US Bishops urge lawmakers to remember poor in budget debate

In the United States, House Republicans are expected a pass a modified plan to stave off an unprecedented government default next week, but the nation’s upper house looks unlikely to vote for the bill.

The new measure by House Speaker John Boehner depends on caps on agency budgets to cut more than $900 billion from the deficit over the coming decade while permitting a commensurate increase in the nation's borrowing to allow the government to pay its bills.

The White House threatened a veto, while Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid offered his own plan which offers comparable cuts to agency operating budgets.

Meanwhile, Bishop Stephen E. Blaire of Stockton, California, and Bishop Howard J. Hubbard of Albany, New York, called on Congress to remember the human and moral dimensions of the ongoing budget and debt ceiling debate.

Bishop Blaire and Bishop Hubbard respectively chair the Committees on Domestic Justice and Human Development and International Justice and Peace of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

In a letter to the House of Representatives, the bishops wrote, “A just framework for future budgets cannot rely on disproportionate cuts in essential services to poor persons. It requires shared sacrifice by all, including raising adequate revenues, eliminating unnecessary military and other spending, and addressing the long-term costs of health insurance and retirement programs fairly.”

The bishops also wrote that every budget decision should be assessed by whether it protects human life and dignity, how it affects “the least of these,” including the hungry and homeless, and how well it reflects the shared responsibility of the government and other institutions to promote the common good of all, especially workers and families struggling in the current economy.

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