The first $24,000 of wages, or up to the federal poverty level for the family size, would be exempt from FICA and Medicare tax. The cap on these taxes would be removed completely.

Unemployment taxes would extend to every dollar of payroll paid by a company, including bonuses but excluding stock or non-cash compensation. In return, unemployment would be based on a rate equal to 60% of the employee’s average weekly wage over the past 24 months.

Unemployment would automatically trigger enrollment in Medicare, and unemployment compensation would NOT be taxable.

When state social service agencies certify annually that 100% of the county has adequate food, clothing and shelter (including heat in the winter and cooling to below danger levels in the summer), and the legally binding committment from private charities for that total for not less than 12 months in the future is in place, then all state benefits will cease in that county, including unemployment. Before we eliminate the safety net, we have to demonstrate that private charity is sufficient to carry the day.

Political reform: If, and only if, debate has continued for more than 24 consecutive hours by only one individual (i.e., a filibuster) could cloture be invoked. Rather than a 30 hour limit and one day delay, the vote on the motion at hand must be taken immediately.

Each candidate for Congress and President, qualified to be on the ballot in every area of the district they proport to represent (i.e., the full state for senate, all states for President) will be allotted one dollar for every registered voter in that district to cover campaign costs. The funding would not be issued in cash, but rather campaigns would have their payments drawn on a state election board administered fund. For example, the guy who prints up campaign signs submits an invoice approved by the designated campaign official to the state election board, who issues the check. When the money is gone, it is gone. Any other political speech or spending cannot name or endorse a candidate or party, but may advocate for specific ideas.

Congressional districts will be drawn by a bi-partisan state commission whose rulings are final. This utilizes the California model.

Now, if we want to incorporate some morality in the mix, how about this:

Marriage licenses may only be issued twice per individual lifetime. Divorce is bad public policy, so let’s eliminate the ability to remarry.

Abortion will be illegal only in locations where access to birth control is free and at zero cost.

We will ban homosexual unions of all types when and only when the divorce rate is lower than 20%. If you can’t handle marriage, then don’t talk about it’s sanctity.

Adoptions should always be free to the families involved. The several states through their department of social services should be the final arbiter of adoptions. To prevent an adoption, no less than three state social workers would have to certify the adoption is not in the best interest of the child, and the reasons for that certification. The judge could decide to overrule the opinion. Lawyers should not be involved. Adoption agencies should not accept payment for their services, but anyone can donate to them.

OK. There is the plan. Now, can we PLEASE raise the debt ceiling so the US can pay its mortgage? Pretty Please?

27 is a magic number

Why you may ask? Well, in Pennsylvania, to qualify for Medicaid as a NON-working couple, you have to make less than 27% of the Federal Poverty Level for your family size.

So, for a two-parent, one child family the income limit to qualify for medical assistance is slightly less than $5,000 per year ($4,943.70 to be precise). At minimum wage, $7.25 per hour, that equates to slightly less than 682 hours per year, or 13 hours per week.

Words fail me at how generous our society is to those of lesser means. If you make $6,000 as a family, your choice is eating or going to the doctor when you are sick. It is healthcare or homelessness.

Can’t we as a society come up with some way, tax funded or not, to provide healthcare for everyone?

Implications of the Income Gap, and the Death of Civic Duty

Over the past several weeks, I’ve become rather concerned about the growing income gap, and the apparent desire of those with resources to say to those without to “just get a job”, as if those were able to be gotten. With structural unemployment near 20%, and people locked into homes that they can’t afford to sell to move where work is – which is where, by the way? – anyway, there are precious few jobs to be had. The only interest I’ve gotten would require my family and I to abandon seminary, abandon our faith, and move to Dubai, working for a very reputable U.S. organization that runs a hospital there. Suffice it to say, a big resounding “NO” on that one …

But I digress. Let’s think back a few years, not that many, to the frontiers and rural communities of the United States. Let’s look at a small Missouri or Kansas or Minnesota or South Dakota farm community of around 100 families. Something quite like Walnut Grove, from “Little House on the Prairie” fame.

The people in those towns and communities needed services. The hospital was the doctor’s house. If a road needed to be built, or a church, those that could provided the labor and those that could provided the materials. Never really much thought given to the proportional share of the contribution – everyone gave of what they had, to the ability they had.

Nobody was homeless, because everyone offered people a place to stay and food in exchange for labor. There were certainly the wealthy – the merchant class, typically – who gave the most because they had the most. Perhaps when they had a need, like a teacher, everyone contributed to the salary of that individual. Part of the issue was that while there were those who were wealthy, even the wealthy could not afford a private tutor. It was in their interest to get the best teacher they could for the community, not simply for altruistic community benefit, but for the ability to educate the members of their own family.

