Action Alert from the USCCB

Protect our Poor and Vulnerable Brothers and Sisters

In the coming weeks, Congress will debate deep spending cuts in the federal government’s Fiscal Year 2011 budget. Fiscal responsibility is important, and it requires shared sacrifice and a priority concern for poor persons at home and abroad in our budget choices.
Unfortunately, the voices of poor and vulnerable people are not being heard in the debate, and they are being forced to bear the brunt of the proposed cuts. The vast majority of the cuts come from the non-defense, discretionary portion of the budget (only about 12% of the total budget)--which includes the majority of social welfare, education, and other anti-poverty funding. Some of the largest proposed funding cuts include:

• $2.3 billion from job training programs
• $1.08 billion from Head Start
• $100 million from Emergency Food and Shelter
• $875 million from International Disaster Assistance
• $800 million from International Food Aid
• $2.5 billion from affordable housing
• $1 billion from Community Health Centers
• $904 million from migrants and refugees

Unfortunately, very few advocate the priority claim of poor and vulnerable people, which makes our voices so much more important and prophetic.  Recently Bishop Stephen E. Blaire, as well as Bishop Howard J. Hubbard and Ken Hackett, President of CRS, sent letters to the US Senate expressing their concern with some of the cuts and calling for more attention to the needs of poor and vulnerable people.

What You Can Do:
1. Call your Senators and tell them:
·   Current proposals fail the moral criteria of Catholic teaching to protect the poor and advance the common good and the Constitutional requirement to promote the general welfare.
·   Poor and vulnerable people didn’t cause our budget deficit. They should not bear the greatest burdens in overcoming them. Don’t make them pay for it.
·   Shared sacrifice should guide budget cuts, not disproportionate cuts in programs that serve poor persons at home or abroad.
2. Write to your Senator with the above message, telling them, specifically, how these cuts will hurt your diocese/parish/community in efforts to serve the poor and vulnerable people. You can use the bishops’ letters as an example.
3. Help your diocese, parish, community organizations, and families understand the consequences of these deficit-reduction proposals on poor and vulnerable people. See these documents for details.
For more information visit the Department of Justice, Peace, and Human Development.

In the Catholic tradition, government has a positive role because of its responsibility to serve the common good, provide a safety net for the vulnerable, and help overcome discrimination and ensure equal opportunity for all. Government has inescapable responsibilities toward those who are poor and vulnerable, to ensure their rights and defend their dignity. Government action is necessary to help overcome structures of injustice and misuse of power and to address problems beyond the reach of individual and community efforts. Government must act when these other institutions fall short in defending the weak and protecting human life and human rights.   -U.S. Catholic Bishops, A Place at the Table (2002)