Letter
Letter to Budget Conference Committee On Federal Budget Priorities for Fiscal Year 2014
Letter to Budget Conference Committee On Federal Budget Priorities for Fiscal Year 2014, signed by Bishop Stephen E. Blaire and Bishop Richard E. Pates
On behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, we write to thank you for the recent agreement to end the partial government shutdown and restart suspended programs and services. As you work on a larger budget package that sets the country on a sustainable fiscal path, we continue to urge wise bipartisan leadership and moral clarity in crafting a plan that responsibly replaces sequestration and protects programs serving poor and vulnerable people at home and abroad. A just framework for future budgets cannot rely on disproportionate cuts in these essential programs.
As you know, a second conference committee is currently negotiating an agreement to the farm bill. We have serious concerns about using the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or other programs that serve poor and hungry people, to find savings in the budget. We urge you to reject proposals that would use such potential savings to relieve a percentage of the sequestration cuts. Savings that pay for other domestic spending priorities should not come at the expense of vulnerable people in need.
A balanced, bipartisan, and just agreement will require 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. We again offer moral criteria to help guide these difficult budgetary decisions:
- 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” (Mt 25). The needs of those who are hungry and homeless, without work or in poverty should come first.
- Government and other institutions have a shared responsibility to promote the common good of all, especially ordinary workers and families who struggle to live in dignity in difficult economic times.