The Question of the Ryan Budget and Christian Values

A few weeks ago Congressman Paul Ryan wrote the Most Reverend Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, to argue that the budget he had crafted on behalf of House Republicans was consistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church on questions of social justice. "Nothing but hardship and pain can result from putting off the issue of the coming debt crisis. Those who represent the people, including myself, have a moral obligation, implicit in the Church's social teaching, to address difficult basic problems before they explode into social crisis."

There is no question that America has a budget problem. We have made some major mistakes since we had four straight years of budget surpluses in 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001. Unfortunately, Congressman Ryan was complicit in nearly all of them: the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Act of 2001; the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Act of 2003; the Iraq War; the passage of a major expansion of Medicare structured to make the major pharmaceutical companies the biggest winner and the American taxpayer the biggest loser.

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This article was originally published in Catholics in Alliance.