So how do we fix America’s entitlement problem? It’s not the government’s role to provide charity to its citizens, especially when it requires taking money from other citizens to pay for it.
It’s time we get back to the days when we helped and loved one another. The more we do this, the less people would have to count on the government for handouts. When I was in high school in the early 1960s, my father worked as a roughneck, driller, and tool pusher in the oil fields of Louisiana. It was very hard work, but I never heard my pa complain. A short time after we moved to Dixie, Louisiana, Pa fell eighteen feet off the floor of a drilling rig and landed on his head. He was hurt badly and spent the next two years in a neck-to-hip, heavy plaster-of-Paris cast while his broken back healed.
It was a really difficult time for my family. My mother was hospitalized at the time, and Pa received about thirty-five dollars a month in disability payments, which certainly wasn’t enough to pay the rent and feed his four children who were still living at home. So my brothers—Tommy and Silas—and I went to work, gathering pecans to sell and cleaning our church building to pay for our school lunches and whatever else we needed. We also received plenty of assistance from our neighbors and friends, including Miss Kay, who brought us food from her parents’ grocery. We never asked our neighbors and friends for help, but they believed that helping out a hardworking family in need was the Christian thing to do. My parents knew they could probably never repay the kind folks who helped us, but they were very grateful for their assistance. Back then, neighbors loved each other and wanted to help each other when times were tough.
As I think about the entitlement problem in America, I’m reminded of the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard in Matthew 20:1–16:
“The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
“About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went.
“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’
“ ‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.
“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’
“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’
“The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’
“But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
The vineyard owner told the disgruntled workers, “Look, it’s my money, not yours.” The situation in this parable is completely different from how the government hands out entitlements. The money they’re handing out is not their money, and that’s why it’s so easy to spend. The owner of the vineyard had the right to pay the workers any amount of money he wanted. It was his money. He simply was good to everybody. The workers who’d worked the longest forgot one thing: they agreed to the price they were paid.
But in America nowadays, it’s one size fits all because of the entitlement system. Everyone seemingly has a contract with the U.S. government, whether it’s for Medicare, Medicaid, or food stamps. But the government doesn’t have to help everyone who is poor; they could focus their help on the ones in the greatest need—whether it’s because they’re sick, dying, or disabled. Instead of always giving the needy a fish, let’s give them a fishing pole. Instead of giving money to everyone who wants it, let’s only give it to the ones who need it. There’s a vast difference between those who want and those who are truly in need. Let’s put those who can work to work. We shouldn’t be enabling people to become completely dependent upon the government; we should be finding them work so they can help themselves. God said if you don’t work, you don’t eat.
It seems to me that America was better off before welfare even existed, when there was a permeating expectation in this country that you were supposed to work, raise your children, and pay your bills. There’s a guy who lives up the road from me who was on welfare and food stamps for a while. He didn’t have a job, and he had a wife and children to feed. I’d hired him to do some odd jobs around my property over the years, and I finally asked him, “How am I going to get you off this free government money? What can you do that is constructive?”
“Well, I can drive a truck,” he said.
“Okay, here’s what I’m going to do,” I told him. “I’m going to buy you a truck and a trailer to haul gravel. I’m going to buy you one of those big eighteen-wheelers. It’s going to be my truck, but you’re going to drive it. You’re going to haul gravel, and you’re going to haul corn and grain from the farmers’ fields. It’s going to be a free truck for you to use to earn an honest living. You won’t have a truck note, and you won’t have to pay for the insurance. I’m going to take care of all of that. Are you with me?”
“Keep talking,” he said.
“These farmers are going to pay you to haul their corn and grain,” I said. “People are going to pay you to bring them gravel. They’re going to pay you, and you’re going to get to keep that money. You only have to pay for the repairs, gas, and motor oil. Will that get your butt off welfare and food stamps?”
“It sounds too good to be true,” he said.
“Well, it is good but it’s true,” I told him.
I baptized the man in the Ouachita River in front of my house when he was seventeen or eighteen years old. I stayed with him over the years, and I really wanted to get him off the government trough and put him to work. Now he makes an honest living, and I can see that he walks a little taller and has a lot more pride about what he’s doing.
There’s another young man who works on my land with me. He had struggled with alcohol over the years, but I knew he had a really good heart and loved his wife and kids. About a year ago, a company that builds manufactured houses asked me to do a commercial for them. As part of my compensation, they gave me a new manufactured home they built. They put the double-wide home on a nice part of my property. I decided to let the guy and his family live in it to help them get on their feet.
