Why Revival Is Needed To Make America Great Again

Everyone has an opinion about how to make America great again. Many people on both sides of the political spectrum seem to think that the way to solve America’s problems is to elect a president, any president, of their own party. In reality, if we want to make America great again, the movement must start at the bottom, not at the top. Making America great again will most likely require repentance and a spiritual revival.

Contrary to the beliefs of most people, the president’s power is limited. Presidents can issue Executive Orders, but we have seen how such decrees can be limited by the courts and Congress. Even in cooperation with Congress, the federal government can only nibble around the edges of one of the largest problems facing the United States, that of entitlements.

Entitlement spending is a ticking time bomb. Entitlements have been increasing since the New Deal era and now make up 65 percent of federal spending according to the National Priorities Project. Entitlements are mandatory spending that fall outside the normal appropriations process and include such programs as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps) and veteran’s benefits.

In 2015, Social Security and federal health spending programs made up 60 percent of the federal budget. Military spending accounted for only 16 percent by comparison. The problem extends to state governments as well. Medicaid spending alone, much of it mandated by the federal government, makes up 30 percent of the budget of Texas and a fifth to a quarter of the budgets of many other states.

What does entitlement spending have to do with spiritual revival? Entitlement spending has exploded in past decades largely because of the decay of the American family. Unsurprisingly, charts showing the increase of entitlement spending match closely with charts showing the divorce rate and the rise of out-of-wedlock childbearing.

Children from single-parent families are more likely than children from intact families to live in poverty, abuse drugs or alcohol and drop out of school. In a vicious cycle, they are also more likely to have their own children outside of marriage.

Read the rest from David Thornton HERE.

If you like what you see, please "Like" us on Facebook either here or here. Please follow us on Twitter here.