The Truthiness About Stephen Colbert's Assumption That the Federal Government's Spending Cares About the Poor
Sending Tax Dollars Through the Sieve of Government Bureaucracy Does Not Mean You Care About the Poor
I was irritated by this meme that went by on my social media feed, by Stephen Colbert, and I believe his “truthiness” in this case warrants a response.
Stephen Colbert says, “If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it.” It’s a clever remark, and perhaps on the surface a fair one, aimed at exposing a contradiction between Christian ideals and practice. But, as usual, a quip like this says more about the speaker than the issue. It lacks any real depth on how aid has historically been done and why, and it also ignores the profound shortcomings of entrusting charity to distant, impersonal bureaucracies in Washington. And most glaringly, it spares people like Colbert himself from having to confront how often “compassion” is merely an expression of voting preferences rather than actual personal engagement on one’s own with the very people of our communities who are poor.
In America, we’ve arrived at a point where for many, “helping the poor” means checking a box at the ballot and hoping that federal agencies—known for wasting a generous portion of every dollar they receive—somehow lift people out of poverty. Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society,” for all it’s trillions spent, has been a failure. For too many who profess to care about poverty, personal sacrifice, the kind that stings and disrupts and involves our own sleeves rolled up, has become the government’s job, leaving the voter to sit back, assured of their own benevolence by virtue of casting a vote for the “right” policies. If this isn’t the height of moral complacency, it’s hard to know what is. The prophet in Isaiah 58 called on His followers to personally feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and tend to the afflicted. Where in that passage does He absolve anyone by saying, “Delegate this to the distant halls of government, where inefficiency reigns and the poor become statistics”? Where does it say in the New Testament that we ought to “centralize resources and trust that Caesar will have the care for the poor, the widow, the orphan, or the stranger” foremost in mind. We have been duped by politicians who say they give a rat’s behind about the poor, when all they really care about is entrenching themselves in power.
For nearly two centuries, it was communities and people of faith who shouldered the burden of poverty relief. Churches and local charities were the backbone of aid, and they didn’t merely hand out supplies. They built relationships, understood needs, and offered compassion that fostered genuine dignity and human connection. These groups worked at close quarters, knowing those they served as people with names and stories, rather than as clients or cases in a bureaucratic ledger. This approach was both efficient and deeply humane, and it was rooted in the Scriptural call for each person to serve and sacrifice, not to delegate and defer to the State or even non-profit organizations.
Today’s centralized welfare state—instituted primarily during the New Deal—was born of crisis, and perhaps even necessity. But now, eighty years later, it has become the moral scapegoat that allows people like Colbert to talk about “helping the poor” while doing absolutely nothing about it themselves. Instead of building soup kitchens, organizing clothing drives, or investing their time and energy in local relief efforts, too many Americans throw all their hopes and tax dollars into federal programs that seem to specialize in squandering opportunity and resources. A 2018 report from the Government Accountability Office found that federal welfare programs spend around 10% or more of their budgets on administrative costs alone. That’s 10%, at best, going to bureaucracy instead of directly to people in need. And the government only amplifies this inefficiency by layering programs over programs, agencies upon agencies, all of which funnel money through multiple levels before it even reaches the community. What finally trickles down is often only a shadow of the original amount, and yet we’re to believe that this is “helping the poor.” While the Left complains about trickle down economics, they practice it themselves, with a government installed oligarchy getting rich off of the spending of politicians, just like the $1 Billion spent on celebrities by the Harris campaign.
More troubling than inefficiency is how this model erodes personal responsibility, turning charity into a distant, impersonal transaction instead of an active, local mission. The whole Scriptural foundation of charity centers on community and accountability. Helping the poor is not merely about feeding mouths; it’s about engaging hearts, instilling hope, and investing time in those on the margins, and most especially, entering ourselves into community with the least of these. The relationships formed through true charity help the giver as much as the receiver, softening hearts and broadening minds in a way that paying taxes simply can’t accomplish. When charity becomes synonymous with paying more into federal programs, we strip it of its moral core and convert it into a bland, soulless exchange, devoid of the compassion and humanity that the very concept of “charity” demands.
Colbert’s remark seems to imply that the solution is simple: if Christians cared about the poor, they’d just endorse policies for increased federal spending on welfare. But here’s the rub: if all it takes is a few dollars in taxes to solve the problem, why haven’t these programs succeeded? The truth is, federal programs are simply incapable of addressing the unique, complex issues that communities face. A blanket policy from Washington doesn’t consider the needs of individual towns, let alone individual families. It doesn’t adapt to local economic challenges or respond to cultural differences. It doesn’t have the flexibility to provide a warm coat to someone in New York in the same way that a hot meal is needed by someone in New Mexico. The local church does, the community center does, the food bank down the street does—but Washington, D.C., does not!
In Isaiah 58, the Bible makes clear that true charity is a personal calling. “Share your food with the hungry, provide the poor wanderer with shelter,” it commands, without ever mentioning government or taxes or policy. This is a call for active, engaged compassion, not passive delegation. The text doesn’t let anyone off the hook because they pay their taxes, or because they voted for the party that promised more social spending. It calls each person to serve, to step into the messiness of people’s lives, and to build community through direct, personal action.
And let’s be honest: voting doesn’t absolve anyone of anything. The idea that people can discharge their obligations to the poor by casting a vote and supporting a federal program is not only absurd but also corrosive to genuine community charity. Imagine if every person who says they care about poverty actually spent time working in a shelter, or even once a month volunteered at a food bank. Imagine if those same people, instead of advocating for more federal spending, organized their neighborhoods to provide directly for those in need. How much more impact would that have than funding an administrative behemoth that scarcely touches the lives of those it’s supposed to serve?
If Stephen Colbert, or anyone else, truly believes that America should care for its poor, then let them be the first to step into the breach. Let them spend their weekends with those in need, not lecturing on TV but rolling up their sleeves and doing the work they claim others should do. Let them start in their own communities before casting stones at others. Because here’s the truth: our ability to love and serve the poor has never depended on federal funding. It has always rested on our willingness to put ourselves in the line of service, to look our neighbors in the eye, and to shoulder the responsibility personally.
This isn’t a call to dismantle federal programs or abandon the social safety net entirely. Of course it isn’t. Rather, it’s a call to remember that charity’s essence is personal and local. The efficient allocation of resources may demand some government involvement, but the primary responsibility for caring for the poor rests with each one of us, in our own communities. Until we reclaim that role, no federal program will ever be enough, and no number of votes will suffice.
In the end, Colbert’s statement ignores the deeper problem: not that we have failed to create enough government programs but that we have increasingly relied on government to do the work we were commanded to do ourselves. And as a result, we have distanced ourselves from the poor, casting them as nameless “cases” to be handled by bureaucrats instead of as neighbors to be served by each of us personally. The solution lies not in “pretending Jesus was selfish” or admitting we “just don’t want to do it.” It lies in remembering that compassion, to have meaning, must be lived out person-to-person, right here in our own communities, in the way Christ intended.
If anyone feels convicted by Colbert’s comment, let them consider how they personally have failed to serve their neighbors, and then let’s all of us get to work.