“If you live your life for Jesus and stay off the bottle, here’s what you will get in return,” I told him. “You’ll get a free double-wide, fully furnished with grass, carpet, and furniture. You get the whole works free of charge, including the insurance. It won’t cost you a dime. All of your utility bills will be paid: electricity, water, sewage, everything. All you have to do is move your wife and children into the home, and you’ll live happily ever after.”
The guy looked at me and grinned, and I knew he thought it was a pretty good deal.
“Oh, it’s a good deal,” I told him. “I don’t know anyone else who is going to make you that kind of deal. Now, your job is going to be to help me around here. That’s how I’m going to get repaid. You come out of a farming family. I need help planting the fields with corn, and I want you to sow the land, seed it, and fertilize it every year. I want you to make sure I have a crop over there for ducks. I’m even going to pay
you a monthly salary for the work.”
Well, the guy and his family moved into the double-wide, and he and his wife cried when they opened the doors for the first time. They’re happy, happy, happy. Some of you might be asking, “Why would you do that?” Well, my answer is that’s the way America should work. We should individually assist each other. We put people to work and get their labor in return, thereby negating their reliance on the government.
It’s a matter of personal responsibility if you ask me. If you’re overweight and your blood pressure is shooting through the roof, back away from the table and get some exercise. If you build your house next to the ocean or a river and then a hurricane or flood wipes it out, don’t expect the government to come bail you out. When my house was flooded in 1991, we had to replace the flooring and most of the walls because of water damage and mold. It took my boys about three days to get the snakes out of it! But we never received a single dime from the state of Louisiana or the federal government, and we never asked for it. When Miss Kay and I purchased the property, we accepted the risk of the house being flooded. I chose to live here, so it’s my responsibility when flooding occurs.
If you build a multimillion-dollar home on the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico, it’s going to get blown away by a hurricane one of these days. It’s not a matter of if your house is going to get blown over; it’s going to get blown away if you live there! You’re living on a sandbar next to the ocean. If you look out into the Gulf of Mexico, that’s where hurricanes come from. You shouldn’t be expecting me, as a citizen of the United States, to be doling out money to you when it happens. You need to move back up the road or back up the hill a little bit. It’s about common sense, folks.
Before the federal government started shelling out billions of dollars in federal aid every year, we took care of each other when natural disasters occurred. We have to learn to love each other and take care of each other again. We shouldn’t be looking to the states and federal governments to bail us out. If we rely on the government for everything, it will only keep getting bigger and bigger to take care of the 320 million people who are screaming for help every time something bad happens. That’s where socialism and communism come from. We look toward the government instead of God, and we don’t take personal responsibility for our actions and decisions.
A person who hears Jesus’ words and obeys them is the kind of person who built his house on solid ground. Of course, He is the rock, the rock of ages. When the floods come, the man who obeys Jesus’ words is up on high ground. He’s on rock, so when the winds come, they won’t blow his house down. Jesus said a person who does not listen to Him and obey His words is the kind of person who builds his house on sand. When the waters and winds come, his house will be swept away and come down with a crash.
Listen, folks, it’s the difference between being wise and foolish. The federal government is doling out trillions of dollars in bailouts, whether they’re to a failed bank, an automobile manufacturer, or some guy who pressed his luck by building a house on the sand of the New Jersey shore. They’re actually matters of personal responsibility and making the right decisions.
In the autumn of 2013, a couple from New Jersey came to West Monroe, Louisiana, to speak at White’s Ferry Road Church. Miss Kay and I sat among the congregation to hear them give their testimonies. The man said that before they turned their lives over to Jesus, they never gave any thought to God. In fact, the man said there wasn’t a godly bone in his entire body, not one. He’d never read the Bible and didn’t know anything about Jesus Christ.
After the man and woman were married, they built their home on the sands of the Atlantic Ocean. When Hurricane Sandy hit the New Jersey shore in October 2012, the man and his wife decided to ride it out. Hurricane Sandy was so ferocious that weathermen called it “Superstorm Sandy.” It did more than $65 billion damage in the U.S. alone, most of it in New Jersey and New York. There were 115-mph winds coming, but it never entered this guy’s mind to evacuate! As the night started progressing, the man and his wife sat in their home looking at the ocean, and the water just kept coming. The waves kept getting closer and closer and bigger and bigger. Eventually, the basement of their home flooded, stuff was banging around and breaking windows, and their washer and dryer floated away.
