Don't Cut Deficit on Backs of the Poor

Dozens of organizations committed to fighting poverty have signed onto a letter urging the federal commission charged with recommending ways to reduce the federal deficit by 2015 to take into account the needs of low-and moderate-income households.
The letter calls on the commission to:
(1) adopt as a basic principle that its proposals should not make lower-income
individuals and families worse off.
(2) obtain and make public in a timely way a distributional analysis (e.g., by income deciles or quintiles) of the impact of the proposals that it considers. This would make clear who is bearing the burdens of changes in spending and tax policy.
The more than 100 signatories to date on the letter include NETWORK: A Catholic Social Justice Lobby; the Franciscan Action Network; the organizations for leaders of orders of women and men religious; and the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas.
The letter is in response to suggestions by the commission leader that federal spending be limited to its average proportion of the economy since 1970 -- 21 percent. This does not take into account such factors as the aging of the population, new homeland security expenses and rising health care costs.
More information on the commission is available here.