What is the Morality of the Budget Compromise?

I confess, I am deeply disappointed in our president and our congress. It seems to me that the politicians have arrived at a compromise that is morally flawed to a degree that I would have rather seen the government shut down.

The compromise means that we are making much larger cuts in the essential services for the poorest and most marginalized in America than we are in the military and at the same time we are doing nothing to increase income from taxes, even among those who could easily pay a little more without any negative impact on their families, their corporations or the economy.

One example: One budget cut is $600 million from the Community Health Centers program. This is a large percentage of the total budget for this program which provides the only primary health care services to over 5 million of our poorest and most vulnerable neighbors.

A budget is a moral document. So, why cut here? This is not about abortion (an issue about which I am conflicted), nor is it about welfare (there are no benefits involved). It will cost all of us more by increasing our private health insurance costs because untreated illness will end up in emergency rooms instead of being cared for in the more appropriate context of a community health center. No one has ever said that the community health centers were a location of significant fraud or waste. These are small, local organizations run on a shoe-string.

The display of selfishness and greed in this package is so obvious that I cannot in good conscience vote again for any of the politicians who enginereed it! We are being overwhelmed by the fears of the wealthy that somehow in the current situation they are going to lose something. There is no evidence of any actual losses of consequence to date. Yes, my retirement accounts are worth less than they were. I may have to postpone my retirement. But that is not the same thing as being forced out on the street with no access to health care.

Many of these politicians are fans of the ideas expressed in the novels of Ayn Rand. (In fact, it appears that one key Senator may be named after her.) I do not think that any authentic follower of Jesus can accept these concepts. They are clearly contrary to His demand that we care for the neighbor. Remember, that her concepts deal not just with what should be done by the government and what should be done by private charity, but with the whole concept of helping others in any form. Jesus says that her approach is cruel, unjust and immoral. The fact that we have leading politicians who openly profess agreement with her immoral lifestyle and philosophy is a measure of how low American morality has declined.

As more details emerge from this compromise budget, the more I am sickened. I would challenge all Christians to increase your personal giving to local, faith-based charities that serve the poor. It is going to require triple the giving you did last year to make up for the cuts in this budget.

I would be happy to cut the budget further than the compromise. I would be happy to forgo all highway funds and drive on even more pot holes and dangerous bridges than I do now. I would be happy to cut it until it balances. But not on the backs of the poor. That is simply wrong. This is a demonstration of the moral weakness of our political leaders. And if we keep re-electing them it reflects clearly on our own morality.

Comments

[Trish]

I continue to be outraged by the petty bickering going on in Washington as a cover to keep Americans from knowing that both sides are not serious about governing all citizens fairly, regardless of income. I had a discussion recently with the CEO of a network of Community Action agencies and I asked specifically about Health Centers. While he thinks some of the other services funded by the Block Grant might take a hit, he thinks the Health Centers will continue to be funded through a different mechanism. I hope he is right because the Health Center in our community is vital

[chris daley]

I recently learned an important reflection technique from Rosbeth Moss Kanter of Harvard Business School. She developed the metaphor of the zoom button of our digital camera to give me a dynamic, multi-dimensional perspective on issues. Zoom in, and get a close look at select details—perhaps too close to make sense of them. Zoom out, and see the big picture—but perhaps miss some subtleties and nuances.
Both perspectives—worm’s-eye and bird’s-eye—have virtues and pathologies, that when combined give us a fuller perspective on an issue.
When I apply this teaching to this blog’s challenge, I arrive at two sets of questions. I will share my zoom out reflections, as the contributions to date would seem to be of the zoom in type.
Is my definition of morality all encompassing?
How do I balance the pressing needs all around versus increasing the debt load and passing the bill to the next generation?
How do we renegotiate our social contracts given the constraints of resources and demography?
What is the ethics of end of life issues and the consumption of many resources given the leveraging of technology?
How has the church informed the country and the leadership regarding the increasingly tough choices our fallible leaders have to make under the constant glare of the world?
How can the church help in reducing the hype in our conversations and inject a spirit of hope?

[Monte]

Chris, your questions make good sense and I am prepared to cut anything and anywhere in the budgets of Federal, state and local governments except when it hurts people who are already suffering from poverty, disability, etc. It is never moral, not matter what economic conditions, we face to take bread out of the mouths of the starving nor to force women and chldren to jump into the icy waters so the rest of us can survive.

I agree that we need to make major adjustments. Frankly, I think one of them is to go to a single-payer health care system. That would trim the cost of health care across the board by about 50 percent. It might mean longer waits and rationing (although all of the Canadians I talk to say that is not true), but under the economic crisis we face, that is OK with me.

What I think is immoral about the compromise that the President and the Congressional leaders came to is the way it does not require the wealthy and powerful and comfortable (I include myself) to sacrifice, but makes inhumane demands on those too poor and powerless to protect themselves. My concern was specifically triggered by cuts in funding for community clinics that serve poor people and senior citizens in areas (mostly urban) where conventional health care cannot establish itself because there is not enough money to be made. How is it moral to shut down these clinics, leaving people with no althernative source of health care, while we are still protecting the lowest tax rates in the industrialized world?

[chris]

Totally agreed on our moral imperative to support and defend the vulnerable and the voiceless!!!

Where the debate must be enjoined is in the means of funding our commitments going forward. I will stay in the zoom out mode as we will need to recreate a different paradigm to thrive. This will involve a country wide commitment. The governing tax policy will be a most important moral document.

When I examine the tax policy history, here is my understanding:
In 1980, the top 1 percent of earners paid 19 percent of income taxes, and the bottom half of earners paid 7.1 percent. A decade later, with a lower maximum rate, the top 1 percent paid 25 percent of taxes, while the bottom earners paid just 5.8 percent. By 2008, top earners paid 38 percent of taxes, the bottom half 2.7 percent. If the logic of this progression overcome our natural instinct, we will craft an enlighten tax policy that will not encourage capital flight.

The tax policy impacts the innovation initiatives that will be needed to create the wealth to fund the common good.

Next the entitlement programs need the 4 Rs to be sustainable -rethink, reinvigorate, react, and reinvent instead of being treated as political hot potatoes.

Back in the sixties, entitlements consumed around a third of the budget. Presently, they consume two thirds of the budget, quickly heading to three thirds given the demographic pressures. This is before the impact of the newly added healthcare entitlement takes effect.

I look forward to the 2012 budget debate to see how we can put our country on a sustainable path, while protecting our values.

[Monte]

I frankly don't know if one tax policy or another would, in fact, encourage capital flight. And I think that capital flight is bad for everyone in the larger view.

I must ask you this question: How does your percentage of the taxes data compare with the percentage of the wealth that each category held? I have seen data that shows that a larger and larger share of the wealth is migrating to a small percentage of the population. Would not this factor alone account for at least some of the changes that you chart?