Santorum's challenge

The biggest tragedy of the 2006 elections was that Rick Santorum lost. He is now a Senior Fellow at the Center for Ethics and Public Policy. He recently tried to organize a bipartisan debate of the presidential candidates on the role of faith in fighting poverty. It was cancelled because apparently Hillary Clinton was the only one who agreed to show.

In this op-ed, he lays out what I think is the biggest challenge for Christian conservatives. We believe in limited government and we know that a free market and restrained taxation results in the greatest level of prosperity for all. But we also know that poverty persists and our faith is quite clear that we may not be indifferent to this.

My own view is that anti-poverty programs must follow the Catholic principle of subsidiarity. They must be of limited duration and, in the United States, must focus on changing the culture of poverty. But then they ought to be generous.

The Democrats are still too much the party of government and too committed to their own racial strategy. While they are not so hot on laissez faire in economics, they just love it when it comes to personal life. They will never accomplish much on poverty.

But we Republicans aren't talking about it. Santorum is. It's too bad that he's not doing it in the Senate.

H/T: Rick Garnett at Mirror of Justice.