Presiding Bishop Calls on Congress to Oppose Budget Package
Episcopal News Service. October 19, 2005 [101905-1]
John Johnson, , Domestic Policy Analyst in the Episcopal Church’s Office of Government Relations in Washington, D.C.
In an interview with reporters on October 13, Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold joined the Rev. John Thomas, General Minister and President of the United Church of Christ, and Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), the Senate Minority Leader, in calling on Congress to abandon the FY ’06 Budget Reconciliation bill. Their call comes as Congress presses ahead with a budget reconciliation process requiring $35 billion in cuts from domestic spending, even before Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
This week several House and Senate committees will convene hearings to begin the process of reporting cuts to mandatory programs that serve the working poor, children and seniors. Program cuts to Medicaid, Food Stamps, housing and college loans are due by the end of October with consideration by the full House and Senate expected to follow quickly. House Republican leaders are expected to offer an amendment this week asking for an additional $15 billion in mandatory spending cuts to help pay for the government’s response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Defense spending for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan will not be cut. Congress will consider separately $70 billion additional tax cuts later this fall.
“Congress and the President must come together and focus on poverty that exists across the nation, and not exacerbate poverty [by passing] a budget that further impoverishes one group of poor people in order to help those impoverished or further impoverished by the hurricanes,” said Griswold. “Nothing could be clearer in the Gospel than Jesus’ identification with the poor. ‘When I was hungry you gave me food. When I was naked you clothed me, sick you cared for me, truly I tell you, what you did for the least of these, you did [it] for me.’ And so for a nation to declare itself under God and neglect the poor in its midst is tantamount in my mind to blasphemy.”
Griswold reflected on his recent trip to the hurricane devastated Gulf Coast region, saying that as he visited flooded homes in New Orleans with survivors and responders he learned a great deal about the “pre-Katrina” poverty that existed in the city. Griswold added, “Some of what I heard, not just about Katrina but also about pre-Katrina conditions, reminded me very much of the poverty I saw visibly when I was serving as Bishop of Chicago and underscored the fact that in many instances the first devastation, before the havoc wreaked by wind or water, is in fact that poverty.”
“As Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church I feel morally obliged to call upon Congress to abandon the budget reconciliation process,” Griswold concluded.
At its recent Executive Council meeting, held October 7-10 in Nevada, members of the Council passed resolution NAC-037 (see ENS story http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_68487_ENG_HTM.htm) that calls on the Episcopal Church to be a "force for justice," asking Episcopalians to engage their government representatives as they consider their responses to the hurricanes. Issues identified in the resolution include urging Congress to pass a budget that does not pit one group in need against another and calls for more money overall to care for the country's most vulnerable residents.
As part of its ongoing work related to the Federal Budget and in response to the Presiding Bishop’s and Executive Council’s actions, the Episcopal Public Policy Network issued an “Action Alert” asking Episcopalians to contact their Senators and Representatives and urge them to stop the budget reconciliation package working its way through the Congress, according to the Episcopal Church’s Office of Government Relations in Washington, D.C. To view the alert, visit the EPPN Web site at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/eppn/.
Entitlement cuts considered most detrimental to those in need include $10 billion from health care for the poor delivered through the Medicaid program, $13 billion from pensions and student loans, $3 billion from Food Stamps for the poor as well as commodity supports and conservation programs and $470 million from housing programs. The remaining $9 billion will likely come from programs in the areas of transportation, environment, and immigration among others. Additionally, House Resources and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committees could include lease sales from drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which would effectively open the Arctic Refuge to drilling.
The Presiding Bishop and other denominational leaders have repeatedly called on Congress to put forward a budget that is “just” and reflects the values and priorities of Americans in caring for the least among us. To view a copy of letters by the mainline leaders, go to http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_59751_ENG_HTM.htm
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_61586_ENG_HTM.htm
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_65508_ENG_HTM.htm
In April the House and Senate narrowly approved the fiscal 2006 Congressional Budget Resolution, which called for $34.7 billion dollars in cuts to mandatory spending while also providing $70 billion in additional tax cuts over five years. The Reconciliation Bill is protected against filibuster in the Senate, a particular concern if the bill includes oil revenue from drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Proponents of drilling have determined that the budget reconciliation process is their best hope for opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.
The Episcopal Church, through the General Convention, Executive Council and House of Bishops, has repeatedly opposed drilling in the Arctic Refuge—traditional sacred space of the native Alaskan Gwich’in Nation—90 percent of whom are Episcopalian. More information on the Arctic Refuge can be found on the Episcopal Church’s Office of Government Relations web site. (http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3654_67245_ENG_HTM.htm) -- John Johnson is a domestic policy analyst in the Episcopal Church’s Office of Government Relations in Washington, D.C.