The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1388456
B-4 Wednesday, June 30, 2021 The Press-Dispatch OPINION Submit Letters to the Editor: Letters must be signed and received by noon on Mondays. Email: editor@pressdispatch.net or bring in a hard copy: 820 E. Poplar Street, Petersburg Equality Act slams door on religious freedom The Supreme Court's recent deci- sion, Fulton v. Philadelphia, is justi- fiably getting mixed reviews. Catholic Social Services sued the city of Philadelphia, through the Philadelphia Archdiocese, for can- celing its 50 -year contract with the Catholic social services agency be- cause it refuses to certify same-sex couples as foster families for the pur- pose of foster care. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of CSS, finding that Philadelphia vi- olated its First Amendment protec- tions The criticism is that the decision was narrow and technical, skirting the core question of how we under- stand religious liberty today, when it is under assault almost everywhere. According to existing precedent, First Amendment protections do not apply against measures that are "generally applicable" and not tar- geted specifically to religion. When some general measure incidentally impacts a particular religion or reli- gious practice, religious protection can be impinged. In the case of Philadelphia, the lo- cal law provides discretion to city of- ficials to make exceptions to the non- discrimination provisions of its law. The Court used this to argue that the law is not "generally applicable," and therefore First Amendment protec- tion of CSS was violated. Justice Samuel Alito, writing on his own behalf and on behalf of Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, although agreeing with the Court's decision that CSS First Amendment rights were violated, disagreed with the narrow interpretation. As Alito pointed out, the city could remove the latitude for exceptions in its law, and suddenly Catholic Social Services' First Amendment protec- tion is gone. It is a tragedy that something so fundamental as religious freedom is now buried in the weeds of legal hair-splitting. There could be no better example of what this is all about than Sharon- ell Fulton, who was the lead plaintiff in this case against Philadelphia. Fulton is a Black foster mother, who has fostered over 40 children in her home over the last 30 years. LGBTQ activists like to portray Christians as hateful and discrimi- natory. But listen to Fulton: "Children need to be accepted and loved. They have to feel that some- body cares ... I've had gay couples stop me in the supermarket ... And I told them, 'Listen, this is not person- al. I'm standing with the church be- cause this is what I believe.'" The Catholic Church has been reaching out to orphans in Philadel- phia for over 200 years. This is moti- vated by one thing: love. Why do we need Harvard-trained lawyers to justify something so obvi- ous, that the essence of American re- ligious freedom is Catholics raising children, or providing foster care, ac- cording to their biblical values? They are not forcing their values, or asking government to force their values, on anyone. The preamble of our Constitution explains that its mission is "to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." When did this get lost? Now that same-sex marriage is law of the land, the option of foster care in the home of same-sex cou- ples should be examined. But they should not be free to shut down organizations insisting on bib- lical values. Now congressional Democrats are trying to pass the Equality Act that would do just that. In 1993, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act was passed to re- store some protections to religious freedom. If some government mea- sure impinges on religious freedom, it must be demonstrably essential. But the Equality Act would make the Religious Freedom Restoration Act null and void. Lost would be the protections that saved Little Sisters of the Poor from being forced to provide abor- tifacients in their health care plan, as the A ffordable Care Act required. Or protections from forcing a doctor Capitalism makes us better Last week, I debunked three myths about capitalism. Here are four more: Myth No. 4: Capitalism creates un- safe workspaces. "Greedy capitalists" will risk workers' lives to increase produc- tion if government, through agen- cies such as the Occupational Safe- ty and Health Administration, or OS - HA, doesn't stop that. It's logical to assume that govern- ment regulation saves lives. Work- place deaths dropped after the OS - HA was created. Government offi- cials like showing a graph of the de- cline. But if you bother to also look at da- ta from before the OSHA's creation, you see that deaths fell at the same rate before regulation began! Why? "As we become richer, we become safer," says Dan Mitchell of the Cen- ter for Freedom and Prosperity. Wealth created by capitalism lets us afford safety devices and build machines to do dangerous work. The OSHA is like someone jumping in front of a parade and claiming he led the parade. "We need more capitalism because when people get rich, they can afford more safety! " adds Mitchell. Myth No. 5: "Unfettered" capital- ism created evil "robber barons" who got rich by "exploiting" workers and consumers. It's true that more than 100 years ago, a few entrepreneurs, such as John D. Rockefeller, amassed a huge amount of wealth. But Rockefeller was neither robber nor baron. He was not born rich, and he didn't rob. He got rich by offering President Joe Biden's performance at the meeting with