‘A budget that scapegoats the poor and fattens the rich, that
asks for sacrifice mostly from those who can least afford it, is a
moral outrage,’ writes Sojourners editor
Jim Wallis in a response to President Bush’s 2006 budget
proposal. Agree with that assessment? Sojourners
magazine provides a
simple email
form for people of faith to fill out and send to their
congressperson.
On February 7,
President
Bush unveiled a budget that makes tax cuts from 2001 permanent,
cuts housing and urban development programs by 11%, and slashes
$355 million from ‘programs that promote safe and drug-free
schools,’ reports Sojourners.
In an article from the April 2004 issue of Sojourners,
Wallis praised University of Alabama law professor Susan Pace
Hamill as a new champion of a just tax system. Hamill’s paper,
‘An
Argument for Tax Reform based on Judeo-Christian Ethics’
examined Alabama tax code and argued that ‘principles of
Judeo-Christian ethics offer moral arguments that complement and
often strengthen secularly based ethical arguments illustrating the
need for social reform.’
Bob Riley, Alabama’s conservative Republican governor was
inspired. Beliefnet reported in July 2003 that
Riley
wanted to raise taxes for Alabama’s wealthy and cut them for
the poor because, as a Christian, he believed it was the right
thing to do. Later that year, the tax increase made it onto state
ballots as ‘Amendment One.’ Alabama voters rejected it
overwhelmingly.
The movement to align Christians with progressive policy is
neither new nor confined to Alabama. Just last December, for
instance, Don Lattin, who reports on religion for the San
Francisco Chronicle,
wrote about Kim Bobo, who has been active in the progressive
Christian movement for 30 years. Executive director of the National
Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice in Chicago, on the subject.
Bobo believes those ‘who work with the religious community have not
adequately made the connection between economic disparity and moral
values.’
— Harry Sheff
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