We hope you’ve been in regular communication with your congressional representatives to let them know your view that the national budget, like your own, reflects moral values. Just a reminder, in case you’ve let your ink run dry:
The Super Committee charged with finding $1.2 to $1.5 trillion in additional budget savings over the next ten years has Arizona’s Senator Kyl as one of its members. Rev. David Beckman, president of Bread for the World, recently noted that “Everything we have achieved for poor and hungry people in the last 35 years is under severe threat of budget cuts”, programs such as SNAP (food stamps), nutrition assistance (such as Women, Infants and Children), and international development. Several of the budget proposals aim two-thirds of the cuts at programs benefitting hungry and poor people, resulting in the efforts of more than sixty denominations and church organizations to sign on to form a “Circle of Protection” around funding for time-tested, cost-effective programs that address the causes of hunger. They urge our elected officials to develop a responsible deficit-reduction plan which would address the true drivers of debt without cutting needed services or threatening the fragile economic recovery.
Senator Kyl and others who have taken a “cuts only” approach need to be reminded that, as Christians, we believe the moral measure of the budget is how the poorest and most vulnerable people fare. In Arizona, for example, the state lost 69,200 construction jobs and 21,600 manufacturing jobs since August 2008, while one in every four children under the age of five is living in poverty. Yet individuals earning $200,000 or more (2.2% of our residents) claimed 85% of the capital gains tax breaks, reducing their tax liability by $2.8 billion. And special tax breaks on dividend earnings decreased the taxes paid by the wealthiest state residents by more than $900 million.
As Christians, we look at every budget proposal from the bottom up–how it treats those Jesus called, “the least of these.” When you contact Senator Kyl, you might want to let him know that you want him to represent us and stop refusing to include tax breaks for the wealthiest and most profitable corporations.
For more specifics and sample letters, click on the www.bread.org.
