Home › 2024 › June › 20
Daily Archives: June 20, 2024

(CRFB) CBO Releases June 2024 Baseline Update

Posted on June 20, 2024 by Kendall Harmon

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO)…[recently] released new ten-year budget and economic projections – an update from its February baseline – again confirming that the national debt is on an unsustainable path. According to CBO’s new projections:

Debt held by the public will reach a new record by the end of Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 – 106.2 percent of GDP – and rise to 122.4 percent of GDP by the end of 2034.

The budget deficit will rise to $1.9 trillion (6.7 percent of GDP) in FY 2024 and $2.9 trillion (6.9 percent of GDP) by 2034, totaling $22.1 trillion over the 2025-2034 budget window.

Interest costs will reach a near-record 3.1 percent of GDP this year – exceeding defense and Medicare spending – set a new record next year and grow to 4.1 percent of GDP by FY 2034.

Under CBO’s latest baseline, federal debt held by the public will grow by $23 trillion through FY 2034, from over $27 trillion today to nearly $51 trillion by the end of 2034. As a share of the economy, debt will rise from 97.3 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at the end of 2023 to 106.2 percent by 2027 – surpassing the prior record set just after World War II – and 122.4 percent of GDP by 2034. Debt in 2034 will be $2.4 trillion and 6.4 percent of GDP higher than projected in February.

Read it all.

Posted in * Economics, Politics, Budget, Defense, National Security, Military, Economy, Ethics / Moral Theology, History, Medicare, Social Security, The National Deficit, The U.S. Government

(Martin Davie) How Broad Can An Anglican Church Be?

Posted on June 20, 2024 by Kendall Harmon

An Anglican Church which says that it is acceptable to depart from this God given pattern of behaviour (or any elements of it), either in teaching, or in practice, is too broad.

Someone might object at this point ‘but surely no one would reject the basic pattern of Christian conduct outlined in the catechism?’ Sadly, however, such as rejection has taken place, and is taking place, in those Anglican churches which are supportive of same-sex sexual relationships and the adoption of transgender identities.

This is because to keep our bodies in ‘temperance, soberness and chastity, ‘ as the catechism glosses the seventh commandment, involves accepting the bodies we have as gifts given to us by God and using them only in ways that are in accordance with God’s will (see Romans 13:13-14 and Colossians 3:5-8).

Adopting a transgender identity is incompatible with accepting the bodies we have as gifts given to us by God, because the bodies we have are either male or female[20] and thus give us a male or female sexual identity. To adopt a transgender identity is to reject this sexual identity, given  to us in our bodies, as a gift from God. This is not to deny the reality of the distress caused by gender dysphoria, but it is to say that adopting a transgender identity is not a legitimate way to deal with this distress.

Being in a same-sex sexual relationship or a same-sex marriage is incompatible with using our bodies in accordance with the will of God, for the reasons helpfully summarised in the following quotation from J I Packer:

‘The Bible shows us that God created two genders for heterosexual attraction, with delight, leading to lifelong monogamous marriage for, among other things, the raising of stable and mature families; and he created sex for procreation with pleasure, and for reinforced bonding of the marriage relationship thereby. This is part of the God-given and God taught order of creation, an order that same sex unions directly contravene. So, however high- minded the participants and however faithful to each other they intend to be, same-sex bodily unions may not be viewed as a form of holiness (the Canadian Anglican General Synod of 2004 was wrong to speak of their ‘sanctity’), any more than sex with an animal (bestiality) can be so viewed. God sets limits, and obedience to him includes observing them. Sex is for marriage, and marriage is a heterosexual partnership, whatever modern society may say.’ [21]

Read it all.

Posted in - Anglican: Commentary, Anthropology, Church of England (CoE), Ethics / Moral Theology, Marriage & Family, Pastoral Theology, Sexuality, Theology

(CT) Justin Giboney on Fred Shuttlesworth–‘Rattlesnakes Don’t Commit Suicide’

Posted on June 20, 2024 by Kendall Harmon

What’s been most interesting to me about Shuttlesworth is how he personified the mixture of Christian orthodoxy and freedom fighting that characterized the primary stream of the Black church’s social action tradition. As a pastor and leader, he called himself a biblicist and an actionist, meaning he had a devout faith in the authority of Scripture while believing right doctrine compelled the Christian into social action.

