Reformation
Finally–A Serious Plan to Save the American Dream
Today, the accumulated debt of of 235 years of American civilization reached 14.3 trillion dollars–over $46,000 for every man, woman, and child in the United States.
For the next few weeks or months, Congress will fiercely debate whether to keep adding to that debt, or make some radical choices to control spending which could save the American Dream.
That Dream is not personal peace and affluence. It’s a commitment to human liberty, centering on freedom to worship God, that made the United States a very special nation for centuries–and produced an amazing degree of blessing and prosperity.
Exceptional application of biblical principles built an exceptional nation.
Can that nation and its economy be saved?
I believe the answer is yes if we believe and act wisely.
The Heritage Foundation has produced a serious economic plan to save the American Dream. It will require much prayer,, corporate repentance, courageous senators and congressmen, and a new American president to implement it.
But it is totally necessary. As Heritage points out, our national economy is in decline and could actually collapse unless we deal ruthlessly with our careless addiction to government largesse and indebtedness.
Representative Paul Ryan has also produced a Congressional road map to economic solvency. But the Heritage plan is more realistic, detailed, and politically possible if we vote in a good slate of leaders in the 2012 elections.
But we also need to understand that election results and the economies and laws they produce are a reflection of the hearts of a people. In the coming months, millions of American hearts need to:
- Seek the face of God for forgiveness for our personal and national sins. We need a renewal of the American spirit that will be the wind behind societal change.
- Become again a people of faith. Faith in God, faith in his principles, and faith in economic freedom that is not based on government dependency, regulation and bail outs.
- Restore a sense of morality and self-control to their personal and public lives. Our runaway spending and deficits are a reflection of personal bad habits and uncontrolled desires. There will be little change at the “top” if there is not fundamental realignment at the “bottom.”
- Accept some suffering and sacrifice to clean up our national economic mess. Just as individuals and families must cut back, work hard, and persevere over time to overcome their poor business decisions, so we as a nation must do the same. No pain, no gain.
But there’s hope on the horizon. Please read Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner’s announcement below and click on the link to gain a perspective on Saving the American Dream.
Then pray and do your part to make it a reality. RB
Saving the American Dream – May 10, 2011
By Ed Feulner
Fellow Americans:
Today, I am excited to announce the release of The Heritage Foundation’s comprehensive agenda that sets a new course for the size and scope of the federal government. The new report, “Saving the American Dream: Heritage’s Plan to Fix the Debt, Cut Spending, and Restore Prosperity,” lays out specific policy recommendations in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, health insurance, the tax code and federal spending. Saving the American Dream envisions real solutions for staving off America’s potential decline while strengthening the economy for current and future generations.
We are doing this because we have come to a time of decision in America. For far too long, Congress has been on an unsustainable binge of spending, taxing, and borrowing. Our nation is going broke, and we are passing the costs of these misguided policies to our children and their children.
Over time, our national government has become bloated, overextended and unrestrained, oblivious of its core functions, operating far beyond its means and vastly outside of its proper constitutional bounds. Unchecked, the course we are on now will cripple our economy, undermine our prosperity, and lead to fiscal insolvency. By robbing the future of opportunity and freedom, it will destroy the American Dream for future generations.
Already, we are living through the shame of being publicly lectured by our Communist Chinese creditors, who have contempt for our profligacy. The day it was announced that Standard and Poor’s had lowered the outlook on our economy, a collective gasp went through the international community. If our elected leaders keep it up, we are certain to face financial crises like Greece or Portugal.
America is on the verge of becoming a country in decline—economically stagnant and permanently debtbound, heavily regulated and bureaucratic, less self-governing and less free.
But this fate does not have to be our future. We can get spending under control, balance the budget, and shrink our debt. We can limit the size of government and set free once again the unlimited genius of Americans to create wealth and jobs. We can turn the tide and change our nation’s course.
Saving the American Dream is our plan to fix the debt, cut spending and, above all, restore prosperity. It balances the nation’s budget within a decade—and keeps it balanced. It reduces the debt and cuts government in half. It eliminates government-mandated health care and fully funds our national defense. In order to get our fiscal house in order, we must address Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, the three so-called entitlement programs which together account for 43 percent of federal spending today. Far too many seniors still lack enough help to avoid poverty. Saving the American Dream therefore does not end these programs; instead it focuses them on those who need them.
