The High Price of Secularism Not Addressed in Federal Budget

Criticism of the President’s 2008 fiscal budget abound. Here is a genuine bipartisan phenomenon. The democrat led Committee on the Budget called it unrealistic and bad for the poor. The conservative Cato Institutecriticizes the President for not making enough program cuts. Chris Edwards, Cato’s Director of Tax Policy, proposes more cuts in federal programs and spending. He thinks the problematic alternative minimum tax law should be repealed and not reworked as democrats seem to want. He would improve the budget by limiting federal spending on Medicare to the same level as inflation, by increasing deductibles, and by increasing Part B premiums. In addition to changes in Medicare, Edwards proposes privatizing the Corps of Engineers and NASA, ending subsidies to energy and farmers, eliminating foreign aid for economic development, and adjusting federal employee pay and benefits to match the private sector. All of these changes, according to Edwards, “would be saving taxpayers $207 billion annually by 2012”. Like the President’s proposed cuts, behind Edwards’ proposal is the rationale that would eliminate spending on wasteful or ineffective programs, expand economic freedom, decrease the deficit, and avoid raising taxes. Whether you agree with Cato’s proposal or not, everyone seems to agree federal spending is a problem needing fixed.

What should not be overlooked is the reason for the inordinate growth of the federal budget. A number of programs stand out for their very large growth in the federal budget. Spending on Homeland Security has grown 236 percent. The State Department budget has increased 117 percent. Education has grown 92% followed by Defense at 89 percent. Other programs or departments with spending increases over 50% include the Corps of Engineers, Veteran Affairs, National Science Foundation, and Human and Health Services. Around 72% of the federal budget is spent on Social Security, Human and Health Services, and Defense. The war maybe a part of the federal spending problem, but it is not the whole problem. Improving defense against terrorism at home, paying for educational improvements, increasing science study and research, increasing health care services are all contributors to the rising deficit.

What is lacking in the discussion about the federal budget is consideration of federal spending on programs related to moral issues. A number of budgetary programs exist that are the result of moral problems created by humanist values replacing traditional values. Those traditional values were part of the development of American culture and more importantly the development of constitutional government. As I wrote in my last article, humanist values of modern secularism have resulted in many social problems and the need for school vouchers. What I did not mention was increases in non-sex related violence and crime are often related to drug use or sudden poverty. School and youth violence and crime was not a problem until the late 1960s. With the rise in violence motivated by secularism, police began reporting incidences, which have been included in FBI and Department of Justice statistical studies ever since. In addition to paying more for additional police, juvenile courts, and other judiciary programs, Americans paid 568 million last year for the prevention program Safe and Drug-Free Schools. With the elimination of the current grant program, the new federal budget for 2008 projects calls for 324 million. American taxpayers are also footing the bill for contraception, abortion assistance, and other reproductive services. According to the Heritage Foundation

“Federal and state governments spent an estimated $1.73 billion on a wide variety of contraception promotion and pregnancy prevention programs. More than a third of that money ($653 million) was spent specifically to fund contraceptive programs for teens. By contrast, programs teaching teens to abstain from sexual activity received only an estimated $144.1 million. Overall, government spent $12 to promote contraception for every dollar spent to encourage abstinence.”

Other costs for these programs rooted in secular (humanist) values include the great loss to society for abortion. Babies aborted in 1973 would have turned 18 years old in 1991. Using statistics available at the National Institute of Health and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, American business and industry has lost 19 million potential workers. Since 1991, business and industry has lost approximately $6 trillion in consumer sales and services. Local, state and federal governments have lost about $384 billion in tax revenues. Social Security would less of an issue because there would be $500 billion more in that account. Even if only half of the aborted would have been employed the loss to business, government and retired workers would still very great.

In addition to the above, taxpayers continue to pay for sex education at their local schools. They also continue to pay for increases in welfare aid to unwed mothers. If democrats have their way, Americans taxpayers will be paying a lot more in the future.

I find it difficult to believe that increasing funds to those kinds of public programs will solve the social and economic problems. Youth violence, rape, teen and unwanted pregnancies, and the like could be minimized by a societal return to the moral values with which our nation began. Abstinence programs alone will never change anything until the values of secularism (humanism) are replaced with moral ones. It is unlikely that violence could be reduced to pre-1960 levels until economic justice is reinforced for every American. The reinstitution of natural law morality and economics would be a step in the right direction to resolving the high price of secularism in our political economy.