Why Private funding?

by James Whitford

Our Founding Fathers said so. 

The debate as to whether helping those in need should be a matter of public or private funding is not new. Few would argue, though, that helping the poor is a not a responsibility within a healthy society. The question here is with whom does that responsibility rest? Government or the compassionate neighbor? Our Founding Fathers had an opinion. During the Haitian revolution, islanders fled to New England escaping French persecution. The influx of refugees proved difficult and a petition to the federal government was made for assistance. In 1794, James Madison stood on the House floor and objected, “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents…Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.” 

The fact that benevolence from the public treasury is not a power granted by the Constitution was reaffirmed by Thomas Jefferson in 1817. He penned, “Our tenet ever was that Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated so it could not have been meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action.”

In like, Benjamin Franklin simply said “I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means.”

That was their opinion and if it’s yours, you’re already favoring private funding over public. 

But even if we set aside the hope of our Founding Fathers to spare this great Republic from a metastatic federal government, we should ask ourselves, “Can we afford it?”  

We can’t afford public funding.

Just checked the U.S. Debt Clock. Twenty-one trillion, two-hundred twelve billion, one hundred seven million and 6 other digits that are escalating too quickly for me to record. No, we can’t afford it. Not including Medicare and Social Security, the federal government projects to spend 918 billion dollars on caring for the poor this year. That number is important. Not only does it represent a fourth of our entire federal budget, but it’s very close to the annual debt escalation over the last decade. In a nation where we celebrate freedom, we’re wise to remember that the borrower is slave to the lender. Indebtedness and freedom don’t mix well. Jesus rightly said, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.” Today, I believe we can rightly say, “Don’t take from Caesar what he doesn’t have.” Now on that point of what government has or doesn’t have, we should ask ourselves, “Whose money is it, anyway?”

Public money belongs to someone else.

Some may think this a lofty argument for private funding, but for the hardworking taxpayer, it’s very relevant. By that person, the question, “Whose money is it?” may very well be answered, “It’s mine!” Is he right? Consider Micah 4:4 and the description under Christ’s future reign: “…each man will sit under his own grapevine and under his own fig tree with no one to frighten him.” Whose fig tree? His own.  These and scores of other verses in the Bible indicate that private property is a natural right. John Locke, whose writings greatly influenced our current standard of law, conveyed personal property as a God-given right and the product of one’s labor: “…the Work of his Hands, we may say are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the State that Nature hath provided, and…hath mixed his Labour with…thereby makes it his Property.”

In other words, if a man plows a field, the harvest is his. 

Whether it goes to Planned Parenthood or comes to my Gospel Rescue Mission, it’s not the government’s to give. It’s someone else’s personal property and that someone else should have the right to support what he or she desires. 

If you agree that it’s not the government’s money, then we must ask, “Can it be the government’s responsibility?”

It’s our responsibility

In Isaiah 58, God promises a life that flourishes when we divide our bread with the hungry, clothe the naked and shelter the poor. Justice for the poor is His and ultimately, the Church is His vehicle to deliver it. In Isaiah 58, He was speaking to a nation of His people. Today, the mandate still rests with the nation of His people. 

There are reasons for that. Paul writes in 2 Timothy, “Support widows who are genuinely widows.” Pure and undefiled religion not only included helping orphans and widows, but discerning those who really needed the help. The Church, built by relationships, was the natural source for this accountability. This principle of people-who-know helping people-in-need would later be defined as subsidiarity, addressed by Pope Pius XI in 1931. “Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative…so also it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do.”

Subsidiarity is about neighbor helping neighbor before the government helps your neighbor. 

Some might say, “That’s impossible!” Edward Divine, a leader in the formation of social work and General Secretary of the New York Charitable Organization Society in 1896 challenged, “If there were no resources in times of exceptional distress except the provision which people would voluntarily make on their own account and the informal neighborly help which people would give to one another… most of the misfortunes would still be provided for.”  

I believe it. I was in Joplin, Missouri on May 22 of 2011 when it suffered a catastrophic disaster. A mile-wide F5 tornado rendered more than 7000 people homeless in less than an hour. I watched what government funding could never have done. The relief provided through personal sacrifice, private contributions and countless kind and neighborly acts was immeasurable and proof that in times of great need, a good neighbor can do much more than a big government.

Lastly, we can bet that with government funding comes government oversight. These strings are long tying our missions to bureaucrats in Washington. And though they may not seem too stringent, it’s only a matter of time before the administration changes along with the rules.  

To embrace liberty is to embrace more than just freedom from government tyranny, but freedom from government dependency. After all, the latter is certain to lead to the former.

A version of this article was published in the Joplin Globe on February 25th 2019 and Instigate Magazine’s January/February 2019 issue.