Well, after the roof of their home was blown off at about three o’clock in the morning, they finally decided it was time to leave the premises! They grabbed their dog and used the top of their carport as a boat. A wave crashed against them, knocking their dog off the metal roof they were floating on. They floated to their neighbors’ house, and fortunately the top floor of their home wasn’t yet flooded. The man knocked on the door, and their neighbors let them come inside to ride out the storm.
The next day, after the waters of the Atlantic Ocean finally receded, the man and his wife were standing where their house once stood, picking through the debris that was left. The wife told her husband that she couldn’t live on the beach anymore because she didn’t want to rebuild her life again when another storm came. And she was certain another one would come. She never wanted to walk on the sand or swim in the Atlantic Ocean again.
As they argued, an older man walked up to what was left of their house, and they started sharing their problems with him.
“Well, at a time like this, when it’s all gone, you need to hear about somebody maybe you’ve never heard of,” the old man said to them. “You ever heard of Jesus?”
“No, what’s He got to do with all of this?” the man asked him.
The older man sat them down and shared what the Bible is about. When he was finished sharing the Good News with them, the man walked the couple into the Atlantic Ocean and baptized them. The woman couldn’t believe that she was walking back into the same water that had taken everything from her. Now that water was symbolically cleansing her sins and giving her a new beginning. She was pushed down into the same ocean that had taken everything from her.
After I heard their story, I turned to Miss Kay and told her, “Give those people some money.” I told her to give them three hundred dollars, but Miss Kay wrote them a check for a thousand dollars to help them get on their feet again. They didn’t come to our church asking for money, but they’d lost everything, and their insurance company turned its back on them. As a Christian and an American, I felt it was my duty to help them out.
I realize not everyone is financially able to put their neighbors to work when they need help, but we could do far more for them than what we’re currently doing. We ought to look after each other and love one another the best we can. We need to bring our neighbors to Jesus and help them out. If Americans would begin doing that, instead of relying on the government for handouts, it would be a much better place. It’s the right thing to do, and it’s what God wants us to do.
Miss Kay and I have tried to help as many people as we could over the years. Some of them slicked us and had ulterior motives, but we never held it against them. You can’t let that slow you down. You just go forth, and they’ll have to answer to God. We’ve helped more people who appreciated it and benefited from it than those who didn’t. I live by a very important code that is found in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Remember, there was a day when welfare and other government assistance programs didn’t even exist in America. Families and Christians helped one another. It’s not too late to go back there. Governments do not make great individuals, but great individuals make great governments. The answer to our problems is simple: love God and love your neighbors. Will you?
9
GOVERNMENT
Fix No. 9: Make the U.S. Government Smaller
Do you know what the United States government and lottery winners have in common? Neither one of them got their money by working for it, both rejoice when the cash pours in, and then both squander it about as fast as they receive it. I’ve noticed ov
er the years that it’s a lot easier to spend somebody else’s money than your own because you didn’t have to work for it. My boys never had any problems spending my money when they were young. You should try to squeeze a dollar out of them nowadays!
How many stories have we heard or read about lottery winners who strike it big in Powerball or Mega Millions, winning millions of dollars instantly by nothing but dumb luck, only to squander their money on luxurious mansions, extravagant sports cars, and vacations around the world? The money consumes them, and they fall into a life of despair, plagued by sex, drugs, alcohol, and divorce. They’re some of the saddest stories you’ll ever read because they were ruined by their own greed and, worse, the greed of their families and friends. As the Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi famously said, “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need but not for every man’s greed.” Boy, wasn’t he right?
In 1988, William “Bud” Post won $16.2 million in the Pennsylvania Lottery. His brother, of all people, hired a hit man to try to kill him, and Post squandered his fortune in only a few short years. He was living off Social Security when he died in 2006. Billie Bob Harrell Jr. won $31 million in the Texas Lotto in 1997. He divorced his wife and committed suicide less than two years later. Harrell told his financial adviser shortly before his death that winning the lottery was “the worst thing that ever happened to” him. Evelyn Adams, who had the unbelievable fortune of winning the New Jersey Lottery twice, in 1985 and 1986, for a total of $5.4 million, gave away her money and lost the rest gambling in Atlantic City, New Jersey. She was broke and living in a trailer by 2001. I guess what they say is right—money can’t buy happiness. But it sure can cause misery.
unPHILtered: The Way I See It Page 8
