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Thursday, September 24, 2009

Don't Balance Budget on Backs of the Poor

By Allen Sanchez
New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops
      These are difficult times, and many families are feeling the pain of the recession in their daily lives. Far too many New Mexicans are struggling to make ends meet even though they are working hard. They lack health care and other basic support systems that most of us take for granted. They are the real people that we read about in our newspapers, and whose faces we see in our parishes throughout our state. We also see our elected leaders making choices — like cutting the budget instead of raising new revenue — that will further hurt our working families' programs.
       When an economic recession hits, it affects those with the fewest resources first. Job layoffs tend to start at the “bottom” of the employment chain, throwing families that were just getting by into abject poverty. The pain of not having enough money to feed your children or pay the heating bill is tangible and real, but the most disturbing outcome of poverty is the loss of hope. Unchecked poverty, even when it is limited to “other people,” makes us all poorer, if not in our pocketbooks, then in our hearts. And yet, New Mexicans can be a very generous people.
       The Catholic Church, along with many other churches, organizations and countless individuals, works daily to help people struggling in today's economic climate. Economic Justice for All: Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy, says, “As a community of believers, we know that our faith is tested by the quality of justice among us, that we can best measure our life together by how the poor and the vulnerable are treated.” We run not-for-profit hospitals and schools. Food and warm clothing is collected and distributed to those in need. We are there to minister to the physical and emotional ailments of our friends, neighbors, and even strangers. Charity alone cannot solve all of the problems that working families face. We can take care of immediate needs, but we cannot address the systemic conditions that allow poverty to exist. That is why we have government; to protect public safety, to provide education to all, to ensure fair business and wage practices and much more. Our government is, in short, the way we accomplish great things collectively that we could not accomplish as individuals.
       Our state government must not fail to find ways to protect struggling families and address the systemic problems of poverty. Now state government is feeling the same pain that our struggling families feel. Anticipating a slower economy in the last legislative session, the governor ordered a hiring freeze and lawmakers passed a budget that cut education, underfunded health care and trimmed other services for families and children.
       In 2003 the Legislature cut state income taxes. Since then, revenues are down even more and there will be a special session to cut spending even further. Now is not the time for deeper cuts to education, health care and services vital to struggling families. The moral response in times such as these is to strengthen our support of families, not weaken it. Lawmakers should seriously consider ways to raise revenue rather than make even deeper cuts to the budget. The Legislature could now repeal the income tax cuts of 2003, enact corporate income tax reform and close some of the tax loopholes that benefit only a few. If New Mexico could afford to cut taxes by $1 billion in the past few years, surely we can find a way to restore some of those funds now when we so desperately need it.
       We urge lawmakers and the governor not to balance our state budget at the expense of the many New Mexicans working even harder to support their families, but to increase state revenues as a just and necessary tool to meet the very real needs of all of our state's people.
       We urge legislators and the governor to consider the working poor of New Mexico as they prepare for the special session.
       Allen Sánchez is executive director of the New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops, which includes the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, the Diocese of Las Cruces and the Diocese of Gallup.
       

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