Remarks of the Hon. Rosa DeLauro at Call to Renewal Conference

Remarks of the Hon. Rosa DeLauro at Call to Renewal Conference

Washington, DC - Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro (D-CT) released the following remarks, as prepared for delivery at today's Call to Renewal annual "Pentecost." Call to Renewal is a national network of churches and faith-based organizations working together to overcome poverty. Pentecost is Call to Renewal's annual conference that brings grassroots leaders from Catholic, Evangelical, mainline Protestant, Historic Black, Historic Peace, Asian and Pentecostal churches together to strive to magnify one united Christian voice on matters of domestic social policy.
Congresswoman DeLauro addressed the group of between 200-300 grassroots leaders on behalf of Senator John Kerry's, the presumptive Democratic nominee for President.

"What an honor it is to be with Call To Renewal today. For nearly a decade, you have brought together hundreds of grassroots and national church leaders from across the theological and political spectrum. As Christians hailing from a variety of faith traditions, you have drawn from that faith to mobilize under a singular calling: overcoming poverty in this country.

"I understand we have about 90 young people here today seeking to empower themselves and our poorest communities by expanding their own knowledge of the political process. You are the center of this inspired idea. You give people like me the strength to carry on these fights. Time and again, I seek Jim's counsel on a broad range of issues-poverty, health care, tax policy-to help make a difference for ordinary families in our country, the most humble.
"Those conversations never fail to remind me that Call To Renewal has recognized something critical to this mission: that debate and diversity of opinion are no obstacles to faith. As a point of fact, they strengthen our beliefs, by focusing not on the things we see differently, but rather on that which unites us-our values, our common humanity, our common instincts for a good society. In this effort, you have created a powerful voice in the faith community - one that speaks to a broad range of issues impacting the poorest families amongst us.

"Values are the starting point for your efforts in child care, in welfare reform, housing and so much more. They are what have driven Susan Pace Hammill and John Perkins in their efforts. Both have drawn from their faith to do something very special with their lives - one making a powerful argument about the values that form our public policy, while another has changed countless lives with the convictions of his faith and a gentle touch. They inspire us.
"For Susan and John-and I suspect all of us here today-their lives' work is not merely a choice they made, but an obligation - rooted in religious teachings. From Biblical to modern times, Christian communities have understood that their existence required a sense of mutual consideration and support and the moral impulse to lift up those most in need.

"Whether it was food, shelter, medical care, or education, our churches and religious groups have taken up the mission, they have made it part of their teachings about fellowship and social obligations. In our country, the Catholic Church in all our neighborhoods, was the center-point for building a sense of mutual obligation and upliftment, receiving each generation of the most needy. Then, it taught immigrants English, helped them find jobs and housing and brought food for those who could not provide. It called on local politicians and government to take up that mission in our teaming cities, struggling with the flood of people from the impoverished countrysides, all across the globe. Many of our protestant churches joined the progressive movements at the turn of 20th century to fight to end inhumane working conditions and the exploitation of children in the factories.
"Indeed in my home city of New Haven, we have a powerful reminder of such religious instincts, in the saga of the Amistad, one of the most dramatic examples of black and white abolitionists uniting in a common cause in this country. Many of you might know the story of the Amistad, how a group of Africans were sold into slavery, mutinied and took control of their ship, only to be captured and put on trial in New Haven to determine whether they were free men or slaves.

"Those who first came to the defense of the kidnapped Mendians were members of the United Church of Christ in New Haven. They raised money and support for the Africans, wrote letters in the newspapers and contacted Abolitionists throughout the country. Students of the Yale Divinity School taught them English. At such moments of challenge, we draw on our religious teachings to find the right course and to serve as weapons for those who seek justice.
"Underlying these good works is an elemental idea - that poverty, defined in each age, contradicts our obligations to community and to help those in need. Its existence and growth should produce an instinctive critique of the economic structures and policies that perpetuate it and that war against the human spirit. The church is our conscience.
"Today, we witness the results of bad policy choices by those who should know better, as their policies deepen the income inequality and, remarkably, raise the barriers for those who are struggling and working to do better. We watch a government, faced with the uneven consequences of globalization, acts with partiality, favoring one group over another. Those policies call upon our energies and moral impulses, including those of John Kerry, who feel he must challenge such a course. The explosive deficits, we all understand now, is an effort to undermine the government's capacity to act for community.
"In these times, 35 million Americans live in poverty and for the first time in a decade, poverty is not falling, but rising - when nearly 1 in 4 African Americans and 1 in 5 Hispanics in America lives below the poverty line, and the number of poor people living in our country has increased by 1.4 million in the past year.
"And so when the new Secretary of Housing says that poverty, quote, "is a state of mind," then, I say, tell that to the children, tell that to the 12 million children in this country who live in poverty. Tell that to the million children who have no place to call home, living in shelters, motels, abandoned buildings - who live out of their family's car. That is not a state of mind - it is a state of despair. These children should wake the sensibilities that have inspired so many in our country through the ages.