foreign leaders in Britain last week was a disgrace. Biden cut deals with Britain that sold out America's interests, and for do- ing so, he won the worshipful acco- lades of the Europeans, the Brits and the Canadians. It's amazing how pop- ular you are at a party when you pay everyone's bills. Except Biden isn't spending his own money, of course. He's spending ours. It would be an understatement to say that the Euroland leaders weren't big fans of former President Donald Trump. Trump went to the G-7 meet- ings and told his international peers that there was a new sheriff in town and that his foremost mission was to put America first. He canceled bad trade deals in which other coun- tries were cheating. Trump insisted that the Germans, the French and the Italians paid more of the NATO bills for their own defense. He pulled America out of the Paris climate ac- cord in part because almost none of the other nations was abiding by it. What a difference a new president makes. The Euroland leaders of the G-7 are beside themselves with joy over Biden's "cooperative tone" and concessions at the meetings in Brit- ain this weekend. A Reuters head- line captured the euphoria of the foreign heads of state: "G7 Source Praises Biden A fter 'Complete Cha- os' of Trump." Is anyone surprised by the lovef- est? "It's great to have a U.S. presi- dent who is part of the club," France's Emmanuel Macron said in a lengthy statement, saturating the new Amer- ican president with praise. Why wouldn't Canada, Russia and the Europeans be celebrating? Biden gave away the store. Let me count the ways: No. 1: He reiter- ated his promise that America will jump off the cli- mate change cliff first and dismantle U.S. energy produc- tion as a sign of his commitment to stopping global warming. Yes, that is Russian President Vladimir Putin smiling. This is a reaffirmation of the U.S. undermining our own energy security after Beijing announced it has no interest in compromising its economic prosperity in the name of global warming. They have more sig- nificant and more immediate ambi- tions than to worry about the plan- et's temperature in 50 or 75 years. No. 2: He agreed to a global tax that will harmonize U.S. taxes with those of the socialist European na- tions and fight against international tax competition, which has histori- cally benefited the United States. America is supposed to be the low- tax country globally, and now we are ratcheting up our taxes to the lev- els commonplace in Europe. When Trump cut our tax rates, more than $1 trillion, much of it from social- ist Europe, flowed into the U.S., fi- nancing new jobs and new enterpris- es. Now Biden wants a U.S. rate that matches that of Europe and exceeds that of China. No. 3: Biden agreed to a "tax on tech" that will allow the Europeans and other international com- petitors to the U.S. to extract tens of billions of tax dollars every year from iconic Amer- ican tech leaders such as Am- azon, Apple, Google, Micro- soft and Facebook. Mean- while, as The Wall Street Journal has pointed out, the Europeans continue to lob- by to ensure that their large companies are exempt from these international taxes. What kind of president sells his own nation's companies down the river? Don't be surprised if the Biden ad- ministration tells the Germans, the French and the Italians that they can forget about those Trump demands that Europe pay more for their own defense at future NATO meetings. Uncle Sam is happy to keep picking up the tab. Trump promoted American val- ues and relentlessly fought for Amer- ican interests when meeting with G- 7 leaders. He told the Europeans that if they want to get richer, they should be more like us. Now, we have a pres- ident who wants America to be more like them. This isn't leadership. It is a first step in surrendering America's pow- er, prosperity and sovereignty. Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and an eco- nomic consultant with FreedomWorks. He is the co-author of "Trumponomics: Inside the America First Plan to Re- vive the American Economy." Politico reports that the Fed is tak- ing "what may be the first significant step toward launching its own virtu- al currency," a move that the Amer- ican Bankers Association opposes. Still, according to Politico, a "ful- ly digital version of the U.S. dollar" now has bipartisan interest in Con- gress "because of its potential ben- efits for consumers who don't have bank accounts." The idea of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) is hardly new. Nei- ther is the idea that such a curren- cy would help the unbanked. But it is impossible to evaluate how a CB- DC might help the unbanked with- out precisely defining the CBDC and seeing the unbanked problem clearly. Let us tackle the unbanked issue first. According to the FDIC's latest survey, as of 2019, 95 percent of U.S. households had either a bank or credit union account. This figure shows that the overwhelming major- ity of Americans do have a bank ac- count, but it also demonstrates that 7 million households do not have a bank account. Interestingly enough, it turns out that nearly half of unbanked house- holds say that they do not have an account because they do not have enough money to meet minimum balance requirements. Other expla- nations include privacy concerns (36 percent of unbanked households), excessive bank fees (34.2 percent), unpredictable bank fees (31.3 per- cent), and a lack of trust (36.3). Simply put, a large portion of the unbanked do not want bank accounts because they feel they cannot afford them. In other words, the root of the unbanked problem