Remarks as prepared for
a briefing in the U.S. Capitol for Congressional Staffers
delivered by Leslie Woods, Representative for Domestic Poverty and Environmental Issues
I’d like to start by thanking
NETWORK for inviting me to
speak at this briefing, and to thank these sisters for being such great
partners in this community’s ongoing
anti-poverty and justice-building coalition
work.
We couldn’t do it without NETWORK.
Sr. Marge asked me to speak about why the faith community
cares about these issues, so first, I’d like to refer to the document in your
packet,
“Faithful Alternatives to Sequestration,” which our inter-religious coalition
has updated and offered to the Hill several times over the last two and a half
years.
And you will find that I will
quote or paraphrase several passages from this piece, because I believe it is
no less true today that it was when I wrote it two years ago and I found myself
referring to it often when I was preparing these remarks.
So, to begin, there are two quotations from holy texts at
the head of the paper. First, from the
Gospel according to Luke, “to whom much is given, much will be required,” a powerful
reminder from holy scripture about different levels of social responsibility,
especially in the context of Mike’s comments on the many and varied ways that
those who have much avoid contributing their fair share.
Next, from the Midrash, “the person who lends money to the
poor person is greater than the person who gives charity, and the one who
throws money into a common purse to form a partnership with a poor person is
greater than either.” Again, not only a
great reminder about how the growing economic divide is contrary to God’s intention
for human community, but also a commentary on the necessity for the common
purse, the shared broker who brings in revenue and invests it in the needs of
the larger community. It sounds awfully
familiar, doesn’t it? This used to be
the role of ancient religious communities.
Today, while our communities still have important charitable and
prophetic roles, the common purse strings are now in government hands.
As a religious coalition, we believe that our economic arrangements
should serve God’s creation and should help the human community to
flourish. We further believe that the
sequester must urgently be replaced with a balanced plan that protects people
who are economically poor and vulnerable.
And as Sister Marge, Sister Simone, and Mike have articulated so well,
we believe there are several ways to achieve these goals, while also addressing
the nation’s long term fiscal challenges, without using indiscriminate cuts or
policy that makes poor people disproportionately bear the burden.
We believe “that crushing poverty in a world of abundance is
insufferable and that we have allowed too much injustice and greed to govern
our current economic structures.”
Instead, our policies, both appropriations and tax policy, should
increase equity and equality.
Both in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and in our broader ecumenical
and interfaith context, we seek to challenge the systemic injustice that traps
families in poverty for generations while also creating a new class of
economically poor people, as the gap between the rich and poor continues to
widen. We believe that this growing
inequality, as well as persistent and systemic poverty, especially among
children, but really among all people, is not only inconsistent with God’s
intention, but it is contrary to it.
I invite you to remember with me the creation of the current
sequester. It is a blunt tool. It was designed in the Budget Control Act to
be so awful –- so prohibitive -- to carry such serious and weighty consequences
for the stereotypical interests of both Democrats and Republicans, that it
would force diverging Members of Congress to come to a negotiating table in
good faith. Sequestration was literally designed
to be unspeakable.
And despite news stories that it hasn’t really been all that
bad, it actually has.
An upcoming report
that will be released next week called
“Faces of Austerity,” will offer perhaps
the most comprehensive cross-sector review of the affects of sequester.
In this report, we hear from :
Cheri Taylor, who is the Executive
Director of Pottersville Adult Day Services in California, which serves
low-income clients with Alzheimer’s disease or other dementia. She says:
“These… programs allow people with Alzheimer’s disease to remain in their homes
longer and provide needed respite to their family caregivers. Any ‘savings’
from sequestration would pale in comparison to the added costs resulting from
unnecessary hospitalizations, premature nursing home placements, and greater
financial and emotional strains on family caregivers.”
So, the sequester is short-sighted, trading long-term security
for short-term deficit reduction.
And from:
Sharilyn Cano, the Human Resources
Director of the Southern Oregon Head Start program. She says, “We went from
serving 1,378 kids in May to 1,141 kids in September. The loss of 237 kids is
all because of sequester… I don’t understand the logic of these cuts – no one does…
People need to understand that in order to ‘pull yourself up by your
bootstraps’ you first need to have bootstraps.”