"So, how do we as policymakers, activists and persons of faith put the plight of those living in poverty front and center in our lives? How do we bring these issues and the faces behind them to the fore of the national debate? How to we draw upon these convictions to heal these divisions in our society?

"The starting point is a dialogue in this country on the moral purposes of government, which could not be clearer when we stand before the challenge of the poor. My Church has spoken eloquently on this when the Catholic Bishops stated, quote, "The obligation to provide justice for all means that the poor have the single most urgent economic claim on the conscience of the nation." They reflected Isaiah's rule, "but he shall judge the poor with justice."
"So too should we heed such a rule when thinking about the obligations of government, in this case, to the essential responsibilities of government, which surely includes providing a safety net for our children, our seniors, immigrants and those struggling to share America's dream.

"And as we look forward, we can learn from the past successes government has had in helping care for our society's most vulnerable - how Head Start has given 18 million children from low-income and working poor families the opportunity to succeed, how Social Security and Medicare provided more than 35 million seniors-more than 12 million of whom are above the poverty line only because of their Social Security benefits-with the dignity of a secure retirement.

"These programs grew out of a spirit of compassion and obligation in this country, articulated by Franklin Roosevelt when he created Social Security. He said then with words that are as relevant today as they were 70 years ago:
"We are compelled to employ the active interest of the Nation as a whole through government in order to encourage a greater security for each individual who composes it . . . This seeking for a greater measure of welfare and happiness does not indicate a change in values. It is rather a return to values lost in the course of our economic development and expansion . . ."

"We should stop and reflect on his words. I am sure John Kerry has. Today, every day, we compromise the will and the capacity of government to respond to those most in need. It saddens us that a projected surplus of $5.6 trillion is now a $3 trillion deficit, due largely to a series of massive tax cuts this Administration has passed over the past 3 years - tax cuts that have benefitted almost exclusively large corporations and wealthy individuals at the expense of everyone else, especially the social safety net that might rescue those living in poverty. Too many have stood by as we have effectively transferred the nation's tax burden from corporations and the wealthiest Americans to people who work for a living and their families - in the process, compromising our "ability to face our most pressing challenges, including funding a war that has cost this nation upwards of $200 billion.

"And what is most disturbing about this, is that this is no accident, but a design. Grover Norquist, whose name many of you may recognize, heads up the influential, anti-tax group, Americans For Tax Reform. He says without reservations, and I quote, "we are going to shrink the Federal government until we can drown it in the bathtub." This is not someone on the outer-fringes of the political thinking, but rather someone who meets regularly with the president and his top advisors. That is the attitude, the strategy and the values of the decision-makers at the highest levels of this government.
"Consider what has become of No Child Left Behind. After passing that historic education bill creating new tests and higher standards for public schools, the president's budget shorted it by $9.4 billion - cutting the funding to improve school quality, guaranteeing failure and justifying the shift to private education. Putting the mark of failure on failed schools but denied the resources to succeed. Contrast that with John Kerry's plan for a National Education Trust Fund. On Medicaid, the Administration has proposed to turn it into a block grant, but with progressively less funding - leaving the states holding the bag on health care for the nation's poorest citizens.

"My state of Connecticut faces a three-year budget gap of $3.6 billion, and almost 30,000 people have already been eliminated from Medicaid. 6 social services offices have been closed and adult job training programs have been cut. This is going on throughout the country, as states cannot pick up the responsibilities abandoned by the Federal government. Perhaps the voters, even before our Maker, will make a judgment about such priorities.
"Look at what is happening in child care, Medicare, Social Security. In each area, they are sending a signal that citizens cannot depend upon our public commitments, even ones that embody America's shared values about service to country, opportunity and help for those most in need.
"And for the sake of all of our children, families and community, we cannot let that happen.

"As someone who has had the privilege of serving in the Congress of the United States for over a decade-and-a-half, representing more than a half-million people, I believe that government has a moral obligation to play a role in making opportunity real. I do not believe in every man or woman for himself or herself. I believe in values. I believe in faith and community-shared responsibility, and I believe in what we can achieve together. Those are the principles at the core of the things we fight for everyday, and I tell you today: I have no intention of backing down from them. And by the looks of it, neither do you.

"Nothing illustrates the challenge we face or values we share than the continuing fight over the injustice of the child tax credit.

"Just last week, a full year after Congress passed a $350 billion tax cut bill that gave every millionaire in this country a $93,000 tax break, deliberately leaving behind six-and-a-half million families and 12 million children in the process, this Congressional majority finally decided it is time to right the wrong done to these families - so long as something is done for the wealthy in return.

