Budgets as Moral Documents
State Treasurer Jack Markell
March 21, 2006 - Dover, DE - Your family and the federal government both have budgets. The difference may be a few trillion dollars, and no family can afford to run up a debt of $400 billion or more. But both a family's budget and a government's budget tell us what they value by the priorities they set.
"Budgets are moral documents," writes evangelist and magazine editor Jim Wallis in his best-selling book God's Politics. What does it say about the priorities of our President when he is willing to sacrifice - over the next five years - $183 billion in domestic programs that help our most vulnerable citizens in order to pave the way for a $1.7 trillion tax cut that mostly benefits wealthy Americans?
Over the next five years, the federal deficit will climb toward the $1 trillion mark. Remember those heady days in 2000 when we enjoyed a budget surplus?
The proposed domestic cuts would affect hundreds of our most successful programs, including education and student loans, environmental protection, numerous programs to assist low-income families, children, and elderly and disabled people, and research related to cancer, heart disease, and other medical conditions.
Of course, budget cuts don't make social problems go away; they just shove them aside. Cuts to Medicaid alone are likely to shift costs to the states and force many of them to scale back benefits to low-income families. In Governor Minner's proposed budget, the state's share of Medicaid is expected to increase by more than $59 million.
Certainly, none of these federal programs is perfect. They need to be made more efficient and held to high standards of accountability. But denying desperately needed support to those in the "dawn, twilight and shadow of life," as stated so eloquently by Senator Hubert Humphrey, reflects poorly on a country that prides itself on being morally responsible.
As Wallis notes, budgets "clearly reveal the priorities of a family, a church, an organization, a city or a nation. A budget shows what we most care about and how that compares to other things we care about."
Americans often point to our Judeo-Christian heritage as one of the pillars of our strength as a nation. Most Americans believe in the existence of God. The Bible, both Old and New Testaments, relentlessly presses us to fight injustice, to help the poor and vulnerable, to love our neighbor, and to care for "the least of these." It is the overriding theme of the Hebrew prophets and Jesus.
We have a sacred inheritance from our ancestors, and it is our moral responsibility to preserve it and pass it along to our children. Perhaps most important, that includes leaving the world better than we found it. From ensuring that all children get the best possible education to cleaning up our environment, from providing quality health care to all people to allowing our kids to grow up in a society which truly values the family, talk is cheap. The real challenge Delawareans and all Americans should pose to their elected officials is, "Show me the money; don't just mouth the words."
To this point, Wallis, who organized a protest in Washington, D.C., over the budget cuts, criticized certain conservative religious leaders for their indifference. These leaders "have agreed to support cutting food stamps for poor people if Republicans support them on judicial nominees," he said in December. "They are trading the lives of poor people for their agenda. They're being, and this is the worst insult, unbiblical." (Food stamps ultimately were protected for the short term.)
As Delaware's State Treasurer, I feel a particular responsibility to be frugal with your tax money. That's why we have pursued initiatives to save the government money on items ranging from health care to office supplies to cell phones. At the same time, I know that you expect my state government colleagues and me to prioritize state funding in a way that reflects our community's values. You have a real stake in making sure that we understand your perspective on those values.
I think we can do a more thoughtful, responsible job of reconciling our core values as Americans with how we actually budget and spend taxpayer dollars - at all levels of government. I have been invited to speak on this topic during a "Brown-Bag Theology" session on Tuesday, March 21, at Christ Episcopal Church, State and Water streets, Dover. The one-hour session begins at 12:10 p.m. Bring your lunch and share your views with me.
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