And these stories are just examples of the true heartbreak
and the beginning of the domino effect of sequester cuts. If a child loses head start, what will her
parents do to find child care? If they
have no child care, how will they both work, which is pretty essential for any
family eligible for Head Start? If they
can’t work, how will they afford rent and utilities? If they can’t afford rent
and utilities, how will they avoid becoming homeless? How will they afford food to feed their
family? And winter coats? A child losing head start is tragic – for the child,
for her family, and for a nation that is systemically disinvesting in its
children – in our very future.
This is true cost of sequestration. A systematic and
thoughtless disinvestment in the structures and supports that make it possible
for families to make ends meet, that offer education and training, that provide
the tools necessary for a person to improve his or her lot – to use those
bootstraps, to refer to Sharilyn from Oregon.
And while we, in the faith community, are most concerned
about the economically poor people who are bearing the burden of this
sequester, the true cost of sequester is even broader than that. The sequester is affecting all non-defense
discretionary spending – not just the safety net – t
he true cost has great
implications for public health, safety, and our very security, at home and
around the world. The true cost of sequestration is also about cancer research,
HIV medication, food safety, clean air and water, access to public and pristine
wilderness, international diplomacy, disaster response, supports for women and
children experiencing domestic and relationship violence… and livelihoods. The federal government is the largest single
employer in the nation, not to mention all the federal funds that pass through
state budgets into the paychecks of state and local employees, like school
teachers, police officers, fire fighters, and social workers. The sequester is
not just numbers on a
page – it’s real people’s lives.
Instead of the blunt axe of the sequester, we need a fine
scalpel – and a blood transfusion. We
need a discriminating eye that will review the budget and make judicious
decisions about investments, effectiveness, and need. We need to take a serious look at our
military spending, which has doubled in the last ten years, even as the
Pentagon is not audited or accountable for its use of taxpayer dollars. And we need new revenue. There is
simply no way to address the current economic situation – economic inequality,
joblessness, under-education, systemic poverty – or our long-term fiscal
challenges of deficits and debt, without new revenues.
Congress has an opportunity to address and mitigate a real
harm. The sequester is not a short-term
problem. Without congressional action,
these undiscriminating cuts will take a chunk out of the budget pie chart for
the next eight years, even before the policy and priority conversations
begin. As a result, by 2023 these caps
will cut $1.6 trillion from discretionary programs, relative to the
inflation-adjusted 2010 funding levels. Under sequestration, discretionary
programs—including both defense and nondefense programs—will face more than
$700 billion in cuts over the next eight years. And in two years, non-defense
discretionary spending will equal a smaller percentage of our economy than ever
before.
So, while Congress can’t undo the harm that the sequester
has already inflicted, it can stop it for future years, as well as make the
investments necessary to mitigate the effects for the people already suffering
under sequester cuts. And more than
preventing harm, Congress actually has an opportunity here to further the
common good – to make our economic system more just and less stratified. As Mike laid out for us, there are many ways,
within the enforcement of current law and with the closing of loopholes, that
will make sure that from those to whom much has been given, much will be
required.
We hope your takeaway today is that the faith community
cares about the sequester because it affects real people – the very people who
are sitting in our pews and coming to our soup kitchens – those who are being
served and those who are serving. We
care because we believe that God has a better, more wholesome, loving, and inclusive
vision for our human community. We
believe in a God of abundance who provides us with all that we need – and that it
is our own failure that leaves some with too little and some with too
much.
In short, we care because we believe God has called us to
care and called prophets like Sister Simone to make it a big deal. We know that the sequester is doing real
harm, and at the same time we know there are ways to accomplish our economic
goals much more efficiently and effectively, without causing that harm, through
common sense policy changes, like replacing the sequester with a balanced
approach – that includes judicious spending cuts AND new revenues that ensure
that those who have plenty are contributing their fair share to the good of
all. We have the opportunity, not only to address some of the long-term fiscal
challenges facing the nation, but also to invest in human capital and human
need, to reduce spending responsibly while continuing to invest in the programs
that make this nation strong and a place that seeks out the general welfare for
everyone who lives here, not just a privileged few.
