THE LEAST OF THESE
The religious aspect of the Paul Ryan selection is beginning to receive more and more attention. United Church of the Zeitgeist honk Chuck Currie wonders if American Christians are as Christian as they think they are:
Ryan’s budget proposals affects the support of seniors, cut assistance to programs aimed at combating childhood hunger, and would leave people who have lost their jobs without heat during cold winter months. This isn’t hyperbole but reasoned analysis of his budget goals from non-partisan groups like the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Ryan’s plans would eventually end “everything from veterans’ programs to medical and scientific research, highways, education, nearly all programs for low-income families,” according to the CBPP.
At the same time, Ryan and his allies – including Mitt Romney – want to cut taxes for the wealthiest. That is why I joined over 60 religious leaders last week in writing to Congress that: “Favoring the wealthiest 2% over working families is irresponsible public policy that fails a basic moral test. We are not economists or tax experts. But this debate is about more than dry statistics or competing fiscal theories. Ultimately, these choices reflect our values and reveal our priorities as a nation. We urge Members of Congress to put families and workers before ideological agendas that favor the powerful.”
Sarah Posner of Religion Dispatches wonders the same thing.
Of course Romney has already attempted, through pronouncements echoing the Baptist Mike Huckabee, to pander to the conservative Catholic (and evangelical vote) by declaring, “we are now all Catholics,” an odd statement of solidarity with those who oppose the contraception mandate. Are we now all Catholics who beileve that subsidiarity means we need to slash the social safety net and leave the poor and vulnerable to fend for themselves? Because that, essentially, is what Mitt Romney is saying with his veep pick.
While over at the National Catholic Reporter, Michael Sean Winters speculates that Mitt Romney may have just thrown away the Catholic vote.
Mr. Romney, of course, has already heaped praise on the Ryan budget plan. But, words of praise are not the same thing as standing next to Ryan for the remaining 10 weeks of the campaign. If Romney chooses Ryan, he is choosing, not offering words of support for, his budget plans. And the USCCB has already stated clearly that the Ryan budget fails its three part definition of a moral budget, in that it fails to protect the poor, does not promote human dignity, and does not advance the common good. Ryan is a likable fellow, and a devoted Catholic, but if the leadership of the USCCB has to choose between Ryan on the one side and 120 years of explicit papal social teaching on the other, that is not really a difficult choice: The bishops pick Leo, Pius XI, John XXIII, Vatican II, Paul VI, Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, none of whom anyone can even conceive of endorsing the kind of deep cuts in social programs – all without any replacement policies – that assist the poor and the vulnerable. Even conservative Catholics who tend to care more about the pro-life issue than anything else have to contend with the anti-life consequences of cuts in Medicaid and other programs.
Let’s see. A budget proposal versus Barack Obama legally forcing Catholic and other Christian churches to violate their consciences. Which way should a pro-life Christian vote? Think, think, think.
Look. As hard as it might be for these people and for the Christian left to face, Paul Ryan understands something basic. Keith Hennesey:
Every “cut program X by Y%” quote about the Ryan budget will be relative to an unsustainable spending path. The irresponsible part isn’t the proposed spending cut, it’s the promise to keep spending growth going without specifying how you’ll pay for it. If President Obama were proposing tax increases to match his future spending growth, then this would be a fair attack. But he is not.
More generally, the Obama fiscal path and campaign message rely on the false presumption that everything will be OK if we raise tax increases only on the rich and make small, mostly painless spending cuts. This is incorrect. Whether you support spending cuts, tax increases, or a combination, you need to make big, structural fiscal policy changes to get on a long-term sustainable fiscal path. Our federal government spending path is seriously out of whack and minor adjustments won’t fix it.
If you don’t want to make big “cuts” and structural changes to government spending, then the President’s current set of proposed tax increases are, at best, only a short-term fiscal band-aid. You mathematically force yourself into supporting income tax increases on the middle class and big value-added taxes. Tax increases only on the rich won’t suffice no matter how high your rates go. You are also choosing to keep raising taxes, repeatedly and forever, because the spending line slopes up while the tax line stays flat. This is an arithmetic result that is independent of my policy preferences.
But let’s bring that down to Earth. You run a modest library moving company. There actually are such businesses, by the way. One of them moved my library’s collection to its current temporary location and will, hopefully, move it back in October once the renovation is finally finished (keep your fingers crossed).
Anyway, your company is doing all right. But you’re a Christian, you take your faith extremely seriously and you really want to do a whole lot more for the hurting and the suffering than you think you’ve already done.
So you call the company accountant into your office one morning and declare that you want to find a way to add as many full-time jobs to your company as you possibly can. Do whatever’s necessary, you say.
Your accountant gets to work and comes up with a number of ideas. You may have to take a serious pay cut. The company computers, which are already old, will have to last another year. You buy plain-label toilet paper for the bathroom. Stuff like that.
All told, your accountant informs you, you can safely add 100 new jobs without bankrupting your company but no more than that. If you decide to go through with this, the company will, at best, break even and may even lose money. “Make it so,” you imperiously inform your accountant, going all Jean-Luc Picard.
The 100 jobs are advertised and quickly filled. Then Applicant #101 walks through the door and you have to be the one who informs him that all jobs have been filled but you’ll keep his resume on file. Knowing that you’re a Christian, Applicant #101 angrily departs, muttering something about Matthew 25:31-46.
Is that guy right? Have you failed one of the least of these? Are you a hypocrite?
No. Because you did what you could. But you also know that if the money’s not there, pretending that it is helps no one. There is only a certain amount that any individual or any government can do for the less fortunate.
What should this country spend its money on? That’s why Congressman Ryan was selected; so that we can finally move beyond juvenilia like taking a chain saw to the defense budget or lobotomized bumper stickers like “Make the rich pay their fair share” and have an actual, grown-up conversation about these things.
