[Faith & Hunger] Please sign on to letter to Gov Paterson re welfare grant, health care and pover

[Dunleamark at aol.com]

Dear Friends:
 
The Faith and Hunger Network has written a letter to send to Gov. Paterson  
from the faith community. The text is below.
 
If you as a faith leader and/or your faith group would like to sign on to  
this letter, please send how you would like your name and affiliation listed on  
the letter to _dunleamark at aol.com_ (mailto:dunleamark at aol.com)  by  Sept. 8. 
You can call Mark at 518 434-7371 xt 1# if you have any  questions.
 
 
Faith and Hunger Network 
Dear Governor Paterson: 
As representatives of the faith community in New York State, we urge you  to 
provide moral leadership in ending the problems of hunger, homelessness and  
poverty in our communities. Specifically, we urge you to propose restoring the  
value of welfare benefits to at least its 1990 level and to propose quality  
affordable health care for all. 
We speak with urgency and embrace the biblical mandates to feed the  hungry, 
give shelter to the homeless, and clothe the naked. 
Poverty diminishes hope and crushes the human spirit. The Jewish,  Christian 
and Islamic traditions speak for the dignity of people in poverty in  God’s 
sight, and that it is society’s responsibility to address and alleviate  such 
inequities. Helping people in need is a matter of fundamental principle,  
responsibility, righteousness and justice, not an act of charity.  
We believe it is immoral that in this the richest nation, New York leads  in 
the growing gap between the poor and rich. Nothing illustrates that gap  
better than the decline in value of welfare benefits. The grant has fallen to  less 
than 50% of the federal poverty level and is a significant factor in the  
high rate of poverty in New York, especially among children and in upstate inner  
cities. An entire generation of children has grown up since the last increase 
in  the basic grant eighteen years ago; even at that point it failed to meet 
basic  social and constitutional responsibilities to care for the needy. The 
basic  welfare grant is now $291 a month for a family of three; the shelter 
allowance  varies by county. Both are grossly inadequate. 
We know that you have long been committed to raising the basic welfare  
grant. We need your moral leadership today more than ever. Every week in our  
congregations we see a terrible loss of hope among those who depend on the State  
for the basic necessities of life. We appreciate the leadership you have 
already  shown in helping to expand the food stamp program and in trying to protect 
the  poor from the impact of recent budget cuts. 
The right to health care is also a moral issue. "Of all the forms of  
inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane." -  Martin 
Luther King Jr. The call for health care reform is rooted in the biblical  call 
to heal the sick and to serve the least of these. How provision is made for  
children in the dawn of life, the elderly in the twilight of life, and the 
sick,  needy, and those with disabling conditions in the shadow of life are clear  
indices of the moral character and commitment of a nation. While good health  
cannot be assured to everyone, good health care can and should be  
guaranteed. 
The Hebrew Bible says we are all created  b’tzelem Elohim--in the Image of 
God. This makes every human life as  precious as the next. In this light, we can 
say that, by "pricing out" a portion  of our population from health care 
coverage, we mock the image of God and   destroy the vessels of God’s work. 
New York is now in the middle of studying how to best provide health care  
for all. Your administration is due to make a recommendation this fall. All the  
other industrial democracies in the world have already made health care a 
right.  We need New York to set the direction for the rest of the country by  
guaranteeing health care to all our residents. 
We are encouraged that you were a long time sponsor of single payer  
universal health care while a state Senator. The biggest problem with our  American 
health care system is that we are alone among the world’s democracies  in 
allowing health care to be treated as a commodity where companies are free to  place 
profits before the health needs of individuals. It is morally wrong to  allow 
corporations to profit by denying health services to others. The central  
role provided to for-profit health insurance companies also significantly drives  
up costs throughout the health care system. We need a health care system that 
 puts health care ahead of profits, reduces costs, and provides quality 
health  care to all New Yorkers. 
The list of issues that need to be addressed in alleviating poverty in  our 
state is unfortunately long: rising energy costs, affordable housing,  quality 
education, living wage jobs, child care to name a few. We encourage you  to 
look at the solutions being promoted by the national campaign to cut poverty  in 
half in America in the next 10 years. There is no lack of arguments as to why 
 the needs of our most vulnerable members can not be addressed today under 
the  present financial situation. That is why poverty has become such an 
epidemic in  many inner city neighborhoods and rural communities. 
We call on you to increase funding for our state’s 3,000 food pantries  and 
soup kitchens, which feed more than 2 million New Yorkers annually. The  lines 
keep growing every year and will overflow once again this winter with the  
rising costs of heat and fuel. We recognize that such programs are not a long  
term solution; instead, they are stark symbols of our society’s failure to share 
 the bounty of the richest economy in the world.  
The state budget is about our choices. Lawmakers have chosen for too long  to 
keep poor children and their families in abject poverty, balancing the state  
budget on the backs of the poorest and most vulnerable. We hear from state  
budget officials that they face a revenue shortfall, so they can’t make needed  
investments. But revenue shortfalls are a political decision, not an act of 
God  or nature. New York has a particularly unfair system of state and local 
taxes,  where the poor pay more as a percent of their income than the wealthy. 
The state  budgetary needs should be met through tax fairness that restores the 
principle  that those who can most afford it bear a greater share of the 
burden. 
In language that resonates with a deep understanding of religious values,  
one of your gubernatorial predecessors, Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, "The  
test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who  
have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too  little." We 
urge you to take up this challenge. 



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