Empathy Mining
Christian Trump supporter, have you seen the budget that President Trump is proposing? Do you support and defend it? If so, I wonder how you square it with the teachings of Jesus.
It was revealed this week that Trump’s new budget proposal calls for cutting more than $8 billion from education. I want to repeat that number because it doesn’t seem real–$8 billion.
Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.“
Matthew 19:14
When I read in my Bible about Jesus, it is very clear to me that He had a soft spot for children. Of the “least of these”, who is potentially more at risk than children?
I fully support the military and I understand that it costs a lot of money to keep it running, but have you seen how much of the budget goes to the military/defense spending? It’s staggering…
Last year, 68% of the national budget was devoted to the military and national security. By comparison, education was approximately 6% of the national budget. Perhaps I’m naive, but wouldn’t you think that education would be the last place to make cuts? Wouldn’t you think that properly funding education is an indirect investment in our national security?
As I looked more closely at the proposed $8 billion cut in education, I saw that more than a billion of it comes in the form of reducing school food distribution programs. Again, Christian Trump supporter, are you comfortable in defending the defunding of programs that provide meals for children who otherwise wouldn’t get them?
I work in a large urban school district where we have a very high percentage of students (approximately 3 out of every 4) on the free/reduced meal plan. Our students are served a breakfast and a lunch 180 days a year. Many high poverty districts also offer meals for needy students throughout the holidays and summer breaks from school as well. I can assure you that many of my students, without these programs, would go without a lot of meals. Christian, I submit to you that, if we are truly following Christ, we should heed the call to clothe and feed the poor. We certainly shouldn’t be cutting billions of dollars from programs that do just that.
By the way, Trump cut education spending last year, too–and even more–to the tune of over $9 billion. That’s more than $17 billion removed from education spending in just two years–a decrease of more than 20%.
Yet, the president continues to push for a border wall that would cost more than $5 billion. The same man who wants to spend exorbitant amounts of money in an attempt to keep poor Mexican children from seeking refuge in America is taking food out of the mouths of American school children. Christian Trump supporter, I can actually understand why you might support the border wall. It at least makes some sense that you want more secure borders. I am not an advocate of open borders–I just want the path to citizenship made much easier and I want to see the insanely long wait times for citizenship cut down drastically–but a wall is unnecessary and, frankly, ineffective. However, I don’t understand at all how you could support such drastic budget cuts to education programs.
Between the separation and forced detention of immigrant children from their families and the massive defunding of public schools, one is left to wonder if the Trump administration isn’t making outright war on underprivileged children.
So again I ask you, Christian Trump supporter, how would you defend this administration if Jesus asked you how you’ve treated the least of these?
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