Our plan also encourages Americans to become more fiscally responsible themselves. It redesigns our entire tax system into an expenditure tax that will have a single flat rate. This is a structure that will promote savings, therefore benefiting individual Americans, our body politic, and the economy. Greater savings mean stronger capital formation and thus a more robust economy, which means real jobs for Americans.
This plan substantially reduces the size and scope of the federal government, fundamentally increases the role of the states in choosing their own practices, and brings decision-making closer to the people rather than unelected administrators. These are crucial steps that will get our nation on a path of fiscal, political, and constitutional responsibility. It is part of our larger effort to get our country back on track, reclaim its truths, conserve its liberating principles, and build an America where freedom, opportunity, prosperity, and civil society flourish.
At the end of the day our plan, while economic in nature, has a higher moral purpose. If entitlements are not reformed, the next generation and future ones will have to pay punitive tax rates that will end liberty as we have known it. Our proposal aims to preserve America’s promise bequeathed to us by past generations.
Edmund Burke reminds us to think of our time on this earth not as an individual and temporary event, but rather as a partnership “between those who are living, those who are dead and those who are yet to be born.” Keeping faith with this partnership is what we aim to do with Saving the American Dream.
We have been here before, and every time the American people have always risen to the occasion and seized the moment. In 1776 we were told that no upstart colonists could defeat the strongest nation in the world, and we decided to change the course of history. In 1860 we were told the Union could not hold and that America was over, and we brought forth a new birth of freedom. In 1980 we were told that the American century was at an end, and we launched a great economic expansion, rebuilt our military, and revived our national spirit.
Hard times demand tough choices. The future of our nation is at stake.
All that is required, as my hero Ronald Reagan once said, is “our best effort, and our willingness to believe in ourselves and to believe in our capacity to perform great deeds; to believe that together, with God’s help, we can and will resolve the problems which now confront us.”
Together, let us seize the moment, change our country’s course, and save the American Dream.
Edwin J. Feulner
President, The Heritage Foundation
When Water Reaches the Ceiling, Don’t Raise It–Start Pumping!
I believe we need to bring back an important word that people hesitate to use in politics:
Lie.
Have you noticed that politicians usually skirt that little word? The news anchor says, “Do you think you lied about this or that?” The answer usually comes back, “Well, it might be an untruth , but”….or “I wouldn’t call it a lie, but…”
That’s not good enough anymore. We are being told a number of lies by our government because we are in grave trouble and there is much to cover up. We don’t tolerate lies in our personal lives and dealings, and we shouldn’t in the civil sphere either.
The current lie being told is that we need to raise the United States debt limit or go into default. They’re lying to us because because they need to scare us into getting their way–to keep on spending recklessly.
But it’s a lie–and it’s time we called their bluff.
Yes, we can with integrity oppose the raising of the US debt ceiling; No it will not cause a default or put in jeopardy “the full faith and credit of the United States;” And we must oppose it at this hour because our burgeoning debt is grossly immoral and could cause a collapse of the entire world economy.
Now is the time to say NO.
I cannot un-wrap this subject better than Redstate.com and the Heritage Foundation have done in the following articles. Please read them carefully and do everything in your power to oppose the raising of the US debt ceiling.
It’s not time to raise the ceiling. It’s already far too high. We need to start pumping the flood of government debt out of the precious dwelling we call the United States of America.
On April 25, Redstate exposed the debt ceiling lie quite clearly. Here is their take:
“Reporters, Democrats, and even some Republicans have begun repeating an infectious lie in the prelude to the debt ceiling debate. Secretary of Treasury Tim Geithner started it off and it has been repeated by reporters in print, on radio, and on television, including Fox News.”
“The lie is very simple: a failure to raise the debt ceiling will cause a default on American debt. This is utterly and categorically a lie. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar.”
“As Senator Pat Toomey noted the other day,
“Next year, about 7 percent of all projected federal government expenditures will go to interest on our debt. Tax revenue is projected to cover at least 70 percent of all government expenditures. So, under any circumstances, there will be plenty of money to pay our creditors.”
‘Moreover, as the Congressional Research Service has noted, the Treasury secretary himself has the discretion to decide which bills to pay first in the event that a cash flow shortage occurs.’
“Nonetheless, the media and Democrats keep repeating the lie. And it is a lie.”
