Budgets are Moral Documents

From Sojourners:"On Feb. 6, President Bush started the budget process for fiscal year 2007 – which begins Oct. 1, 2006, and ends Sept. 30, 2007 – by sending his $2.77 trillion budget proposal to Congress. His budget cuts domestic program spending by $183 billion during five years. Cuts include nearly $14 billion from Medicaid, $706 million from food stamps, $1 billion from child care support, and $36 billion from Medicare. Military spending would increase by 6.9% to $439 billion, not including an additional $50 billion for war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition, the president's budget calls for billions of dollars in tax cuts that will benefit the wealthiest Americans. Noticeably absent from the budget proposal is funding for Iraq and Afghanistan after 2007, as well as the cost of extending relief from the Alternative Minimum Tax after 2006. Moreover, the proposal omits figures for years after 2011. This sidesteps customary budget practice. Ignoring these major expenses intentionally masks the impact of current tax and deficit policies on our long-term stability."
At a rally concerning the proposed 2007 budget on Capitol Hill, Jim Wallis recently remarked,"You see, we believe that fiscal choices, economic choices are also moral choices and, for us, even religious choices. Who is important? And who is not? What is important? And what is not? Who do we most value? And who don't we value at all? They are fiscal choices, but also moral and religious matters.
Overcoming poverty must be a bipartisan commitment and a nonpartisan cause. The religious community will ask Democrats to stand firm against this budget violence against poor people, to make the moral choice of favoring the poor over the rich - which is also a biblical choice. Democrats must get religion on the budget.
And we will ask Republicans: Follow your conscience, not your party. Help your party make better moral choices than favoring the rich over the poor - stop turning the biblical wisdom upside down - and then having the nerve to claim that you are the religion-friendly party! It's time for Republicans to get religion on this budget."
As I read this article, my eyes were drawn to the words "Faith in Action"...I kept thinking how the changes I wanted to be a part of and the social injustices that I want to take on start with me. That it was, first and foremost, my faith and my action that had to change and be catalytic. As I looked back on how much time I wasted arguing and debating instead of doing and being, I feel that I've let someone out there down...I disappoint myself all the time but to know I disappoint God especially in this area...it completely brings me to my knees. But at the same time, it makes my resolution to make informative choices and kingdom-impacting decisions by truly seeking His will all the more stronger.