ELCA NEWS SERVICE March 10, 2005 ELCA Presiding Bishop Questions Morality Of Federal Budget 05-040-FI WASHINGTON, D.C. (ELCA) -- The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and president of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), challenged the values reflected in the federal budget that U.S. President George W. Bush proposed for 2006. Hanson and four other church leaders met with reporters here March 8. "We are here today, in concerted action, because we believe that the Administration's proposed federal budget priorities stand in contradiction to biblical tradition. If enacted, it will be truly devastating for people living in poverty in this country and around the world," Hanson said. Hanson used Baltimore-based Lutheran Services in America (LSA) as a specific example. LSA is an alliance of the ELCA, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, and their nearly 300 health and human service organizations. LSA social ministry organizations provide care in 3,000 communities, serving more than 6 million people, or one of every 50 people across the United States and the Caribbean. The operating budgets of member organizations exceeded $8 billion in 2004. Hanson said it is possible for Lutheran social ministry organizations to operate on such a large scale "only because of the funding provided by the federal government through federal and state programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, low-income housing, child care, child welfare services, Social Services Block Grants, WIC, Head Start and many other similar programs. Lutheran provider organizations receive billions of dollars of governmental support each year, with 90 percent coming from the Department of Health and Human Services." The bishop said those programs are at risk in the proposed federal budget, as are programs ELCA congregations administer to provide housing for the elderly, nutritional meals for children and fixed-income adults, after-school programs, space for WIC and Head Start programs, and shelter for the homeless. The proposed federal budget reduces income by offering new tax cuts and extending old tax cuts, Hanson said. "That will reduce revenues by $129 billion over the next five years and $1.4 trillion over 10 years. This figure rises to $1.6 trillion when the added interest payments on the debt are taken into account," he said. "Most of the tax benefits go to those with incomes more than sufficient to provide for their 'daily bread,'" Hanson said. "The domestic discretionary programs for people in need did not create the deficit, and the Administration should not be allowed to reduce the deficit solely on their backs," he said. To reduce the federal deficit, both revenue and spending must be "on the table," Hanson said. The Most Rev. Frank T. Griswold, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, New York, presented a joint statement from the five church leaders. "Even as it reduces aid to those in poverty, this budget showers presents on the rich," the statement said. "If passed in its current form, it would take Jesus' teaching on economic justice and stand it on its head." The Rev. Elenora Giddings Ivory, director, Washington Office, National Ministries Division, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), represented the church's stated clerk, the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick. "As both chambers of Congress develop their respective budget resolutions for the coming year, the churches of this nation urge them to develop resolutions that respond to the real deficits faced by our society -- the deficits of hunger, poverty and access to health care," Ivory said. The Rev. Ron Stief, leader of the public life and social policy ministry team, Justice and Witness Ministries, United Church of Christ, Washington, represented that church's general minister and president, the Rev. John H. Thomas. "This budget holds back women who are trying to establish careers or working to head their households," Stief said, citing budget cuts to rental assistance vouchers and high school vocational education, which have a direct impact on women. James Winkler, general secretary, General Board of Church and Society, United Methodist Church, Washington, asked, "How are we as a nation -- the richest nation in the world -- caring for our children?" He said 11 million children live in poverty and 13 million go hungry on any given day in the United States, but the proposed federal budget reduces funding to assist those children and saddles them with "a crushing federal debt." Talking with reporters, Hanson said personal moral values played an important role in recent national elections. "We believe the very same core of our faith -- the Holy Scriptures -- widens that lens of morality from simply looking upon the morality of individuals to morality of us as a people, as a nation, and that morality in the light of the Scriptures will always be tested finally on the condition of the poor amongst us," he said. Hanson challenged those who support tax cuts to look beyond "economic theory" and consider the morality of cutting the taxes of the wealthiest Americans while reducing services to the poorest Americans. The people of United States are generous, Hanson said. "We see over and over again when the will of the American people is to respond to human suffering, party designation, blue state-red state designation falls away," he said. When President Bush saw an outpouring of contributions to support survivors of the Indian Ocean tsunami in December, he called on representatives of Lutheran World Relief to see that the help reached those most in need, Hanson said. "What enabled those gifts to get to the victims in the tsunami area was a public-private partnership," he said. "Lutheran Services in America has for generations been part of that public-private partnership, and we want to continue. This budget threatens that relationship and finally threatens those who have benefited from it for so many years." Hanson told reporters that, as LWF president, he applauded President Bush's announcement that the United States would commit $15 billion to the Millennium Challenge Account to deal with HIV/AIDS and other diseases in Africa. He said he just returned from a tour of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria. Hanson said he was deeply concerned that such public promises often don't have the support of "budget allocations that are approved by Congress." "I applaud the $150 million in this budget for Palestinian humanitarian relief," he said. The ELCA is part of an interfaith effort, "pleading for the United States to take a more active role in brokering peace in the Middle East, to continue to support the State of Israel, but to bring relief to humanitarian suffering among Palestinian people. I hope that will remain in this budget and be adopted," he said. "This budget is simply held up as a mirror to reflect commitments and values of a whole nation not just its president," Hanson said. Based in Geneva, Switzerland, the LWF is a global communion of Christian churches in the Lutheran tradition. It has 138 member churches in 77 countries, with a membership of nearly 66 million Christians. -- -- -- The full statement of ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson for the March 8 news conference is at http://tinyurl.com/3v4gl on the Web. An audio news report on this story is available in either a RealMedia http://tinyurl.com/46rpd or MP3 format http://tinyurl.com/4yc7j on the Internet. For information contact: John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or [log in to unmask] http://www.elca.org/news