“Veronique de Rugy and Jason Fichtner chronicled debt ceiling fights in the Washington Times and, from their writing, we can categorically show it to be a lie to claim a failure to raise the debt ceiling will cause a default on American debt obligations.”
‘In 1985, Congress waited nearly three months after the debt limit was reached before authorizing a permanent increase. In 1995, 4 1/2 months passed between hitting the ceiling and congressional action. And in 2002, Congress delayed raising the debt ceiling for three months. In each case, the U.S. and the economy survived.’
“Not only did the economy survive, but the United States did not default on its debt obligations, the United States did not lose its credit rating, and interest rates did not go up as a result of the default.”
“To say that failing to raise the debt ceiling will cause a default is a lie and anyone who says it is a liar.”
“If we fail to raise the debt ceiling and do default, it will not because because of a failure to raise the debt ceiling. It will be because Barack Obama and Tim Geithner chose to default for political gain.”
“Again, as Senator Toomey points out:
‘As the Congressional Research Service has noted, the Treasury secretary himself has the discretion to decide which bills to pay first in the event that a cash flow shortage occurs. Thus, it is he who would have to consciously, and needlessly, choose to default on our debt if the debt ceiling is not promptly raised upon reaching it. It takes a lot of chutzpah to preemptively blame congressional Republicans for a default only he could cause.'”
The Heritage Foundation gives this wise explanation to the debt ceiling debate:
“All across Western Europe—the land of platinum-plated social benefits, the 35-hour work week, tony retirement plans and government-funded health care—countries are coming to the realization that they can no longer afford these luxuries amid skyrocketing deficits. Yet here in the United States, as we face a $14.3 trillion deficit, some are calling for increasing our government’s ability to borrow even more money without any concern for spending reform. Congress can’t allow that to happen, lest we become the Europe of the West.”
“The U.S. government is fast approaching its $14.294 trillion debt ceiling — the statutory limit on how much money it can borrow to finance spending. Just how big is that? To put it in perspective, it would take essentially everything that Americans produced in all of last year to pay off the existing national debt. That comes out to $45,000 of debt for each American.”
“Unfortunately, it’s all too common for Congress to reach that ceiling and keep raising its own credit limit, letting itself borrow and spend even more. In fact, Congress raised the debt ceiling from $6.4 trillion in 2002 and nine times thereafter to its present levels. Hopefully, though, this time will be different.”
“Yesterday on “Face the Nation,” Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL) said, “I will vote ‘no’ on raising the debt ceiling unless we have comprehensive, dramatic, effective, and broad-based cuts to federal spending including the reform of entitlement spending.” Sen. Kirk’s instincts are right. The solution starts with Congress. David Addington, Vice President for Domestic and Economic Policy at The Heritage Foundation, writes:
‘Federal spending has been out of control for decades, and federal borrowing has therefore also been out of control for decades. America has amassed a giant, unaffordable debt and a giant, intrusive government. This did not happen by accident. Congress passed all the laws that made it happen. Fortunately, Congress has under the Constitution all the power it needs to solve the problem it created. It needs only the will to do so and the support of the American people.'”
“Here’s how Congress should use that power. As Addington writes, Congress should not increase the debt limit until it puts the government firmly on the path to financial responsibility. And it can get there by cutting current spending, restricting future spending, and putting a more effective federal budgeting process in place.”
“The Heritage Foundation identified $343 billion of potential spending cutsthat could be made on top of the cuts passed by the House in February and the repeal of Obamacare appropriations, which the House approved in January. When it comes to future limits on spending, Congress can impose enforceable caps on out-of-control entitlement programs and pass a balanced budget amendment. The budgeting process should be reformed, too, by making it more transparent and imposing new limits on federal agencies. Merely raising the limit without reforms is the worst option, Addington says:
‘The least acceptable outcome is for Congress to continue to raise the debt ceiling over and over, doing nothing to drive down federal spending and borrowing, and to pile trillions of dollars in debt upon the shoulders of America’s children and the generations to follow.'”
“President Barack Obama and White House officials have warned of global economic Armageddonif Congress does not act now to raise the debt limit. Their warnings, though, are reckless hyperbole. A greater threat is the U.S. government’s unchecked expansion of unsustainable deficit spending. Congress must break its pattern of borrowing more and spending more by acting now to cut spending and get the government’s fiscal house in order. Only then can it avert a real crisis.”
