by Carolynn Race

On August 30th the Census Bureau released new data on the income, poverty and health insurance coverage in the U.S. They found that 37 million people were living in poverty (12.7 percent) in 2004, an increase of 1.1 million people since 2003. Of these, 13 million are children. (The official 2004 poverty threshold is $19,311 for a family of four.) It found that 45.8 million people were uninsured in 2004, an increase of 800,000 people since 2003. The uninsured rate remained constant at 15.7 percent, with the uninsured rate for children at 11.2 percent.

Congress returns from recess on September 6th. How will they act to "promote the general welfare," as the Constitution requires, and what strategies will they employ to lower the rates of people living in poverty and people who are uninsured?

Soon after Congress returns to D.C., both chambers are expected to deliberate on two budget reconciliation bills - one to reduce entitlement spending and one to cut taxes. By September 16, 2005, pursuant to the budget resolution which passed by a narrow margin earlier this year, committees must report out spending cuts totaling $35 billion over the next five years. By September 23, committees must report out details creating fast track protection for passing $70 billion in tax cuts over five years. Food Stamps and Medicaid - two programs that serve as lifelines for those in need of food and health care - are targeted for cuts. The committees' actions to cut spending will be bundled together in a budget reconciliation package to be debated on the House and Senate floors. Floor debate is expected in late September or October.

Throughout this year's debate about federal budget priorities, representatives of the faith community have repeatedly urged Congress and the Administration to view the federal budget through a moral lens because of what it says about who we are as a nation and about our national priorities. Earlier this year, the Interreligious Working Group on Domestic Human Needs, of which the PC(USA) Washington Office is a member, outlined three specific sets of values drawn from our shared scriptural tradition to which we believe federal spending and revenue choices should be held accountable: community and the common good, concern for those who are poor and vulnerable, and economic justice.

The 207th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) called on Congress "to defeat any proposals that base budget or deficit reductions primarily on the services provided to children, families, the needy, and the homeless" and urged strengthening of federal commitments to these groups. The Assembly also called on Congress "to insist on a government that follows ethical values of justice for the poor, welfare for children, hospitality to the stranger, and assistance to the disadvantaged." (Minutes, 1995, p. 718) Our concern is rooted in our Biblical tradition. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus was asked, "'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?' *And the king will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.'"

Budget Reconciliation

The budget resolution, H. Con. Res 95, which passed the House by a vote of 214-211 and the Senate by a vote of 52-47, included instructions to specific committees to report out at least $35 billion in savings over five years to entitlement programs under their jurisdiction. (Entitlement programs are those funded automatically, such as Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid.) By parliamentary rules, the spending and tax cut packages developed from this budget resolution cannot be filibustered, and thus can pass the Senate with a simple majority of 51 votes.

Of the $35 billion total, the resolution:

Instructed the Senate Finance Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee to develop legislation that reduces spending from programs under their jurisdiction by $10 billion. It was suggested that all the savings could come from Medicaid, the federal-state partnership that provides health care to more than 50 million people, including seniors, people with disabilities, parents, and children. Welfare and Medicare funding could also be reduced through this legislation. Cuts to Medicaid could increase the ranks of the uninsured, now close to 46 million.

Instructed the Senate and House Agriculture Committees to find $3 billion from programs under their jurisdiction, which includes Food Stamps, conservation funding, and farm subsidies. This could mean cuts to the Food Stamp program at a time when, as the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports, 36.3 million people in our nation, including 13.3 million children, experience food insecurity.

Other instructions could result in a $7 billion cut to the federal student loan program and an increase in premiums that corporations pay to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.

Because of the simple majority needed for passage in the budget resolution, it is expected that the energy committees will produce legislation to open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling to secure $2.4 billion in royalties and other payments through the budget reconciliation process.

On the tax side, by September 22 the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee must report out legislation including at least $70 billion in tax cuts over five years. At press time, it is unclear what tax changes will be included. According to The Washington Post, a proposal developed by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Grassley (R-IA) would extend deep cuts in tax rates on dividends and capital gains through 2010. (These cuts were first approved in 2003.) In addition, a tax deduction for college tuition and another for low-income savers would be extended through 2010. (Jonathan Weisman, "Critical Votes Loom For Hill Republicans: Party to Set Cuts to Entitlement Spending," 8/28/05, p. A4)

Prior to committee action on budget reconciliation, the Senate may begin floor deliber- ations on repealing the estate tax. In order to consider the House-passed bill, HR 8, the Senate first needs to adopt a motion to proceed to the bill. Under Senate parliamentary rules, it requires 60 votes to "invoke cloture" and vote on this motion. Many low-income advocates have raised concerns that the loss of revenue from repealing the estate tax would impact funding for programs for the most vulnerable. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities noted that full repeal would cost nearly $1 trillion between 2012 and 2021.

