Vote Out Poverty

I am here in D.C. attending a Pentecost Conference whose theme is to Vote out Poverty. Our country has so degraded the idea that poverty is a real issue, that whenever someone speaks aobut eliminating poverty they are considered a bleeding heart liberal or simply out of touch with reality. This week I discovered, or at least heard the inspiring words of faith leaders fromaround the country, that no matter what they call it we will march on towards the elmination of poverty. The US Catholic Bishops have declared that their agenda will be guided by a vision to cut those living in poverty in half over the next ten years.

The agenda of this conference was to begin to put poverty back on the national agenda of our politicians. Not only were their speakers about the work being done around the country, there was a nationally televised forum on Faith, politics and poverty and we marched to capitol hill before we lobbied our representatives. The three bills the Vote out Poverty campaign is pushing are: SCHIP(comprehensive Childrens health care for the nearly 15 million children living in poverty 9 million without healthcare), the farm bill(a bill the size of a phone book containing iniatives from food stamps and WIC to commodity subsidies. The campaign is promoting the move that money should be taken from the subsidies(which hurt farmers here and abroad) into the food stamp program which currently only provides families with a $1 a meal, as well as increasing the minimum required income to include the elderly who earn too much to qualify but after paying for perscriptions are left with little to nothing for food.) Third a comprehensive and just Immigration bill. The debate over wether letting immigrants into the country is more harmful than good focuses simply on a zero-sum view of the issue. There is a just way to negotiate laws which will protect workers, their families and "american" interrests.

To learn more about these issues and the Vote Out Poverty Campaign please visit the Sojourners website www.sojo.net

Jesus said as you do unto the lest of these you do unto me I think he meant that in a country where the lest of these are imprisioned in a racist, unjust system of beauraucracy that ensures chronicly underbudgeted schools, healthcare programs, food programs and programs that keep families together Jesus meant that we should not only provide what we can as individual people of faith but that justice must roll down like an ever flowing stream. We must change the tide of justice in this country to include the left behind and the kept out.

May God annoint us all to come into relationship with our brothers and sisters around us so that we may all rise up together.