John Hagee is a Christian pastor known for urging many of his radical views upon his followers and other churchgoers. He’s been quoted saying some pretty vulgar things over his career. And recently he directed his angst towards people who are on welfare – it was enough to make just about anybody cringe.
Hagee said that that those “loafers” who are on welfare and are “cheating the system” don’t deserve to live.
I’m not sure, but if you consider Jesus, living in the middle east at the dawn of civilization, he didn’t exactly have a career himself. Not many people did, in fact. He was cool with the poor because he was a poor man himself. So what’s Hagee’s beef?
Sadly, Pastor Hagee isn’t alone in his views. He and many other like-minded Americans believe that welfare is abused by people whom they consider lazy… In reality very few of the people who are on welfare simply “coast”. There are employment requirements attached to the federal welfare programs. Many of those who use welfare have families of their own and already work several minimum to low wage jobs.
This is all to say: “Coasting” isn’t as easy as Magee makes it sound.
To his credit, he did graciously mention that the elderly and sick should get government financial support – which, I think everyone can agree with.