If the cloture vote for full repeal fails, the Senate may consider proposals to reform the estate tax. Many low-income advocates are concerned that some of the reform proposals could cost nearly as much as full repeal and could have an enormous impact on the ability of the government to provide services for the most vulnerable. Taken together, the budget reconciliation entitlement cuts, tax cuts, and potential estate tax repeal/reform could have a huge impact on "the least of these among us."

Contact the Capitol Switchboard - 202/224-3121 and ask to be connected with your Senator and/or Representative. Tell them, "As a Presbyterian, I am calling to urge you to oppose reductions or eliminations of services in Medicaid, Food Stamps, TANF and other critical help for vulnerable people. It is wrong to impose the biggest budget sacrifices on the sick, the poor, the elderly and children by cutting supports while expanding tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and corporations."

by Catherine Gordon

"The war on terror can't ever be won if the war on poverty isn't won . . . If we continue this combination of high rhetoric and grossly insufficient action, I think the risks to (the United States') own national security ... and the risk to global stability are very real."

- Jeffrey Sachs, Special Advisor on the Millennium Development Goals to the UN Secretary General

Five years ago this September, 150 Heads of State gathered in New York for the Millenium Summit. The Summit addressed such global challenges as how to pull more than one billion people out of extreme poverty, how to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS, and how to protect the environment. After the Summit the leaders adopted the "United Nations Millenium Declaration" which stated: "Only through broad and sustained efforts to create a shared future, based upon our common humanity in all its diversity, can globalization be made fully inclusive and equitable." The Declaration contained a statement of values, principles and objectives for the international agenda for the 21st century. It also set deadlines for many collective actions and resolved to meet a number of "Millenium Development Goals" (MDG's). By 2015, all UN member states pledged to expand foreign development aid in order to meet the following eight goals:

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.

• Reduce by half the proportion of people who live on less than one dollar a day.
• Reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.

2. Achieve universal primary education.

• Ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling.

3. Promote gender equality and empower women.

• Eliminate the gender discrepancy in primary and secondary education by increasing opportunities for girls to attend school preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015.

4. Reduce child mortality.

• Reduce by two-thirds the percentage of children who die before age five.

5. Improve maternal health.

• Reduce by three-quarters the percentage of women who die in pregnancy and childbirth.

6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.

• Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS.
• Halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases.

7. Ensure environmental sustainability.

• Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs and reverse the loss of environmental resources. Sustainable development means reducing hunger and poverty in sound ways, by meeting basic human needs, expanding economic opportunities, protecting the environment, and promoting democratic participation.
• Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water.
• Achieve significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers, by 2020.

8. Develop a global partnership for development.

• Reform the trading system (the World Trade Organization) and financial system (e.g., private capital flows and international financial institutions like the IMF) so that poor countries can easily sell their products to developed countries at fair prices and obtain the financial resources needed to create stable, growing economies that lift people out of poverty.
• Focus special attention on how to help the poorest countries mobilize the resources needed to reduce hunger and poverty and become self-reliant.
• Focus special attention on how landlocked and small island developing countries can promote economic development and poverty reduction.
• Make an all-out effort to resolve the problem of unpayable debt for the world's poorest countries.
• Develop decent and productive work for youth.
• Provide access to affordable, essential drugs in developing countries.
• Make available the benefits of new technologies.

Since 2000, many governments have not acted on their promises, and the gap between rich and poor continues to widen. Many NGOs argue that the MDG's are not ambitious enough, for at the present rate of action observers note that the world will not meet the current goals in 100 years, let alone by 2015.

While the MDG's called for development assistance to be 0.7 percent of a countries GDP, U.S. foreign development aid constituted only 0.16 percent of this country's gross domestic product in 2004. The European Union decided in April to increase development aid to 0.56 percent of its gross national income indicator in 2005, to pave the way to achieve the 0.7 percent target by 2015.

Jeffrey Sachs, advisor to the UN and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, argues that Washington's neglect of its commitments to alleviate global poverty is fueling the creation of impoverished, failing states that breed terrorism. He notes that President Bush's administration has acknowledged poverty's role in nurturing terrorist activity in countries such as Afghanistan, but is failing to meet UN targets designed to raise basic living standards.

In a great step forward, the Group of Eight industrialized countries decided at their summit in July to write off the debts of 18 of the world's poorest countries and to increase annual foreign development aid by at least $50 billion as of 2010, with at least half going to Africa. Much more needs to be done to make sure the U.S. follows through.

The Millenium +5 World Summit, to be held at the United Nations September 14-16, is expected to bring together more than 170 Heads of State and will be a time to assess progress made on the Millenium Development Goals.

