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Congress is presently negotiating deep spending cuts in the federal government's fiscal year 2011 budget.

Last week, as chairperson for the U.S. bishops' Committee on International Justice and Peace, I and Bishop Stephen Blaire, who chairs the Episcopal Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, visited key members of Congress to express our concerns that the cries of the poor and vulnerable at home and abroad are not being heard.

We realize that times of fiscal restraint demand shared sacrifices. Strategies must be developed to raise adequate revenues, eliminate unnecessary spending, meet defense needs and address the long-term costs of health insurance programs in a fair and just way.

Burden on poor
But the principles of Catholic social teaching insist that cuts be shared so that those who are most vulnerable do not bear the primary burden for reducing the deficit. Indeed, in a time of austerity and fiscal restraint, "the least of these" have a special moral priority.

Unfortunately, in the current debate to date, the poor are being asked to bear a disproportionate share of the proposed cuts. The vast majority of the cuts come from the non-defense, discretionary portion of the budget - only about 12 percent of the total budget - which funds the majority of social welfare, education and other anti-poverty programs at home and abroad.

Fiscal responsibility is important and our current budget deficit must be addressed. However, shared sacrifice should guide budget cuts, not reliance on disproportionate cuts in programs that serve poor persons.

Cruelest cuts
Current proposals fail the moral criteria of Catholic teaching to protect the poor and advance the common good. Some of the largest proposed funding cuts include:

• $1.08 billion from Head Start,

• $800 million from International Food Aid,

• $100 million from Emergency Food and Shelter,

• $2.5 billion from affordable housing,

• $875 million from International Disaster Assistance,

• $1 billion from community health centers,

• $2.3 billion from job training programs and

• $904 million from migrants and refugees.

We are very apprehensive about the reductions contained in the present proposals. There is projected to be only about three percent in overall cuts, but 27 percent in poverty cuts for international assistance.

What's lost
To illustrate the problem, let me cite some specific concerns for our Committee on International Justice and Peace:

• development assistance would be cut by 29.69 percent,

• international disaster assistance by 67.19 percent,

• migrant and refugee assistance by 44.79 percent,

• global health and child services by 9.69 percent,

• the Millennium Challenge Account by 28.59 percent,

• contributions to international peacekeeping by 14.59 percent and

• international debt relief by 29.49 percent.

Cuts at these levels being considered will result in the loss of innocent lives: persons with HIV no longer able to access life-saving antiretroviral medications; refugees and victims of natural disasters succumbing to starvation and hunger-related illnesses; and poor families unable to grow what they need to survive.

These funding reductions will also disrupt existing programs mid-stream, which undermines the impact of the programs and, ultimately, the moral credibility of the United States.

Hurt at home
On the domestic side, the proposed cuts will also have a serious impact on poor and vulnerable people. For example:

• The proposed $1.3 billion to cut community health centers will delay health care to nearly 11 million poor and vulnerable people, including mothers and children at risk. These centers are often the only access to health care for tens of millions of people in our country.

• At a time of record foreclosures, including homelessness and rising housing costs, the proposed reductions of $1.3 billion to affordable housing programs will exacerbate the continuing housing crisis for low- and moderate-income families.

• Reducing job training programs by the proposed $1.75 billion in a time of historic unemployment and low job creation will prolong the economic pain of those seeking adequate training to reenter the job market.

• The proposed cuts in federal education programs that assist low-income students and assist students with disabilities like Title 1, Head Start and Pell grants will harm students who most need assistance to be successful in school or college.

In times of fiscal restraint, shared sacrifice demands that the entire budget be examined, including defense and revenues. In a world where one-fifth of the population survives on less than $1 per day, in a society where the unemployment rate is over nine percent, and in a world where 49 million people are living below the federal poverty level - $22,000 per year for a family of four - we cannot turn our backs on the poor.

Our plea to our elected representatives, then, is simple: Put the poor and vulnerable first in considering how to spend limited public resources.

Please call
Therefore, I urge you to contact Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand and your congressperson and urge them to be mindful of the three following points as they deliberate the federal budget.

• Current proposals fail the moral criteria of Catholic teaching to protect the "least of these" and advance the common good.

• Poor and vulnerable people didn't cause our budget deficit. They should not bear the greatest burdens in addressing it.

• Shared sacrifice should guide budget cuts. We should not adopt disproportionate cuts in programs that serve poor persons at home or abroad.

Please communicate by letters, emails or phone calls to these elected federal officials from New York State. This is a concrete way to promote the common good and to care for the neediest in our society and world.[[In-content Ad]]

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