A Moral Crisis - a statement by J. Herbert Nelson

This message delivered by the Rev. J. Herbert Nelson, Director for Public Witness, at the Loaves and Fishes gathering on Wednesday, March 20, 2013, at Upper Senate Park on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC. The gathering was organized by my faith organizations and was intended to call attention to and to protect programs that impact the poor in the United States.

A Moral Crisis

Today we are faced with a crisis in our nation. Our nation faces a moment of intense pause, which cannot simply be defined in economic terms. Our crisis is one of moral ineptness in high places. We are now in the midst of a sequester – across-the-board, indiscriminate spending cuts – that results from a weakness in moral character that has led to stalemate.  This stalemate is the struggle over our vision of our government’s responsibility to support the most vulnerable over and against funding wealthy people and multinational corporations through tax breaks. Central to this stalemate is the question of government’s responsibility to support the “least of these.”

My book of faith reminds me that Jesus declared, “Just as you have done it unto the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you have done it unto me.” (Matthew 25:40) He reminds us that righteousness is etched into the fabric of our willingness to claim residence in the lives and hearts of those whose steps falter on the highway of life. He further reminds us that the act of turning away from the needs of the poor is synonymous with turning away from the son of God. Therefore, the present moral crisis in leadership is more than budget or party ideology. This crisis, caused by our leadership in Congress, is at the core of our spiritual consciousness.

We are acting out of a posture of scarcity rather than abundance. Our resources are not scarce; they are abundant!  But we are failing to make sure they get to the people who need them most. Instead, we contemplate cuts to Medicaid, which supports the uninsured; the disabled; the amputee; the mentally ill; the trace nurse who must be in our schools for the child who needs medical attention. Or we contemplate cutting programs that feed hungry families and Head Start early childhood education for low-income children, who will otherwise not know their colors or numbers when they enter the kindergarten. In this nation, we build jail cells based on fourth grade reading levels and homelessness is pervasive in every city, village, and hamlet. How can we declare that the “haves” ought to have more while the “have-not’s” get less? This is a reverse Robin Hood plan, where the poor get poorer and the rich get richer. It is destined for failure! And, we are a better people than that!

We are not bankrupt! There is enough! We must challenge this President and Congress to remember that two candidates ran for the office of President in 2012. One promised to end tax breaks for the wealthy. The other promised to maintain tax breaks for the wealthy. One promised to end corporate welfare. The other promised to end welfare for the most vulnerable of our society. We waded through the debates and made it to the general election. The nation spoke at the voting booth in overwhelming numbers to decide that the candidate who vowed to tax corporations and high-income individuals at a higher rate would serve as the President of this country. Now that the nation has spoken, there is this desire to ignore the vote of the people and return to the fiscal policies that placed us in the doldrums of despair in the first place. Now, there is the desire to place whole communities of people in desperation mode again.  

We must hold this President accountable for doing what he said he would do, while declaring to those who would push back that the people have spoken.  We must move from this current model – of government of the corporations, by the powerful and elite, and for tax loopholes – to the vision of the founders, who declared that we are a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. There is enough when we are responsible to whole communities with the wealth that God has provided.

We must press for the day when elected officials will be reminded that they work for the people and not for themselves. We must build bridges of hope for future generations by the way we act now. Our nation will be judged by its moral excellence in times of crisis. Therefore, let us get busy pushing for fiscal policies that matter to the people. Let us remember that the people united will never be defeated! For as you have done it unto the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you have done it unto me!

One week left 'til the Sequester

One week left…

On March 1^st, new federal budget cuts will begin to take effect.  If Congress does nothing, many hundreds of thousands of people will be hurt by across-the-board cuts (sequestration) to education, nutrition, job training, home heating assistance, public health, mental health, and social services, to name only a few areas. In the absence of a resolution, there will be $31.4 billion in spending cuts to domestic programs like WIC, Head Start, child care, housing, home energy, homeless aid, education and training, and much more.  Medicare alone will be cut by $11.2 billion. 

Write to your members of Congress today – we need a balanced solution to the sequester!

