Just and Holy Principles

Founders:

Benjamin Franklin: I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer. (Franklin, Benjamin On the Price of Corn and Management of the Poor, November, 1766)

Benjamin Franklin: Repeal that [welfare] law, and you will soon see a change in their manners. St. Monday and St. Tuesday, will soon cease to be holidays. Six days shalt thou labor, though one of the old commandments long treated as out of date, will again be looked upon as a respectable precept; industry will increase, and with it plenty among the lower people; their circumstances will mend, and more will be done for their happiness by inuring them to provide for themselves, than could be done by dividing all your estates among them. (Franklin, Benjamin letter to Collinson, May 9, 1753)

Thomas Paine: What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. (Paine, Thomas The American Crisis, No. 1, December 19, 1776)

Thomas Jefferson: Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition. (Jefferson, Thomas Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XIX,, 1787)

James Madison: [T]he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government. (Madison, James speech in the House of Representatives, January 10, 1794)

Thomas Jefferson: It is a duty certainly to give our sparings to those who want; but to see also that they are faithfully distributed, and duly apportioned to the respective wants of those receivers. And why give through agents whom we know not, to persons whom we know not, and in countries from which we get no account, where we can do it at short hand, to objects under our eye, through agents we know, and to supply wants we see? (Jefferson, Thomas letter to Michael Megear, May 29, 1823)

Brethren:

John K. Carmack: Simply put, others now need your help. And you may at another time need their help. Helping each other leads to equality. These words triggered another thought. As Paul said, both the abundant giver and the needy recipient had their needs supplied in the process of giving. Those with abundance gave food, clothing, shelter, and money to those in need. On the other hand, those in poverty shared their love, appreciation, humility, and simplicity. This process of sharing with each other promoted greater justice and equality. And the process brought them closer to the spirit of the great plan of reconciliation. ..

It is obvious that we must help those needy souls that cross our paths, if we have the ability to do so. My experience is that most Church members with abundance would like to find a way to share with those in poverty but are looking for the best ways to do it. They have discovered that giving in the wrong way often causes more problems than it solves. Our giving can be wasted, even when given with the best of intentions. And handouts often weaken more than they strengthen. Also, so much that we do provides only temporary help and fails to solve problems on a basic level. We want to help in the worst way and often do! (John K. Carmack, Director of the PEF and General Authority emeritus, "Bless the Poor and Needy," Feb. 3, 2004)

Gordon B. Hinckley: From the earnings of this fund [Perpetual Education Fund], loans will be made to ambitious young men and women, for the most part returned missionaries, so that they may borrow money to attend school. Then when they qualify for employment, it is anticipated that they will return that which they have borrowed together with a small amount of interest designed as an incentive to repay the loan...

With good employment skills, these young men and women can rise out of the poverty they and generations before them have known. They will better provide for their families. They will serve in the Church and grow in leadership and responsibility. They will repay their loans to make it possible for others to be blessed as they have been blessed. It will become a revolving fund. As faithful members of the Church, they will pay their tithes and offerings, and the Church will be much the stronger for their presence in the areas where they live.

There is an old saying that if you give a man a fish, he will have a meal for a day. But if you teach him how to fish, he will eat for the remainder of his life...

Where there is widespread poverty among our people, we must do all we can to help them to lift themselves, to establish their lives upon a foundation of self-reliance that can come of training. Education is the key to opportunity. This training must be done in the areas where they live. It will then be suited to the opportunities of those areas. And it will cost much less in such places than it would if it were done in the United States or Canada or Europe. (Gordon B. Hinckley, “The Perpetual Education Fund,” Ensign, May 2001, 51)

Ezra Taft Benson: Americans have always been committed to taking care of the poor, aged, and unemployed. We have done this on the basis of Judaic-Christian beliefs and humanitarian principles. It has been fundamental to our way of life that charity must be voluntary if it is to be charity. Compulsory benevolence is not charity. Today's socialists--who call themselves egalitarians--are using the federal government to redistribute wealth in our society, not as a matter of voluntary charity, but as a so-called matter of right. One HEW official said recently, "In this country, welfare is no longer charity, it is a right. More and more Americans feel that their government owes them something" (U.S. News and World Report, April 21, 1975, p. 49). President Grover Cleveland said--and we believe as a people--that though the people support the government the government should not support the people.

The chief weapon used by the federal government to achieve this "equality" is the system of transfer payments. This means that the federal governments collects from one income group and transfer payments to another by the tax system. These payments are made in the form of social security benefits, Medicare and Medicaid, and food stamps, to name a few. Today the cost of such programs has been going in the hole at the rate of 12 billion dollars a year; and, with increased benefits and greater numbers of recipients, even though the tax base has been increased we will have larger deficits in the future.

Today the party now in power is advocating and has support, apparently in both major parties, for a comprehensive national health insurance program--a euphemism for socialized medicine. Our major danger is that we are currently (and have been for forty years) transferring responsibility from the individual, local, and state governments to the federal government--precisely the same course that led to the economic collapse in Great Britain and New York City. We cannot long pursue the present trend without its bringing us to national insolvency.

Edmund Burke, the great British political philosopher, warned of the threat of economic equality. He said,

A perfect equality will indeed be produced--that is to say, equal wretchedness, equal beggary, and on the part of the petitioners, a woeful, helpless, and desperate disappointment. Such is the event of all compulsory equalizations. They pull down what is above; they never raise what is below; and they depress high and low together beneath the level of what was originally the lowest. (Ezra Taft Benson, "A Vision and a Hope for the Youth of Zion," Apr. 12, 1977)

Hartman Rector Jr.: Welfare lists grow daily, and we now face the startling fact that we have third and fourth generations growing up on welfare. They have known nothing else. These people even strike and picket to get more sooner. Candidates for public office seem to be trying to out-promise each other in giveaway programs.

As a commentator said some time ago, “Three men were running for office. The first promised $20 every Thursday. His opponent promised $40 every Tuesday, twice as much two days earlier. But the one who won the election promised complete unemployment with a guaranteed annual wage.”

This may be somewhat farfetched, but the situation is critical, and there is no real help anywhere visible. As long as we in America have the mistaken idea that because we are born we have everything coming to us without effort, Americans cannot solve this problem.

Certainly the Lord speaks out strongly against people who are able who won’t work but still expect to be fed. He said, “Thou shalt not be idle; for he that is idle shall not eat the bread nor wear the garments of the laborer.” (D&C 42:42.)...

Why are these conditions seemingly worsening by the hour? Because their solutions are not based on true principles revealed by God through his prophet. (Hartman Rector Jr., “The World’s Greatest Need,” Ensign, Nov. 1975, 10)

References:

→  John K. Carmack, "Bless the Poor and Needy," BYU Devotional Feb. 3, 2004

→  Gordon B. Hinckley, “The Perpetual Education Fund,” Ensign, May 2001

→  Ezra T. Benson, "A Vision and a Hope for the Youth of Zion," April 12, 1977

→  Marion G. Romney, “The Purpose of Church Welfare...,” Ensign, May 1977