In February, I preached one of the Black History Month sermons at Zion Baptist Church, a traditional Black church in Cincinnati. After the service, Judge Cheryl Grant, a longtime congregant, thanked me for delving into the legacy of civil rights advocate Fred Shuttlesworth.

Grant had been very close with the Shuttlesworth family after they moved from Birmingham to Cincinnati in 1961, and she was working on a documentary about him with filmmaker Mark Vikram Purushotham and biographer Andrew M. Manis. Her personal testimony about Shuttlesworth and his story of redemptive action has been more than inspiring for me, and now I’d like to share his story with a wider audience.

Shuttlesworth is an unsung hero of the civil rights movement. A cofounder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, he faced and ultimately outwitted Birmingham’s infamous commissioner of public safety, Eugene “Bull” Connor, to advance racial justice in one of America’s most obstinately segregated environments.

What’s been most interesting to me about Shuttlesworth is how he personified the mixture of Christian orthodoxy and freedom fighting that characterized the primary stream of the Black church’s social action tradition. As a pastor and leader, he called himself a biblicist and an actionist, meaning he had a devout faith in the authority of Scripture while believing right doctrine compelled the Christian into social action.

Read it all.

Posted in America/U.S.A., Church History, History, Ministry of the Ordained, Parish Ministry, Race/Race Relations, Religion & Culture, Urban/City Life and Issues

(NPR) Couples say they can’t get married because of this government program’s outdated rules

Posted on June 20, 2024 by Kendall Harmon

Amber and Devin Weise lived in distant states when they met in an online social media group for Christian singles. They quickly became a couple, spending hours texting or talking on video chat. After several months of long-distance dating Devin wanted to propose, but thought it was proper and more romantic to do it in person.

Amber hinted she’d be OK with a proposal on a video call. Devin proposed and sent the ring in the mail.

It wasn’t until after they married that they learned the federal disability benefits program Amber relied upon penalizes couples who marry. Amber lost her monthly income check and the health care that came with it.

Amber is one of 7.4 million people who rely upon Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, a federal program that provides monthly cash assistance to disabled and older people with little income and resources. And for Amber and others, being on SSI is also the way they get health insurance.

Read it all.

Posted in Marriage & Family, Personal Finance & Investing, The U.S. Government

(The FP) Niall Ferguson: Could we be living in the late Soviet America?

Posted on June 20, 2024 by Kendall Harmon

Even more striking to me are the political, social, and cultural resemblances I detect between the U.S. and the USSR. Gerontocratic leadership was one of the hallmarks of late Soviet leadership, personified by the senility of Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, and Konstantin Chernenko. 

But by current American standards, the later Soviet leaders were not old men. Brezhnev was 75 when he died in 1982, but he had suffered his first major stroke seven years before. Andropov was only 68 when he succeeded Brezhnev, but he suffered total kidney failure just a few months after taking over. Chernenko was 72 when he came to power. He was already a hopeless invalid, suffering from emphysema, heart failure, bronchitis, pleurisy, and pneumonia.

It is a reflection of the quality of healthcare enjoyed by their American counterparts today that they are both older and healthier. Nevertheless, Joe Biden (81) and Donald Trump (78) are hardly men in the first flush of youth and vitality, as The Wall Street Journal recently made cringe-inducingly clear. The former cannot distinguish between his two Hispanic cabinet secretaries, Alejandro Mayorkas and Xavier Becerra. The latter muddles up Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi. If Kamala Harris has never watched The Death of Stalin, it’s not too late.

Another notable feature of late Soviet life was total public cynicism about nearly all institutions. Leon Aron’s brilliant book Roads to the Temple shows just how wretched life in the 1980s had become.

Read it all.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, * Economics, Politics, America/U.S.A., Budget, Ethics / Moral Theology, History, Russia, The National Deficit, The U.S. Government

A prayer to begin the day from William Bright

Posted on June 20, 2024 by Kendall Harmon

Most loving Father, who willest us to give thanks for all things, to dread nothing but the loss of thee, and to cast all our care on thee who carest for us: Preserve us from faithless fears and worldly anxieties, and grant that no clouds of this mortal life may hide from us the light of that love which is immortal, and which thou hast manifested unto us in thy Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Posted in Spirituality/Prayer

From the Morning Scripture Readings

Posted on June 20, 2024 by Kendall Harmon

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

–Matthew 18:15-20

Posted in Theology: Scripture