Taxes weren’t an issue, even though there was a huge disparity in what people contributed in material, money and labor toward the common good. Certain things, like the railroads, were privately funded and owned, but highly regulated to ensure people could afford to use them to get goods to market, and still provide a return to the owners. Roads and bridges weren’t yet an issue.

Back in the day, this was termed “doing one’s civic duty”.

As towns grew larger it became more difficult to gather the citizenry to erect a new building or hire a new teacher. So, they had to enact taxes. Churches assumed the charitable work, and taxes and the local civil government took on the civic work that needed to be done. Even still, the wealthy paid a highly disproportionate share of the bill – largely considered to be still their “civic duty”, as the community had enabled their wealth. The progressive tax system was born.

Fast forward to today – the rich are now SO rich that they can have private tutors, their own transportation system, their own private mercenary militia, etc. They have SO much that they no longer have the need for the labor of, nor concern for the needs of, the serfs.

Sadly, the needs for food, clothing and shelter became too massive for churches to handle by themselves. Plus, the wealthy came to see Churches as unnecessary for them, and we watched their membership, attendance, and donations all decline. The simple fact was the rich were needed to support the poor and they chose not to – at least, not to the level of the need.

As a dear friend once said, the generation of WWII gave because they wanted to. The 50’s-60’s gave because they were expected to. Generations since then give only because something is expected in return.

Sadly, that matches with my experience.

But I’m getting sidetracked again . . .

What we can now identify is that it is the gap between wealth and poverty, not just the wealth itself, that seems to be causing the decline in civic responsibility and the cry for fewer and fewer taxes. The people who pay only want to pay for services they benefit from, and that is becoming increasingly easy for them to acquire privately – be it police, fire, education, transportation or defense.

Now, this new structure isn’t capitalism – it is feudalism. And it is fueled by the Corporations that provide us (the serfs) with our meager subsistence.

Interestingly, Corporations are chartered by the government – even private corporations – and the government can take away their charter if they so desire. With the state of government in our day and age, though, such an expectation is frivolous, to say the least.

What isn’t frivolous is the ability to influence the corporation, which in our day is quickly becoming the defacto source of power over everyday lives. Shareholder activism is the very tip of the very top of the iceberg. Progressives would be well advised to start redirecting their efforts from government to corporate interests.

We have to make the case to corporations and their shareholders that it is in their best interest to make sure we have the best education system, the best healthcare system, the best transportation system. It is in their best interest to make sure that we lose our dependence on fossil fuels and that the corporation who comes up with viable solar or hydrogen fuel cell technology will win for the next hundred years.

Remember, Henry Ford didn’t invent the automobile – he invented the method of making the automobile affordable.

In return, we need to ensure that the workers are provided with some very basic things: jobs, at adequate wages, healthcare, food, transportation, child care, education for their kids, and the ability to obtain all these things when they don’t have a job. (like retirement).

The history buffs out there will understand what this is – it is the Guild system, and is the basis for an economic system called “Distributism”. The basic premise is that everything is community focused, that there is no benefit when “giant” corporations to take profits out of the community that used to stay in the community when everything was small business. The local grocer paid for labor locally, bought product locally, and took the profits and spent locally (on those nice houses and fancy cars that small business owners are so known for!). They contributed to the schools because their family and their workforce was a product of those schools.

But the place to start is with the existing corporations. These corporations are given “personhood” by the state – witness the “Citizens United” Supreme Court decision! Yet their ONLY obligation is to their shareholders – not employees, not managers, not governments. And that benefit to shareholders is to maximize their return on investment. Period. No other benefits to shareholders count.

You know, the biggest problem with health insurers is that they are now corporations instead of mutual organizations. Same with professional services. Even the stock exchange is a corporation, not a membership organization. I happen to know a bit about health insurers because I worked in healthcare finance for 25 years.

We talk about the high costs of healthcare – well, start by removing the “profit” from that calculation. The profits of health insurers have never been higher, with returns approaching 10%. Cigna is the highest at 11.1%, most others are in the 9-10% range. So, of every dollar of premium cost, 10% or thereabouts goes to profits. Hospitals typically generate 3-4% profits (for privately owned and publically traded institutions). I’m defining profits as the Earnings per share divided by the stock price, or inverse Price to Earnings ratio.

If you factor in profits on others in the industry, there is probably 15-20% that could be factored out by simply making healthcare like a public utility, non profit and mutual ownership.

OK, I think you get the point:

1. The income gap increase allows the wealthiest among us to abandon their responsibility to society (a.k.a., civic duty).

2. The future of what is loosely termed “social justice” or “progressivism” is likely in corporate activism, not in governmental or non-governmental organizations.

And, finally, 3. The Church should prepare to care for the middle and lower class – it will be a bumpy transition.