Now that’s the TRUTH about the grossly immoral US debt and debt ceiling.
No more raising the lid. It’s time to drain the swamp to salvage the nation we call “home.”
Congressional leaders: Just say NO.
President Obama and Administration: Don’t tell us a lie.
Forget the debt ceiling and start pumping! We’re ready to help you with the clean-up and re-building of our once financially prudent nation.
But the buck stops (being borrowed and cheapened) with you.
How Easter Changed the World–and Can Do It Again
This week we celebrate Easter–the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Two-thirds of our global population will take time to honor these events in some way with cross walks, worship services, family gatherings, or even Easter egg hunts (the only major exception being the Muslim nations).
Some may have not thought deeply about the impact of Jesus, but all have affected by it.
To the majority of people in the world, Jesus is an honored historical figure who was was the founder of Christianity–but that is about as far as it goes. Many have no idea that his death and resurrection has had an unsurpassed effect on the history of man. In fact without the death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, life on planet earth would be incomprehensibly different from what it is today.
Easter changed the world–made it very different than what came before.
How different? Let’s take a look.
The essence of Jesus’ mission was to save the individual lives of every person who chooses to put their trust in him. He didn’t just point the way to a set of ideals or moral principles as many other teachers did. Rather, he promised when we were “born again by his Spirit” he would come to live inside of us, guiding and empowering people to live meaningful and godly lives.
At the age of fifteen I put my trust in Christ to forgive my sins and come into my life. He did. From the very beginning I experienced his presence, power, guidance, correction, and empowering which changed everything in my world. I was no longer “wretched man that I am!” (Romans 7:24)–but was set “free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2). There was a new dynamite–dynamic–power–to live a productive life. Over the past two thousand years, it is the Spirit of Jesus Christ in millions, and now billions of people, that has altered the landscape of history through changing individual lives.
Similarly, no one altered the role of women is society more than the resurrection of Jesus. Prior to New Testament times, women labored in harsh, subservient roles, often nothing more than slaves to men and their families. Loren Cunningham and David Hamilton point out in their liberating book Why Not Women? that the Greek philosopher Cicero likened women to “slaves, dogs, horses, and donkeys”–all possessions to be used and cast away.
Jesus’ miraculous life elevated women to equal worth in God’s sight and complimentary roles in the marriage relationship. ALL of the women’s rights we enjoy, especially in the past two hundred years, were produced by the Christian faith. Even in Muslim societies today, women are second-class citizens. Not in the Christian West where women have all the same rights as anyone else. If you’re a woman, living in a Western nation, you can thank Jesus Christ for the freedoms you enjoy.
Also, though the Church has not always properly applied the teachings of Christ, it is also true that no group of people have made a more positive impact on the history of the world than the Christian Church. The “Church”–the “called out ones” (Greek = ekklesia)– transformed the Roman Empire, rescued “learning” from the destruction of the Middle Ages, raised Europe out of barbarism, pioneered the New World, and sent Christian civilization to the ends of the earth.
History would be unrecognizable today without the acts of God’s people in every century. Without the compassion, evangelism, humanitarian, and social justice works of the Church in scores of nations, the lives of millions today would be without hope.
One of the things we both criticize and take for granted in the 21st century is the positive role of human governments that were shaped by Christianity. Prior to the Christian faith being applied to civil government, people lived in perpetual fear of massacres and tyrants. Your town could be here one day and be burned to the ground the next. You could be alive one day and dead the next. Power and fear ruled human societies for much of human history.
But after the death and resurrection of Christ, the biblical role of civil government began to emerge through the Magna Charta, British common law, republican governments, democratic principles, and human rights. These things weren’t just the evolutionary march of history–they were incremental applications of Christ’s teachings to human governments.
Do you appreciate armies and police that protect us? Do you value the right to vote and elect your representatives? Do you appreciate the relative tranquility of a just social order? All of these things–which are not enjoyed in many non-Christian nations in the world–are the fruit of faith in Jesus Christ.
Most of the major milestones in human education flow from one fountain: faith in Jesus Christ. Did you know that we would have lost the great literature of Greece and Rome (and all of the ancient world) if it weren’t for the Christian monks who preserved that knowledge through finding, preserving, and copying all the ancient writings during the Middle Ages? Are you aware that the first universities in Paris and London were started by believers who had a thirst for knowledge and wisdom?
