Today was another full day at our fall board meeting for the General Board of Church and Society.
Today, we spent time visiting our representatives on Capitol Hill. My work on the board is especially on the work area of Environmental and Economic Justice. One of our major priorities has been in addressing federal budget issues, and communicating our understanding of the budget as a moral document.
We had time as a small group to meet with Neil Bradley, policy director for Majority Whip Roy Blunt. This was my first meeting of this kind, and I was a bit nervous, but once the conversation started, I remembered the beliefs that ground me and found my voice.
I found Mr. Bradley to be, frankly, patronizing, and I felt like we were getting a lot of smooth talk around real issues. At one point, Mr. Bradley informed us, when we asked him about US borrowing money to meet our spending, that many are misinformed and think that we can just print more money at the treasury. And whenever he referred to an unpopular policy, he said, "a lot of people are going to yell at us for that."
When we asked about cuts to social services, and about additional cuts proposed in light of Katrina and Rita, his first response was that they were "not really making any cuts." That's right, that is a direct quote.
He later suggested that people who pay less or no taxes to the federal government don't care about the government because they are not financially "invested" in it. He compared this to church members who give less, knowing that we were all church folk who know about "church budgets." This is the issue that caused me to pipe up - people who don't pay as much don't care as much? How can he say that?
He concluded by saying that criticizing the budget as a whole isn't something helpful to him - that instead we should look for parts of proposal that we can support, and other parts we think need "tweaking." When another board member asked if there was somewhere such information was available to us for our input, of course, Mr. Bradley had to admit that it was not easily available to us and that they plan to proceed with "budget reconciliation" as outlined.
I certainly was enlightened by my experience, and I appreciate even more the work of GBCS staff like John Hill (Director for Economic and Environmental Justice) for going up against such an audience repeatedly. The one day was enough to last me for some time.
Today, we spent time visiting our representatives on Capitol Hill. My work on the board is especially on the work area of Environmental and Economic Justice. One of our major priorities has been in addressing federal budget issues, and communicating our understanding of the budget as a moral document.
We had time as a small group to meet with Neil Bradley, policy director for Majority Whip Roy Blunt. This was my first meeting of this kind, and I was a bit nervous, but once the conversation started, I remembered the beliefs that ground me and found my voice.
I found Mr. Bradley to be, frankly, patronizing, and I felt like we were getting a lot of smooth talk around real issues. At one point, Mr. Bradley informed us, when we asked him about US borrowing money to meet our spending, that many are misinformed and think that we can just print more money at the treasury. And whenever he referred to an unpopular policy, he said, "a lot of people are going to yell at us for that."
When we asked about cuts to social services, and about additional cuts proposed in light of Katrina and Rita, his first response was that they were "not really making any cuts." That's right, that is a direct quote.
He later suggested that people who pay less or no taxes to the federal government don't care about the government because they are not financially "invested" in it. He compared this to church members who give less, knowing that we were all church folk who know about "church budgets." This is the issue that caused me to pipe up - people who don't pay as much don't care as much? How can he say that?
He concluded by saying that criticizing the budget as a whole isn't something helpful to him - that instead we should look for parts of proposal that we can support, and other parts we think need "tweaking." When another board member asked if there was somewhere such information was available to us for our input, of course, Mr. Bradley had to admit that it was not easily available to us and that they plan to proceed with "budget reconciliation" as outlined.
I certainly was enlightened by my experience, and I appreciate even more the work of GBCS staff like John Hill (Director for Economic and Environmental Justice) for going up against such an audience repeatedly. The one day was enough to last me for some time.
Comments
This is something akin to a mugger's victim being financially invested in the money robbed from him.
Since you spent the whole week in Washington, can we assume that you visited Dean Synder? I agree with John, that is a cool name..... "Dean Synder". Smart, Very Smart sounding. :-)
Peace.
this was one of them
bless you for trying your best.
Dickens wrote that the wheels of chancery (law) grind slowly.I guess it applies to governments too in so many ways.
I found the comment that people who pay fewer taxes don't care much about the govt because they aren't financially invested in it - very very alarming.
I think of the widows mite and I think of God's desire we will give generously without personal gain...
oh well :(
Revwilly - I guess, what I think is that everyone who is serving on the board should to a large degree support the general work of the board, in the principles. I think board members have an important accountability task, but i think if people on the board frequently or usually disagree with the work of the agency, it makes it hard for anyone to accomplish anything. I think the best place to make changes to the nature of the agency is through general conference legislation, if the church wants the agency to be about different work than it is. Once that's set, i think our job as board members is to facilitate the work. As for liberal/conservative membership, I think that the majority of the time, we work well together with the mix we have - we are certainly a diverse bunch, but we have a lot of common ideals that we can work for.
I appreciate the personal update on what the Bd of C & S is doing. But like usual the Bd is off base. Budgets cannot be moral or immoral, only people can. It wasn't a budget that ate the forbidden fruit. It is true people choose to spend money in moral or immoral ways. So let's invest our time and energy in creating moral individuals.
Inasmuch as we plan a budget and thereby make decisions about what actions we'll take, a budget is very much a moral statement and call to action (or inaction).
Blessed 2008 - time flies - even if the church moves slowly