PCUSA leaders support controversial federal budget manifesto
The Layman, March 28, 2012
The Presbyterian Church (USA) joined 37 other religious groups last week in touting a “faithful” federal budget plan that critics say will create “permanent subsidies” and punish productivity.
Dubbed the Faithful Budget initiative, the interfaith coalition released a 54-page document urging Congress to reject a current spending plan by House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan and instead draft a budget that would “act with mercy and justice by serving the common good, robustly funding support for poor and vulnerable people, both at home and abroad, and exercising proper care and keeping of the earth.”
PCUSA Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons and J. Herbert Nelson, director of the Office of Public Witness (formerly called the Washington Office), joined religious leaders from other Christian denominations as well as Muslim and Jewish leaders on March 22 and were scheduled to meet with House and Senate leaders to discuss the plan.
“Right now, members of Congress are approaching budget decisions from a perspective of scarcity,” Nelson said last week. “But this is the wrong approach. This nation has abundant resources, not only in money and commodities, but in human spirit and a commitment to care for one another.”
Ryan’s plan, which has garnered heavy support among his fellow Republicans, would cut President Barack Obama’s latest budget plan by $5.3 trillion over the next 10 years and would reduce federal spending from 12.5 percent of the Gross Domestic Product in 2011 to 3.75 percent by 2050.
“By following our sacred imperative to ‘love our neighbor as ourselves, we not only can pass a budget that makes sense, but pass a budget that begins to create a more just society and a healthier world,” Nelson said.
Other Christian leaders disagree. Writing in FrontPageMag.com, Mark Tooley, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy calls the Faithful Budget an attempt by the “Religious Left” to “see Big Government almost as a replacement for God.”
The Faithful Budget plan doesn’t provide concrete numbers but instead urges the federal government to increase spending for several social programs while cutting funds for defense, border patrol and prison operations to name a few.
“The Faithful Budget Campaign calls for ‘substantial’ increased federal spending on public education, ‘affordable’ housing, homelessness, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families , global and domestic hunger, AIDS, Global Warming, ‘renewable energy,’ home energy assistance and ‘environmental justice,’ along with the United Nations and the U.S. Institute on Peace,” Tooley said.
The budget proposal includes many provisions that some view as being motivated by politics rather than economics.
For example, the budget urges Congress to:
- “Make no new investments in nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction.”
- “Cease investment in privatization of prison construction and management.
- “Limit the expensive and destructive practice of solitary confinement.”
- “Equip the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and our public health officials with the resources and tools needed to reduce pollution and mitigate its consequences.”
- “Provide energy subsidies, if any, for renewable energy research and development and energy efficiency technologies.”
“How can there be advantage for future generations if the U.S. federal government is straddled with tens of trillions in unredeemable debt, crippling taxes, bankrupting entitlement programs, an enervating Welfare State, and crippling regulations?” Tooley added.
“The faith community needs the social safety net to remain strong,” Nelson said, adding, “It is only through a partnership between government programs and private and faith-based charity, that we are keeping millions of heads above water.”
“[The supporters of Faithful Budget] ascribe to the federal Welfare and Regulatory State powers and mysteries that even the most zealous of ancient pagans never ascribed to their favorite golden idols,” Tooley said.