This piece was published as a guest opinion in the Times of Trenton on June 28, 2015.
Our faith traditions teach: You will be blessed in order to be a Blessing.
New Jersey has certainly been blessed. We live in a state that has some of the highest income and some of the best schools in the nation, as well as some of the best medical facilities in the world. With these Blessings comes a call by God to share our blessings with all the residents of New Jersey, especially those who don't have access to these many riches. This sharing happens through public and private spending. Today, we write to raise concern related to public funding.
The State Budget is a values document – it communicates our priorities and our commitments as a democratic society. Lutheran Episcopal Advocacy Ministry of New Jersey, representing the ELCA Lutherans and Episcopal congregations throughout New Jersey, is deeply concerned that our state budget must do better in addressing the rising poverty in our state, especially as it concerns our children, seniors and low wage working families.
We call upon State officials to include support for those who are economically distressed in the State Budget:
- re-instate Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to 25% of the federal credit;
- continue to support SNAP benefits through expanded access and requested federal waiver to expand eligibility criteria to 200% of federal poverty level; and
- expand access to key education, work supports, and training services for New Jersey's most vulnerable by increasing eligibility levels for "Work first NJ."
We see the lines grow at church run food pantries, soup kitchens and day centers. We live in communities where our children are "shutting down" by third grade because they cannot read at grade level. We pray with and for fellow worshippers who cannot find work that will support their family. We talk with neighbors who will be moving away because of the lack of housing that they can afford.
Patty is a single mom; she is a recent widow with three children. She works at a family run restaurant as a food server. She receives some public assistance but continues to struggle to raise her children, work, and make ends meet. She visits a food pantry, run by her local churches. Regularly her family receives food, tutoring for her kids, and other daily supplies. "Without this help we would not be able to make it," Patty said recently to her pastor.
Yet, while the faith community cares for those who are hurting, we learn that the state has awarded 5.4 Billion dollars to businesses in NJ since 2010. This money is intended to stimulate job creation, but we know that NJ is lagging behind the nation in job creation since the recession. We ask for transparency, are these corporate tax breaks really generating jobs for our needy families?
We raise our collective voice to affirm policies for a just society, as our faith traditions demand. All injustice will not yet be undone with the passage of this year's budget, but we remain committed to the quest that all may access the blessings as each is due.
The Lutheran Episcopal Advocacy Ministry of New Jersey (LEAMNJ) was launched in May 2015 by the New Jersey Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) and the Episcopal dioceses of New Jersey and Newark to serve as a powerful public witness of faith through advocacy, representing the shared values and faith principles of New Jersey's nearly 80,000 Episcopalians and Lutherans. The Reverend Sara Lilja, an ordained Lutheran pastor, serves as the group’s director.
