Letter
Joint Letter to House Appropriations Committee, April 17, 2012
Letter from Bishop Richard E. Pates, Chairman, Committee on International Justice and Peace and Dr. Carolyn Y. Woo, President, Catholic Relief Services to Hal Rogers and Norm Dicks of the House Appropriations Committee, April 17, 2012
We write at this time with profound concern regarding the budget constraints on FY 2013 appropriations. Our country must be fiscally responsible in morally responsible ways. Therefore, as you allocate funding to the International Affairs accounts, we urge you to ensure full funding of poverty-focused international relief and development accounts (as enumerated in the attached chart).
In a March 2, 2012 letter to the House, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops asserted that “every budget decision should be assessed by whether it protects or threatens human life and dignity. A central moral measure of any budget proposal is how it affects ‘the least of these’ (Matthew 25). The needs of those who are hungry and homeless, without work or in poverty should come first.” This moral obligation calls our nation to draw “a ‘circle of protection’ around our brothers and sisters at home and abroad who are poor and vulnerable.”
Although we do not support everything in the International Affairs budget, we are alarmed by the likely impact on poor persons of the 11% cut recommended in the House budget. Since poverty focused assistance is less than 1% of the budget, reduced funding would have negligible impact on deficit reduction, but would have a profound impact on the poorest at a time of increased need.