is that the un- banked do not have enough money to be banked. Rather than address this economic problem, Congress is focused on im- proving the "efficiency of the finan- cial system" by using "digital public money [that] is well-designed and ef- ficiently executed." (I'm not entirely sure what efficient- ly executed means, but feel free to ask Sen. Elizabeth War- ren (D-Mass.) It is always some- thing of a spectacle to watch Congress discuss solutions to a problem that it created, and this in- stance is no different. Increased fed- eral regulatory barriers, including the infamous Durbin amendment that led directly to higher banking fees and fewer zero-fee accounts, have been making low-balance ac- counts an increasingly losing prop- osition for banks for decades. At the same time, federal regulators have steadfastly made alternative private solutions, ranging from check cash- ing services and short-term lending to Wal-Mart's attempt to provide banking services, increasingly dif- ficult to deliver. Rather than remove regulatory barriers and lower the costs that they impose, or discuss the diffi- cult-to-solve problems that result in long-term poverty, Congress ap- pears happy to do what they always do: Impose higher costs on people and throw more money at the poor. And that gets us back to the im- portance of precisely defining a CB- DC framework. Some of the popu- lar CBDC proposals are so differ- ent that it is impossible to evaluate the costs and benefits without know- ing the specifics. The following four categories cover most of the basics. (Broader overviews are here, here, here, here, and here.) Reserves held in accounts at the Fed. This type of CBDC refers to the reserve balances that private banks hold at the Federal Reserve. These accounts are available only to financial institutions, not retail con- sumers. Banks (and the U.S. Treasury) can make electron- ic payments from these ac- counts using Fedwire, a "re- al-time gross settlement sys- tem that enables participants to initiate funds transfer that are immediate, final, and ir- revocable once processed." As this description shows, the U.S. already has a type of CBDC. Electronic balances held— either indirectly or directly—in ac- counts at the Fed. Rather than whole- sale (bank-to-bank) transactions, some folks advocate for a CBDC that consists of retail customer accounts held at the Federal Reserve. Some proposals call for banks to intermedi- ate these accounts, and others want individual customers to have direct access to their Fed accounts. Either way, the result is the same: Fed ac- counts give individual customers the ability to conduct electronic trans- actions. Essentially, this type of CBDC "gives" the unbanked bank accounts. It allows such individuals to conduct digital transactions just like those of us with bank accounts. While it may appear that these accounts confer a huge benefit, unbanked Americans already enter the mainstream econo- my using prepaid cards and low-cost apps. These low-cost options enable electronic transactions that do not meaningfully differ from the elec- tronic transactions of people with bank accounts. The only benefit that might arise from having such an account would be that it could improve the ability to build a credit profile and to (eventu- ally) borrow money. That benefit is no sure thing, however, as the "free" Fed account does nothing to change the underlying economic conditions Race for the Cure By Star Parker Give Me a Break John Stossel Points to Ponder By Rev. Curtis Bond Continued on page 5 Continued on page 5 Eye on the Economy By Stephen Moore Biden economic strategy: Put America last Heritage Viewpoint By Norbert Michel Digital currencies: Solution in search of a problem Liberty and independence In Congress July 4th, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thir- teen United States of America.' When Thomas Jefferson penned those words, he had no assurance that this "Declaration" of Indepen- dence" would be successful. The Continental Congress had taken a daring step: a leap of blind faith and a reckless gamble. In 1776, if one were to compare the ragtag rebel colonies with England's might, one could con- clude the colonists were mad or fools. There was one thing Jefferson was sure of: he believed this "Declara- tion" was of God and the Colonists would win their Independence! King George and Parliament viewed their actions as treasonous; and by signing the "Declaration" the signers would sign their death warrant! Perhaps when penning the "Declaration," Jefferson was mind- ful of the scripture… Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (2Co 3:17). He must have known that for the colonists to win the "War of Inde- pendence" against mighty England, it would take "DIVINE" intervention. Providence indeed interceded, and on September 3, 1783, Great Britain formally recognized the indepen- dence of the United States in the Treaty of Paris. The Continental Con- gress began working on a new form of government which would become known as 'The Constitution of the United States.' Written in 1787, rat- ified in 1788, and in operation since March 4, 1789, America has the lon- gest lasting democracy in history. Our Constitution's opening para- graph begins: 'We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Jus- tice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, pro- mote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and es- tablish this Constitution for the Unit- ed States of America.' In the ensuing years, how did 'We the People' fare? Continued on page 5 Continued on page 5 CURRENCIES Court