This is a time to raise awareness on the issue of global poverty. Legislation urging progress toward the Millenium Development Goals (MDG's) has been introduced in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. On May 26, Reps. McCollum (D-MN), Leach (R-IA), Shays (R-CT), and many others introduced a resolution affirming the importance of U.S. commitment and leadership to improve the lives of the world's poorest people. The resolution, H. Con. Res. 172, had 74 co-sponsors as of August 11, 2005.

On June 27, 2005, Senator Lugar (R-IN) introduced S 1315. This bill, in addition to affirming the U.S. commitment to improving the lives of poor people, requires the administration to report on progress toward the Millenium Development Goals. Please contact your Members of Congress and ask them to support this legislation.

During the 109th Congress, President Bush and congressional officials have an opportunity to enact immigration legislation that would not only address the plight of immigrant workers in the U.S., but also make our nation more secure. S 1033 (McCain/Kennedy) comes closest to General Assembly recommendations.

by Elenora Giddings Ivory

As Congress resumes work after the summer recess, it will begin considering two fairly new, yet very different, immigration bills that are aimed at non-citizen workers. To date we have heard very little from the Bush Administration about these bills. When the Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on comprehensive immigration reform, the White House suddenly and unexpectedly withdrew its two scheduled witnesses - Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao.

Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ), a Presbyterian, has joined with Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) to introduce S 1438, a bill that would permit undocumented immigrants to work here for as long as two years before being required to return to their home country and apply for legal status to come back into the United States. Opponents say that this approach would jeopardize family unity, for it would not guarantee legal return of those who may have been in this country for many years and who have established jobs, homes and U.S.-born children. Opponents of the Cornyn/Kyl bill also point out that if the estimated 10 million undocumented workers were to all leave suddenly it would create economic chaos to the U.S. economy. The Cornyn/Kyl bill is entitled, the "Comprehensive Enforcement & Immigration Reform Act."

Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) have an alternative bill that would require undocumented persons to pay a fine and any back taxes that they may owe. They would be able to apply for legal status while remaining in the U.S., but would have to go to the back of the line, behind all those already lawfully in the process.

Critics of the McCain/Kennedy bill have classified it as just another blanket amnesty bill. Supporters have countered by saying that it would encourage future workers to take the time to cross the border legally through this process. Visa benefits would include a six-year non-immigrant visa that would not be renewable, but would allow prospective workers the opportunity to apply for any position for which they qualify. During this six-year period, the worker would have to begin the process toward aquiring a green card or return home before the period expires. Supporters believe that this would be safer for the previously undocumented person, who would no longer need to fear seeking emergency police or health care services. Also, families would be less vulnerable to opportunists, who know that the undocumented do not use banks or other financial services.

McCain/Kennedy have named S 1033 the "Secure America & Orderly Immigration Act." It has a House companion bill (HR 2330) and is sponsored in the House by Jim Kolbe (R-AZ), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), and Luis Gutierrez (D-IL). It is important to note that both S 1033 and HR 2330 are bi-partisan legislative initiatives.

The U.S. Catholic Conference has taken on immigration as a primary focus of their public policy agenda. During the above mentioned July 26th Judiciary Committee hearings , the Most Reverend Gerald Barnes, chairman of the Committee on Migration of the USCCB, submitted testimony calling for Congress to enact reform. It stated-

"During the 109th Congress, the administration and congressional officials have an opportunity to enact comprehensive legislation which would not only address the plight of immigrant workers in the United States, but also make our nation more secure. To accomplish these dual goals, the administration and Congress must work together on a comprehensive package which would provide a path to citizenship for undocumented migrants and their families in the United States; provide legal avenues for migrants to enter our nation to work and support their families; reform the family-based immigration system so that families may be reunited in a more timely manner; restore basic due process protections for immigrants; and address the root causes of migration."

Currently, the McCain/Kennedy bill falls closest to General Assembly policy. In 2003, the General Assembly commissioners approved a statement entitled, "On the Crisis of Migrant Farm Worker Deaths in the Borderlands," in which the General Assembly

1. Declares [its] opposition to "Operation Gatekeeper" and other border strategies, which have resulted in an increase in militarization, violations of human rights, deaths from dehydration and exposure, and racial profiling of Hispanic peoples in the borderlands.

2. Requests the Stated Clerk to communicate with the president of the United States, the Attorney General, and the appropriate members of Congress. The communication should include the historic social witness policy of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) on Mexican migration, the immorality of the mounting death toll of migrants, and the urgency of a new border policy that will document the migration of workers at the border.

3. Requests the Disaster Assistance Program of the Worldwide Ministries Division to be in relationship with congregations, presbyteries, and synods in the borderlands to determine appropriate ministries and assistance for migrants in life-threatening situations.

4. Requests that presbyteries and synods in the borderlands consult on the migrant crisis and initiate or support ministries that are meeting the spiritual and physical needs of migrants in crisis.

5. Requests the Stated Clerk to communicate with the president of the United States, the attorney general, and the appropriate members of Congress to find a way to issue temporary worker documentation.