Budgets are moral documents. I'm not the first person to say that, nor, I hope, will I be the last. Budgets reflect what we, as a culture and as a community, value; the places we want to invest ourselves. Does the Governor's budget reflect the values we hold as Minnesotans? Does it help us be who we want to be as a community? What does this budget provide for our neighbors who have just lost jobs? For our children? Do we have values that we share and are they in this budget?
Those are the questions that need to be in front of us in the coming months as we move toward a final budget.
The Governor is attempting to solve the $5 billion deficit entirely through spending reductions. The Governor's budget cuts 65,000 people off insurance and in a different cut about 20,000 children who were scheduled for enrollment will not get insurance as scheduled. There are huge cuts to health providers and cuts in services for the disabled. Are these our values?
There will be no health care for adults without children whose income is above 100% of poverty level. Therefore, if one has a little job that brings in $10,400, he or she will have to pay the full cost for health insurance or more likely go without. Do we expect our neighbors to live on $10,400 a year and provide for their health care out of that? MNCare and Medical Assistance health care programs are eliminated for these adults in the Governor's budget. Does this reflect our shared values about health care? About the individuals directly affected and about the health of the community as a whole? The governor cuts payments to hospitals and long-term care providers and stops the expansion of public health programs. According to the Executive Director of the Joint Religious Legislative Coalition (JRLC) Brian Rusche, "This broken system is now looking like rubble. All sacrificed on the altar of 'no tax increase.'"
In a conversation I had with a business leader earlier yesterday he said he hoped we were ready to invest in our future saying the revenue question has to be on the table. I don't think he meant that the way the Governor did, revenues are on the Governor's table but the Governor proposes to cut revenues, to offer a tax cut to businesses. Is this good investment in our shared future? Is this the value of the larger community? I think Minnesota values say, "This is not the time to dismantle these services."
As someone once reminded me, "There is no private wealth without the common wealth." A budget that doesn't count the cost to the common wealth now will have to face the costs to private wealth in years to come. Let's get ready to invest in the common wealth for some very practical reasons.
However, these are not just practical investment questions they are also moral questions, questions of value. For many people of faith when confronting the moral/value questions we turn to our scriptures. Jesus is quite clear, "As you have done to the least of these, you have done to me." That isn't a call just for personal compassion it is a call to the community for community compassion and for action together. Ask the biblical prophets Jesus knew so well. Isaiah says: "Woe, you … who write oppressive statutes, to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of their right.…" (Isaiah 10:1).
Let's take those values into the budget debate. I plan to as I go off to the JRLC Day on the Hill next Tuesday. You are welcome to join me. As we gather religious leaders to meet with legislative leaders, I'll be asking, "How does the governor's budget compare to those values? And, who will we be if this is the budget that we endorse?" It's a moral question.