Did you know that the printing of the Gutenberg Bible was considered by TIME magazine the most important event of the past five hundred years because it made truth and knowledge easily available to the masses? Have you heard that the first one hundred and twenty universities in America, beginning with Harvard, were started by followers of Christ for the advancement of the Christian faith?
Even the development of human work, labor and industry, finds its zenith in the application of Christian truths. For most of history, and still in some parts of the world, there were only a few wealthy tyrants and teeming masses of poor people. For thousands of years there was no middle class and no freedom for individual initiative. During the Christianizing of Europe, this all changed as believers applied biblical concepts of labor and industry which eventually became free enterprise capitalism that led the world out of its mass poverty.
As Adam Smith wisely pointed out, the Wealth of Nationswas simply the fruit of applying the reality of Christ to economics. The large and growing middle classes, the endless business opportunities, the Protestant work ethic, extensive philanthropy, and the standard of living we share today is the fruit of the teachings of Christ. When you purchase your next gizmo or wonder drug, thank God that the free enterprise system you currently enjoy is built on faith from start to finish.
Rodney Stark in his marvelous book For the Glory of God rightly points out modern science was born of the Christian faith and not in opposition to it. It was Christian civilization that proposed that “design points to a Designer”–and that man was placed on the earth to discover God’s secrets in nature and use those discoveries to benefit people.
From Galileo to Faraday, from Pascal to Einstein, the leading scientists of both the past and present have overwhelmingly been people of faith who used their trust in Jesus Christ to unlock the mysteries of his creation. I recently visited the Kennedy Space Center and gazed in awe at the technology and scientific genius that put men on the moon. None of this would have been possible without believing in a God whose creation can be understood. That Creator is the resurrected Christ.
Francis Schaeffer pointed out in his landmark book How Should We Then Live?that the coming of Christ greatly influenced the arts–that prior to Christ’s birth, all music was played in minor chords, showing the incompleteness and lack of harmony in life. After Christ’s death and resurrection brought wholeness to individuals and nations, people began creating major chord music and realistic art–an expression of their reconciliation to God. Picture the totem pole faces and primitive art forms of pagan peoples. They always look wild, menacing, and evil.
Not after Jesus died and rose! He brought healing, peace, and completeness to thousands of lives who then reflected that wholeness in ever expanding art forms. It’s a long ways from lewd and angry totem poles to the Sistine Chapel–but Christ produced the difference. When lives are changed and brought into right relationship to God, they sing, paint, and give him glory in the arts. This is why more hymns and songs have been written about Jesus than any other person in history.
The love of Jesus Christ–as demonstrated on the Cross of Calvary–has made the greatest mark upon the world. “God is love,” and Jesus’ horrific sufferings on behalf of sinful people showed the world once and for all that God cares for each one of us and provided a way out of our guilt and self destruction. For two thousand years, followers of the loving Christ have carried his compassion and care to peoples everywhere.
Nations have been won through his love; The majority of hospitals and compassion ministries around the globe have been launched in his Name; When there are earthquakes, tsunamis, fires, and typhoons, God’s love through his people runs to alleviate human suffering via the Red Cross, World Vision, and thousands of other agencies. Where would our world be without the love of Christ as expressed through his people?
Jesus was not just a good man who founded a great religion. He was the Son of God, sent on a mission to transform the world through changing individual lives. I want you to imagine for a moment what your life would like if he hadn’t died and rose again!
You’d be powerless in your sins, separated from God forever. If you’re a woman, you’ve had no rights or future. Your family would be broken and dysfunctional. You’d have no worship or fellowship. You’d be living under a tyrant, without education, and in miserable poverty. You would be fearful of nature (creation), your art forms would express those fears. You would lack faith, hope, and love in this life–and the next.
Unfortunately, that description fits the circumstances of some people alive today–who have not heard of Jesus and the wonder of his love. Let’s be faithful to take his Good News to them.
The so-far turbulent 21st century needs to once again focus on the greatest Person of history–Jesus Christ. During this holiest of weeks, we need to pray that mena nd women, families, and whole nations will look to Jesus Christ for forgiveness of their sins and power to live wholesome and effective lives.
We must never forget that Easter–the death and resurrection of Jesus–radically changed the world for good.
Let’s ask Him to do it again in our generation.