State budget should follow Biblical lessons - Duluth News Tribune

The Rev. Kathy Larson and the Rev. Lon Weaver, Duluth News Tribune, March 27, 2011

We are writing on behalf of faith communities rooted in rich traditions and with special sensitivity to the vulnerable in our society. The book of Isaiah calls us to become “repairers of the breach” by building a society that responds to the needs of the poor and the broken. It is part of the fiber of who we are. When we fail in this, Isaiah teaches that we are presumptuous to call ourselves “a nation that practices righteousness.” When we neglect to do this, we are maintaining the chasm described in Jesus’ parable in the gospel of Luke about the separation between the “Rich One” and his neighbor, Lazarus, who lay wounded outside the gate — a harrowing fact in which the breach in this life stretched into one that existed in the life to come.

The message of the prophets is directed not at faith communities in particular but at the nation as a whole.

A growing chasm exists in Minnesota. We see evidence of this in the budget decisions our local school district has to make. Because the state has withheld 30 percent of its promised money to the Duluth school district, the School Board has been forced to make painful cuts. Among these are $1 million from special education; $110,000 through the elimination of the Habitat program; $135,000 from the English-as-a-second-language program; and the elimination of teaching, maintenance and administrative positions.

Churches United in Ministry, or CHUM, has seen further evidence of this chasm in the greatly increased numbers of people using its services. There are not enough beds in its shelter to give refuge to the homeless. Food shelf use is significantly higher: 13,892 individuals received help in 2010, 35 percent of them children.

There is another path, a way to repair the breach and cross the chasm. We can take a balanced approach that includes increasing revenue instead of just cutting services to our kids and our most vulnerable. We should tax based on ability to pay. As confirmed in a recent News Tribune article, the percentage of taxes paid by the wealthiest is less than that paid by those in the middle-income and lower-income brackets. The poorest 10 percent pay more than 20 percent of their income in taxes compared to the wealthiest 1 percent who pay 8.8 percent of their income in taxes.

The Legislature is facing hard decisions. The budget is a concrete expression of our values and commitments as a community. Who are we as Minnesotans and who do we care about? We are at a crossroads. We can and must change this picture. Together we can have the courage and compassion to do so.

The Rev. Kathy Nelson is pastor at Peace United Church of Christ in Duluth and the Rev. Lon Weaver is pastor at Glen Avon Presbyterian Church, both of Duluth. They wrote this on behalf of CHUM, or Churches United in Ministry, a clergy group.