We Say We Believe in Justice. But We’ve Stopped Asking What That Actually Means.
Some say it means equality. Others, freedom. Some try to manage it with policy. Others trust the market to sort it out. We argue. We legislate. We campaign.
But half of working American families still need government help just to survive.
That’s not justice. That’s a national failure.
We’ve normalized, excused, and even celebrated this failure in partisan terms. We’ve hidden the truth.
We don’t lack resources. We lack clarity and intent. We don’t lack compassion. We lack consensus.
This isn’t about left or right. It’s about whether we still pursue the goal that founded America: justice, not for the powerful, not for the loudest voices, but for the people.
Justice for the kid in the trailer or the projects. Justice for the single mom clocking in before sunrise. Justice not through handouts, but through wages. Through dignity. Through the freedom to work and build a life.
This piece asks a hard question: If none of our political tribes is delivering justice, how do we intend to?
And we’ll offer a real answer. Not another slogan. Not another tax. Not another mandate. A real answer, starting from a truth too many have forgotten: we will only achieve justice by building consensus.
It’s a Truth as Old as Humanity Itself
We take the advantages we’re given instead of giving them away. We don’t do it out of malice. We do it for survival. Over time, that instinct shapes the systems we build. They bend toward imbalance, not because someone planned it, but because some people find the edges faster than others. And once they do, it’s not in our nature to let them go.
This is why kids born in mansions go to better schools than kids born in trailers or projects. They get better doctors, better nutrition, safer neighborhoods, and more chances. A parent in Atherton, California, zip code 94027, median home about $7.9 million, can hire a private SAT tutor at two-hundred dollars an hour.
Their kids earn top scores and reach elite schools.
A kid in a single-wide works full-time while going to school full-time, if they go to school at all. And this isn’t just one zip code in California. It’s true across America.
Books written three thousand years ago ask: Should we race horses in fields of rocks? We’d cripple the horses. Should we plow the sea with a tractor? We’d flood the engine and ruin the machine.
The questions sound absurd. Yet the same book then asks why we build systems that claim to offer opportunity while stacking the odds against those who need it most.
It’s an ancient question: How do we achieve justice?
The question is even more urgent today in America. Most nations were not founded to achieve justice. Nations rose to consolidate power, defend land, unify faiths, or escape colonial rule.
But America, born at war, is different. We are unique in putting justice at the heart of our identity. Our Constitution says it plainly: “We the People… in order to establish justice… do ordain and establish this Constitution (as the foundation) for the United States of America.”
Simply put, America was founded on the idea that a kid in a trailer should have the same chance as a kid in a mansion.
That idea is justice.
America set out six national goals. The first, and most important, is justice. Justice is the end of government, the reason it exists.
We can’t claim to be conservatives, progressives, or even Americans if we ignore this truth. Justice isn’t a side goal. It’s the point.
Will Capitalism Achieve Justice?
America’s financial system is capitalist. It isn’t good or bad. It’s a tool. Capitalism drives growth, sparks innovation, and lifts our standard of living. It meets consumer demand better than any system we’ve tried.
The problems we saw earlier aren’t capitalism’s fault. They happen when markets run without enough guidance to meet society’s needs. Markets respond to incentives, not morality. People act in their self-interest. Government exists to protect people’s rights and property, and to ensure the rules serve everyone.
Because markets do not guarantee justice, government must work within markets to set conditions that create justice. When the system ignores the worker, the worker gains nothing from the system.
We work for our bread. If the financial system forgets those who sweat for that bread, we end up with no bread at all.
Or, more accurately than no bread, we end up with half of American families with parents who go to work and still need handouts from their fellow American taxpayers, according to a US Department of Health and Human Services analysis from 2023. That is the reality of America today. Some tout the programs as federal programs that slash poverty. That’s a lie.
If half of working American families need government support to survive, that isn’t success. It’s proof we’ve failed to achieve our nation’s primary goal. But some celebrate this failure and keep the handouts coming.
It’s not the fault of those families. They are working families. But because we have failed to set conditions that allow American families to earn their bread, they cannot earn enough without government assistance.
So… America was founded to establish justice, and on the freedom to pursue self-interest and protect property. Bring those two ideas together, and a simple truth follows:
Every American, whether they grow up in a mansion or a trailer, must have a real chance to work, earn, and shape a life of their choosing. That is the promise of a just society.
If It Were Easy to Achieve Justice, We Would Already Have Done So
Republicans call for relying on the markets. But we will not achieve justice by relying only on the free market. Markets are great at many things: allocating resources, driving innovation, rewarding efficiency. But markets chase profit, not fairness. Justice requires intention and design. We must look beyond what markets reward, and instead focus on what an American family needs: food on the table and heat in the house through wages: real wages, not handouts.
Some think they’re kings, but we will not achieve justice through Executive Orders. They’re fleeting. They don’t last. They don’t demonstrate leadership. One president signs them in; the next one signs them out. Back and forth, election after election, no stability. We can’t build justice on paperwork that disappears with the next election.
Those who believe in government call for more rules. But we will not achieve justice through unfunded mandates. Mandates like raising the federal minimum wage sound righteous on paper. They promise higher wages, safer workplaces, better benefits. But government mandates arrive without resources to make them work. Small businesses run on tight margins. If we demand higher wages without helping businesses raise revenue, we ask them to defy economic gravity. When they can’t, they fail. We must give small businesses tools to succeed, even as we lift workers.
