-By Warner Todd Huston
America isn’t the only country having trouble with out of control government spending, nor is it the only place with leftists trying to stop any sensible limits on that spending. Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby is joining the chorus against the British government’s attempts to get its budget under control by backing the 27 bishops who signed a letter protesting recent cuts in welfare programs.
Welby wrote to the Daily Mirror and insisted, “I’m entirely with them.”
The Archbishop is responding to the open letter signed by 27 of Britain’s 59 Anglican bishops who claimed that hunger is a “national crisis” and that the welfare cuts damage the “safety net” for the nation’s poor.
But Deputy PM Nick Clegg firmly disputed the bishops’ characterization of the budget cuts calling it an “exaggeration” that the cuts destroy the nation’s safety net. Clegg also said that getting the budget under control was the right thing to do.
“There’s nothing fair about simply saying we’re not going to deal with our debts. We’re going to let our children and our grandchildren do it,” Clegg said on February 20.
“What we’ve done is try to make sure that the way we reform welfare and we reform the tax system encourages people into work,” Clegg added.
The Archbishop, though, said that he and his bishops are merely responding to the needs of their congregations.
The Bishop of Truro the Rt Rev Tim Thornton also admitted to the paper that his reasons for signing the letter was political. But he was undaunted saying, “Yes, it is political but then politics is about getting things done.”
Additionally, Canon Giles Fraser accused the government of ignoring the “reality” of homelessness saying that the government should “acknowledge” the fact that “homelessness in London is up 60 percent in two years.”
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, Wizbang.com, among many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.
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