Neighborhood Ministries

Under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Social Security Act (1935) was passed to help the elderly, the unemployed, and the disadvantaged. While that seems like a great achievement, the devil is in the details. While the main goals were to help those who are retired by having them pay into a separate fund, it also included a program for unemployment insurance which employers would contribute to, which were good programs. However, they also included health insurance for those in financial distress, assistance for widows with children, and assistance for those who were disabled. Overall, they were good programs in the beginning, however they were not funded by those who benefited and opened the doors to more entitlement programs. They soon began making changes that undermined them. Welfare was originally restricted to widows and only assisted children of needy families. It soon was extended to include women whose husband was no longer in the home. While that sounds good, it opened the door for husbands who were unwilling or unable to support their family to desert their wives so their wife could get help. That led to widespread desertion and divorce, destroying the family structure of many families paving the way for families to continue on welfare from one generation to the next. This hurt Black families the most because Black men were more likely to have low-paying jobs and their wives could make more on welfare. The percentage of Black families with two parents has dropped drastically, resulting in increased crime, alcoholism, drug use, illegitimate babies, and single parent families. That has trapped many families in welfare because they can not make enough in entry level jobs to equal what they make on welfare, so they don’t dare leave it. Democrats found they could get widespread support among Blacks and poor Whites, who were dependent on welfare, by expanding the welfare programs  and telling recipients that Republicans wanted to abolish the programs.

Democrats voted to add 80 billion dollars to the IRS to add 87,000 new IRS agents as part of their Inflation Reduction Act. It was buried in the massive bill so nobody would notice. Increased government spending has to be supported with increased taxes, or it just adds to our debt. The implication is that the increased agents will crack down on tax fraud and net increased revenue. That is doubtful since President Obama hired thousands of new FBI agents who spent a great deal of time trying to dig up dirt on his political opponents to influence  the election and insure his reelection and IRS agents were diverted from seeking tax fraud during the 2016 election to investigate conservative organizations that were applying for non-profit status, in order to threaten them not to speak out against government abuses. Coupled with the media censorship of conservative organizations, it prevented voters from hearing from organizations dealing with the problems our society faces, in order to influence voters to vote for their programs. As a result, all they heard from was  politicians who seem to be out of touch with the problems we face. Given President Biden’s record, it isn’t hard to estimate what the new agents will be doing. Republicans just pushed through a bill to cut IRS spending to prevent them from hiring the new agents. It will not have any practical effect since it would have to passed by the liberal Senate and signed by President Biden, and that probably won’t happen, however it will force liberal politicians to justify their stand. Unlike the budget bill, the issue will be out in the open. If voters are smart, they will pay attention to who votes for the bill and who votes against it, and vote accordingly in the next election..