Socialists call to tax the wealthy. But we will not achieve justice through taxes. Taxes are necessary. They pay for roads, schools, defense, and the core functions of government. But if our strategy for justice starts and ends with taxing the wealthy, we’ll wait forever. Even if we taxed billionaires out of existence, most of that money would vanish into bureaucracy long before reaching a struggling family. Government-funded bureaucracy spends money managing poverty, not ending it.
Democrats call for social equality. But we will not achieve justice by dying on the hill of democracy. Justice does not mean equality. Some people will always earn more. Some will work longer hours, take greater risks, build businesses, invent tools, or manage others. And some will simply be luckier. That’s liberty. Not something to erase, but something to extend. We can’t reduce the advantages of the successful. Instead, we must expand the conditions that created their success, so others can follow the same path.
So… how will we achieve justice?
Focus on the Goal
We will only achieve justice through consensus. We are a nation of competing interests. Inside one state, many might agree. But across coastal states, the Great Plains, the mountains, and the Mississippi River basin, needs differ.
A policy that works in San Francisco might break a family business in rural Nebraska. A rule written for Wall Street might choke a rancher in Montana. One size does not fit fifty states.
Justice isn’t about uniformity; it’s about legitimacy. That means people across regions, backgrounds, and ideologies must see themselves in the outcome. We don’t need to erase differences. We need to build common ground.
And the place to begin is with agreement. Agreement on a goal. A simple, measurable idea most Americans still believe in: if you work, you should be able to provide for yourself and your family without government help.
It’s not a partisan idea. It’s a promise of justice. It’s the primary goal of America.
To fulfill it, we need a system that rewards employers for paying livable wages, not one that punishes workers with dependency when the market fails them.
So, how do we build that consensus?
Business Taxes in America are Low. But They’re Not Low Enough
Democrats say the answer to poverty is raising taxes to fund the government. They rage against cutting business taxes.
Here’s the truth: business taxes in America are low. But they’re not low enough. Not low enough for businesses that actually help us achieve our national goals.
We need real prosperity for working Americans. Not temporary patches, not programs that hide failure with handouts, and not policies that pile debt onto our children. If that’s the goal, then we must build a system that rewards the right behavior.
Consider the champion of Democratic leadership: President Franklin D. Roosevelt. FDR’s success didn’t come from control. He aligned incentives for businesses and individuals alike. He showed how the right incentives could rally a nation. And in doing so, he set a persuasive precedent for incentivized wage policy today.
Democratic leaders have forgotten his example.
Today, we tax businesses that pay livable wages. We tax businesses that provide healthcare. We tax businesses whose employees don’t need food stamps or Medicaid.
Meanwhile, businesses paying poverty wages shift their labor costs onto taxpayers. Their workers survive only because we pay through programs like SNAP, Medicaid, and the Earned Income Tax Credit. That cost isn’t small.
Means-tested welfare spending approaches one trillion dollars a year.
So yes, business taxes in America are low. But they’re not low enough for the right businesses.
Using FDR’s example, we should flip the logic. If a business pays every worker a livable wage, it shouldn’t pay any federal tax at all. Because that business is already doing its part. It’s meeting the national goal: food on the table and heat in the house for every working American, without government assistance.
If we want a system that works, we need to stop taxing virtue and start taxing failure.
That’s what we mean when we say: business taxes in America are low.
But they’re not low enough.
Wages in America are High. But They’re Not High Enough
Republicans argue that the solution to poverty lies in the free market. They say workers must make themselves more valuable, and that government action only distorts the market and slows growth.
But here’s the truth: wages in America are high. They’re just not high enough for families to support themselves without help.
We can’t support the idea that every American must work for their bread, then defend a system where millions work full-time and still go hungry.
We can’t say we value dignity and then ask working Americans to rely on handouts. We can’t say we believe in liberty and then block the conditions that allow a man or woman to earn enough to choose their own path. If labor has value, and it does, then all workers must be paid enough to reflect the cost of living in the country they support.
Consider the champion of Republican leadership: President Abraham Lincoln. He understood we couldn’t support this contradiction. Some claim Lincoln didn’t lead the fight for labor rights. In fact, Lincoln led the fight for the right of enslaved workers to be paid at all.
Lincoln didn’t need a modern welfare state to tell him that sweat deserves bread. He believed every worker, free or born enslaved, should see a path to prosperity.
Today, we subsidize businesses that underpay their workers. We tax businesses that take care of their workers. We spend nearly a trillion dollars each year dealing with the consequences of low wages, and then fight about whether social programs are bloated or broken.
We’ve missed the point.
The point isn’t whether we should have social programs. The point is justice.
It’s whether our system reflects our stated values: that work has dignity, and every American who works should live without government aid.
If we believe people should work and provide for their families, the system should reward that work with enough to live, without handouts.
Wages in America are high. But they’re not high enough for half of American families to thrive without help.
With This Ring, I Thee Wed…
America is a union of states and individuals who live in those states. Like any marriage or partnership, a union lasts only if it’s built on commitment. And commitment demands we focus on what matters most.
We shouldn’t fixate on whether business taxes are too high or too low.
We shouldn’t argue over whether certain jobs "deserve" a living wage.
We shouldn’t let debates over social programs distract us from deeper truths.
These debates feel urgent. But they miss the point.
America wasn’t founded to preserve tax codes or pick economic winners. It was founded with a purpose, and that purpose was justice. Justice is our founding promise and enduring challenge. If we are to keep our union and remain Americans in more than name, justice must be our shared goal.
So… back to the question that opened this conversation:
How do we achieve justice?
We clarify our purpose. We incentivize progress on both sides. We build consensus to move toward the goal, even if we must sacrifice the method.
We won’t all agree on the path. But we can agree on the destination.
May God bless the United States of America.
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