Ryan’s budget proposals affects the support of seniors, cut assistance to programs aimed at combating childhood hunger, and would leave people who have lost their jobs without heat during cold winter months. This isn’t hyperbole but reasoned analysis of his budget goals from non-partisan groups like the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Ryan’s plans would eventually end “everything from veterans’ programs to medical and scientific research, highways, education, nearly all programs for low-income families,” according to the CBPP.
At the same time, Ryan and his allies – including Mitt Romney – want to cut taxes for the wealthiest. That is why I joined over 60 religious leaders last week in writing to Congress that: “Favoring the wealthiest 2% over working families is irresponsible public policy that fails a basic moral test. We are not economists or tax experts. But this debate is about more than dry statistics or competing fiscal theories. Ultimately, these choices reflect our values and reveal our priorities as a nation. We urge Members of Congress to put families and workers before ideological agendas that favor the powerful.”
Sarah Posner of Religion Dispatches wonders the same thing.
Of course Romney has already attempted, through pronouncements echoing the Baptist Mike Huckabee, to pander to the conservative Catholic (and evangelical vote) by declaring, “we are now all Catholics,” an odd statement of solidarity with those who oppose the contraception mandate. Are we now all Catholics who beileve that subsidiarity means we need to slash the social safety net and leave the poor and vulnerable to fend for themselves? Because that, essentially, is what Mitt Romney is saying with his veep pick.
While over at the National Catholic Reporter, Michael Sean Winters speculates that Mitt Romney may have just thrown away the Catholic vote.
Mr. Romney, of course, has already heaped praise on the Ryan budget plan. But, words of praise are not the same thing as standing next to Ryan for the remaining 10 weeks of the campaign. If Romney chooses Ryan, he is choosing, not offering words of support for, his budget plans. And the USCCB has already stated clearly that the Ryan budget fails its three part definition of a moral budget, in that it fails to protect the poor, does not promote human dignity, and does not advance the common good. Ryan is a likable fellow, and a devoted Catholic, but if the leadership of the USCCB has to choose between Ryan on the one side and 120 years of explicit papal social teaching on the other, that is not really a difficult choice: The bishops pick Leo, Pius XI, John XXIII, Vatican II, Paul VI, Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, none of whom anyone can even conceive of endorsing the kind of deep cuts in social programs – all without any replacement policies – that assist the poor and the vulnerable. Even conservative Catholics who tend to care more about the pro-life issue than anything else have to contend with the anti-life consequences of cuts in Medicaid and other programs.
Let’s see. A budget proposal versus Barack Obama legally forcing Catholic and other Christian churches to violate their consciences. Which way should a pro-life Christian vote? Think, think, think.
Look. As hard as it might be for these people and for the Christian left to face, Paul Ryan understands something basic. Keith Hennesey:
Every “cut program X by Y%” quote about the Ryan budget will be relative to an unsustainable spending path. The irresponsible part isn’t the proposed spending cut, it’s the promise to keep spending growth going without specifying how you’ll pay for it. If President Obama were proposing tax increases to match his future spending growth, then this would be a fair attack. But he is not.
More generally, the Obama fiscal path and campaign message rely on the false presumption that everything will be OK if we raise tax increases only on the rich and make small, mostly painless spending cuts. This is incorrect. Whether you support spending cuts, tax increases, or a combination, you need to make big, structural fiscal policy changes to get on a long-term sustainable fiscal path. Our federal government spending path is seriously out of whack and minor adjustments won’t fix it.
If you don’t want to make big “cuts” and structural changes to government spending, then the President’s current set of proposed tax increases are, at best, only a short-term fiscal band-aid. You mathematically force yourself into supporting income tax increases on the middle class and big value-added taxes. Tax increases only on the rich won’t suffice no matter how high your rates go. You are also choosing to keep raising taxes, repeatedly and forever, because the spending line slopes up while the tax line stays flat. This is an arithmetic result that is independent of my policy preferences.
But let’s bring that down to Earth. You run a modest library moving company. There actually are such businesses, by the way. One of them moved my library’s collection to its current temporary location and will, hopefully, move it back in October once the renovation is finally finished (keep your fingers crossed).
Anyway, your company is doing all right. But you’re a Christian, you take your faith extremely seriously and you really want to do a whole lot more for the hurting and the suffering than you think you’ve already done.
So you call the company accountant into your office one morning and declare that you want to find a way to add as many full-time jobs to your company as you possibly can. Do whatever’s necessary, you say.
Your accountant gets to work and comes up with a number of ideas. You may have to take a serious pay cut. The company computers, which are already old, will have to last another year. You buy plain-label toilet paper for the bathroom. Stuff like that.
All told, your accountant informs you, you can safely add 100 new jobs without bankrupting your company but no more than that. If you decide to go through with this, the company will, at best, break even and may even lose money. “Make it so,” you imperiously inform your accountant, going all Jean-Luc Picard.
The 100 jobs are advertised and quickly filled. Then Applicant #101 walks through the door and you have to be the one who informs him that all jobs have been filled but you’ll keep his resume on file. Knowing that you’re a Christian, Applicant #101 angrily departs, muttering something about Matthew 25:31-46.
Is that guy right? Have you failed one of the least of these? Are you a hypocrite?
No. Because you did what you could. But you also know that if the money’s not there, pretending that it is helps no one. There is only a certain amount that any individual or any government can do for the less fortunate.
What should this country spend its money on? That’s why Congressman Ryan was selected; so that we can finally move beyond juvenilia like taking a chain saw to the defense budget or lobotomized bumper stickers like “Make the rich pay their fair share” and have an actual, grown-up conversation about these things.
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