{"id":8305,"date":"2011-03-04T13:18:53","date_gmt":"2011-03-04T18:18:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/?p=8305"},"modified":"2013-05-10T15:20:28","modified_gmt":"2013-05-10T19:20:28","slug":"march-4-2011-religious-reaction-to-budget-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2011\/03\/04\/march-4-2011-religious-reaction-to-budget-cuts\/8305\/","title":{"rendered":" Religious Reaction to Budget Cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

KIM LAWTON<\/strong>: Faith-based groups stepped up lobbying efforts as Congress continues to battle over potential budget cuts. Religious conservatives maintain that addressing the government\u2019s massive debt is a moral issue. Meanwhile, a diverse interfaith coalition urged members of Congress to consider how cuts would hurt poor people in the US and around the world. As part of that effort, several prominent Christian leaders launched a new ad campaign asking \u201cwhat would Jesus cut?\u201d<\/p>\n

Joining me with more on this is Kevin Eckstrom, editor of Religion News Service. Kevin, there\u2019s been a huge mobilization, it seems, from many quarters of the religious community on these budget issues.<\/p>\n

KEVIN ECKSTROM<\/strong> (Editor, Religion News Service): Right and you\u2019re seeing it from both the left and the right. From the left, the more progressive side, you see traditional lobbying to keep programs like home heating assistance and school lunches and aid for, you know, women and children, sort of your bread and butter domestic issues. On the right, you\u2019re seeing a lot of action to try to protect the international development assistance, money to buy mosquito nets to prevent malaria and to fight AIDS in Africa, and food for the hungry and refugees and things like that. So you\u2019ve got various groups lobbying for various issues, each hoping that their preferred pot makes the cut.<\/p>\n

LAWTON<\/strong>: And a lot of those folks, both on the left and the right, are using moral language and scriptural language, saying, you know, the Bible urges people to care, look out for the vulnerable, the widows, the orphans, and the least of these, and so you are seeing this sort of biblical language.<\/p>\n

\n\n\n
\"post01-budget\"
\nWatch evangelical author and activist Jim Wallis on budget cuts, debt, deficits, and economic priorities<\/a>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

ECKSTROM<\/strong>: Right, and it\u2019s biblical language on both sides. The more traditional churches, Catholic bishops and your mainline churches and your Jewish groups are saying, you know, we have a biblical and ethical, moral obligation to care for people who can\u2019t help themselves. On the other side, from the more conservative side, especially from the Tea Party, you have arguments saying that it\u2019s actually immoral to leave debt to future generations. And they sometimes chafe at the notion of, you know, what would Jesus cut? They say, well, Jesus didn\u2019t have opinions on this, you know, that it\u2019s up to us to sort of make the decisions on what to cut. But you get various moral arguments from both sides, and we\u2019re just waiting to see who wins the day.<\/p>\n

LAWTON<\/strong>: Well, I was at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention this week, and one of their keynote speakers was House Speaker John Boehner, Catholic, who used a lot of biblical language in his speech. He had a very receptive, mostly evangelical audience, and he quoted Scripture. He quoted from Proverbs, \u201cA good man leaves behind an inheritance to his children\u2019s children,\u201d and he said Republicans want to not just be hearers of the word, but doers of the word, another scriptural reference there. And, you know, I found that very interesting, that you had the congressional leadership on the right also trying to seize the biblical and moral language on all of this.<\/p>\n

ECKSTROM<\/strong>: Yeah, and it\u2019s going on on both sides in sort of different directions, even I think one of the more interesting splits has been within the evangelical community, where you have sort of small-government evangelicals who want to cut, you know\u2014we need to balance the budget, we can\u2019t have this debt. And then you have another portion of the evangelicals who say, well, we can\u2014government can do good things, and government can make a difference in parts of the world where we have interests, and it\u2019s not just moral interests, it\u2019s strategic interests, and so let\u2019s protect the programs that actually work. Let\u2019s not cut from AIDS funding, for example, which President Bush poured a lot of money into. So you get this interesting divide within especially the conservative religious community over their political loyalties and sort of their religious underpinnings.<\/p>\n

LAWTON<\/strong>: And some of those moral arguments I\u2019ve been hearing\u2014I\u2019m sorry, the pragmatic arguments I\u2019ve been hearing, in additional to the moral ones, are that it\u2019s in America\u2019s national security, that folks around the world who have food and a decent job and a place to live and have a good, stable social situation are less likely to be recruited by terrorists. Or they also just say America\u2019s reputation as well. I know when I was in Sri Lanka after the tsunami and the US poured in so much help, or Haiti\u2014US poured in so much help. That really want a long way to improving America\u2019s image around the world.<\/p>\n

ECKSTROM<\/strong>: Right, I mean, you\u2019ve been to all these places, you can see the difference that it makes when you\u2019ve got these bags of rice that come in with the American flag on it and people look at that and they see us as a good country. But there are sort of national security arguments to be made and think they are fairly effective, that people who are fed, who have good schools, and who don\u2019t have to worry about what they are going to eat that night are less likely to be recruited into extremism.<\/p>\n

LAWTON<\/strong>: And we’ll both be watching in the weeks to come. Thank you, Kevin.<\/p>\n

ECKSTROM<\/strong>: Thanks.<\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a>