Congress should replace the sequester with a balanced approach that reflects our collective responsibility to our human community.  There are core challenges facing our nation: rising income inequality, persistent unemployment, historically high rates of poverty and anemic economic growth. These challenges must be addressed with justice, but the sequester will only exacerbate them.

Sequestration was developed as a backstop – a last resort if Congress failed to reduce the deficit in a more thoughtful and balanced way.  As Christians, we believe that our economic system must be rooted in fairness, justice, and equal opportunity.  Without these values, our economy is, quite literally, demoralized.  Thus it is our responsibility, both individually and collectively, to respond to those who are in need. 

Therefore, the first rule should be that deficit reduction should not increase poverty.  Congress must not replace the current sequester with policy that will be even worse for those who are already struggling to make ends meet.  We must explore responsible alternatives to sequestration that will be more consistent with our faith and sense of compassion.  The nation’s deficit problem cannot be solved through spending cuts alone – new revenues must be part of the solution. 

Write to your Members of Congress today!

To raise revenue, the tax code should be made more progressive (that is, tax liability increases as income increases), system-wide health care costs should be controlled, and unnecessary tax expenditures should be eliminated.  Further, Congress should seriously scrutinize the Defense budget, which has doubled in size in the last fifteen years.  Outdated weapons systems and an over-reliance on the apparatus of war are no way to build peace and true security in a troubled world. 

Our partners at the Coalition on Human Needs have recently released new national and state-specific fact sheets that highlight (or lowlight) the effects of these devastating cuts.   Just a sampling of the impacts in fact sheets for every state and for the U.S are startling:  Up to 125,000 families and 100,000 formerly homeless people losing their housing (or having to pay much more), 600,000 young children and moms losing WIC nutrition aid, 70,000 children denied Head Start, nearly 76,000 people with disabilities losing Voc. Rehabilitation services, 373,000 adults and children with serious mental illness losing treatment.

The Human Cost of Sequestration

The Sequester will enact $1.2 trillion in across the board spending cuts - half of which will come from defense spending and half from non-defense - and is set to go into effect this January, 2013. If the Sequester goes ahead unchecked, the massive spending cuts will seriously compromise programs that serve those who most need the services of our nation's safety net.

While the exact consequences of sequestration for safety net programs is not yet known, it is clear that they will be severe for those who need those programs the most. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) estimates that sequestration will result in 100,000 fewer children receiving Head Start and Early Head Start services and 80,000 fewer children receiving child care assistance. An estimated 12,000 fewer veterans will be served through the Jobs for Veterans program. Hundreds of thousands of people will lose nutritional benefits through the WIC program. The HHS Health Care for the Homeless program will be able to serve nearly 12,000 fewer people and nearly 187,000 people will lose Section 8 tenant-based rental assistance.

Our approach to upcoming sequestration needs to be rooted in our values – a balanced approach that addresses the deficit crisis with justice and compassion. On the one hand, we need to be good stewards of the resources we already have, making judicious cuts to defense, earmarks, and other wasteful spending, while preserving that which is most important for the good of all. On the other hand, we must increase revenue, in order to ensure that this nation can meet our need to operate a fair and just economy, which serves all of our human community. The nation’s deficit crisis cannot be solved through spending cuts alone – new revenues must be part of the solution. The need is great and the resources are abundant. The budget choices we make must reflect this reality.

As churches across the country observe Homelessness and Affordable Housing Sunday on August 5, the Office of Public Witness invites you tell you Member of Congress that we need faithful alternatives to the Sequester.  Members of Congress head home for August recess this weekend, so check your members’ websites to find out where they will have town halls and campaign events.  Tell them: if the Sequester goes into effect, hundreds of thousands of our sisters and brothers will lose the services our nation's safety net provides.

The Presbyterian Network to End Homelessness has released a new resource for Homelessness and Affordable Housing Sunday.  Visit http://justiceunbound.org/action-alerts/homelessness-affordable-housing-sunday/ for the PNTEH packet and many other helpful resources.