Wealth as Weapon or Wealth as Justice — which principle underpins the government shutdown?

By Norman Franklin

The arc of history rumbles with ideological tension in the early decades of a new century. It’s a common thread in the narrative of the nation’s birth— new ideas and competing visions of progress.

Norman Franklin

Invariably the margin alized are trampled in the struggle of compet ing ideas—what emerges is a redefined purpose for governance and a shifting moral tone for society itself. In this cru cible, wealth becomes more than a measure of prosperity, it becomes a question of power—is it a weapon, or is it justice? And this has become a critical, defining ques tion that cannot be ignored—we proclaim divine purpose and des tiny in the founding of the nation. But the God of Christianity is a God of justice, love, and com passion for humanity.

I came across this in one of my morning devotionals, which, I discerned, leaned into the question of our divine destiny. “Many scholars question whether the Founding Fathers were professing believers as our evangelical churches today would define the term, Christian.” The theologian purports that most of the Founders maintained a Christian worldview, held God in high esteem, and revered the Bible as authoritative. They knew the instructions of the Bible, its principles of justice for all humanity— its precepts became their moral foundation. “Their knowledge of biblical wisdom,” this theologian asserts, “led them to first think deeply and then make decisions based on principles rather than pragmatism.”

Their scriptural knowledge, the theologian notes, laid the foundation of the capitalism and democracy we live in today. The spiritual knowledge of the Founders laid the foundation of a system that exploit ed humans for profit, system of free labor that maximized wealth for the plantation South, and the industrialized North for more than three centuries. It was an idea of privilege and wealth that is modeled today. A little leaven, the Bible teaches, destroys the purity of the whole loaf.

The exploited labor proved lucrative, wealth was dominant, but the moral contradiction of enslaving Africans led to frictions between the wealth of the South and North; it erupted in America’s bloodiest conflict. The weaponization of wealth didn’t end with the surrender of the Plantation South. During the rebuilding of the nation—conjoining the wealth of the South with the wealth of the North— the fellowship of the white wealthy was the priority, the wellbeing of the former enslaved, not relevant. With Black Codes, and later Jim Crow, segregation, and a society where race identity opens doors, or shut them, capitalism welds control by employing principles developed in spiritual wisdom, and the deep thinking of the Founders. Wealth, power and spiritual hypocrisy entwined.

Fifty-five men gathered to draft the Constitution. Nearly thirty owned slaves. Their human assets were not incidental, it was the core economic engine of the nascent republic. Thirteen states were represented at the Con stitutional Convention. Eight were plantation states, but the econo mies of the South and the North were wedded through exports of prod ucts. Cotton, tobacco, and sugar exports financed American banking, shipping, and the insurance industry. The Framers, endowed with biblical wisdom, and multimillionaires by today’s dollars, wrote equality into parchment while treating people as property.

The wealth class still drives power today— economic power, religious power, and political power.

The ideological deadlock that has shut down government, the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 that is dis mantling democracy and restructuring governance, and the marriage supper of religion and political control, leans more to wealth control and power than the well being of nation and the American people. Here’s an analysis of the ideological toe-to-toe.

The Republicans the party controls the administrative, legisla tive, and arguably, the judicial branches of government‒ propose to extend the 2017 Tax Cuts & Jobs Act (TCJA). Their proposal would reduce federal revenue by nearly $5 trillion over a decade. They propose to reconcile lost revenue with cuts to social safety net programs—$300 billion to SNAP (food assistance), and $490 billion to Medicare over the 10-year period.

The Democrats want to extend the ACA premium subsidies. CBO estimates project the cost at $360 billion of a 10-year period. More than 20 million Ameri cans receive assistance to purchase insurance. Tens of millions of others benefit from Medic aid or other ACA related coverage. Without the extension, more than 11 million will lose cover age —4 million will lose coverage and 7 million in reduced enrollments.

This ideological impasse that behind the historic shutdown. Is about wealth, economy, and the soul of America. We must decide whether wealth will remain a fortress of domination, a calculated stewardship, or be transformed into grace-filled justice. The answer will shape not just who has wealth, but who has dignity, opportunity, and voice.