"During the last year, I have been privileged to join Call To Renewal time and again to implore this majority to extend the $1,000 child tax credit to those families - a million of whom are military and veterans families, many of whom are risking their lives overseas right now. We have said in one voice that, to us, this is a matter of values.
"Now, when they finally relent, they do so on the condition that families earning over $300,000 also get the credit - meaning a three-and-a-half billion dollar problem will now add another $87 billion to our exploding deficit. To illustrate the profound unfairness of this bill, at the same time low-income families with two children would get a one-time $300 average tax break under this legislation, families earning between $150,000 and $250,000 would receive $22,000 in extra tax breaks over the next decade. Worse, they did not make a corresponding change on the lower end of the income scale by reducing the earnings threshold, so while parents who make $300,000 will qualify for the child tax credit, a full-time minimum wage worker will not be eligible at all. We surely need leaders who understand the first obligations of those who govern. John Kerry would roll back those tax cuts recently given to those earning over $200,000.

"Frankly, it is immoral to use poor families as a bargaining chip for more tax cuts for the wealthy, just as it is immoral to deny services to those who need them most, like extending unemployment benefits to families who have no source of income and nowhere to turn.

"For these families, that check in the mail each week-about $289-is the only way they can scrape by. And if we fail to extend these benefits, 2 million people will lose them this year - hundreds of thousands per month.
Some in this Administration say that if we extend unemployment benefits, people will stop looking for a job. What a profound misreading of what these families go through everyday.

"Child care programs face a similar fate. In Connecticut, low-income families who apply for child care assistance are automatically placed on the waiting list. As a result, we have close to 15,000 children in line waiting for child care assistance, and funding for our state's pre-kindergarten program has been cut, because the program relies on child care funds to support extended hours of care.

"How we reauthorize our welfare system is a critical piece of our efforts to ensure that our children are cared for properly - a fight Call To Renewal has been a real champion in. But the president's budget turns a blind eye - it will mean 447,000 additional eligible children will lose child care assistance by 2009. At the same time, Republicans in the House insist on increasing work requirements to 40 hours per week, requiring parents to be away from their children longer, setting these families up for failure - at home and in the workplace.

"As we meet today, welfare reform is operating under its 6th temporary extension since the end of 2002 because Congress has been incapable of producing a bill. I believe that we have an obligation to ensure that welfare reform is done right - that it helps move families from welfare to work, not trap them in an endless cycle of poverty. We must make this issue a priority in this country. Poverty reduction should be welfare reform's main goal.
"The Republicans in Congress, with the support of the president, have also refused to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit, which in 2000 alone helped reduce the poverty rate by 17 percent - a Republican program begun under Gerald Ford in 1975. The EITC provides millions of working families with children nearly $2,000 per year. It is specifically targeted to full-time, low-wage workers with families and lifts more children out of poverty than any other federal program. The EITC alone raises nearly 5 million people, including more than two-and-a-half million children, out of the depths of poverty.

"Now, the IRS has come up with a plan to require some families that claim the EITC to get "pre-certified"-in other words, they have to get advance permission from the IRS before they can even fill out their tax return and claim the credit, a step that no other taxpayer is required to take. Businessmen are not required to precertify business lunch write-offs - they just claim the deduction and the presumption is that they will be honest in preparing their returns. Companies that set up shell corporations offshore to avoid paying taxes do not have to prove in advance that they are really based in Bermuda. Such partiality and reverse justice runs afoul of the most elemental precepts we learn in our respective churches.

"Rather than singling out the nation's low-wage workers, the administration should be asking how can we help. The EITC is one of the most effective work incentive programs we have and we should not be scaling it back or making it more difficult to claim - we should be aggressively expanding it to reach more families.
"Housing is another critical piece in the fight against poverty. As a Member of the House Budget Committee, I have seen, year after year, inadequate housing budgets tearing families apart, destroying communities and limiting the dreams and aspirations of young people.

"And I am sad to say that we are seeing it again this year. The president's budget would decrease overall housing spending $1.66 billion and proposes to turn the Section 8 housing voucher program into a block grant, weakening the federal role further. The result will be the loss of as many as 200,000 vouchers. Just a few years ago, we were talking about how to fund more Section 8 vouchers, not less, so poor people could escape the old housing projects and live independently.

"That is to say nothing of the recent HUD ruling to effectively limit Section 8 funding retroactively, resulting in the termination of thousands of vouchers, and the displacement of thousands of families who already live on the margins of society. In the name of "policy simplification," the Administration is effectively shirking the responsibility of having to pay the full cost of affordable housing for our most vulnerable families.

"We need to seize this moment to pass the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund Act, which would promote the development, rehabilitation, and preservation of affordable and safe low-income housing through grants to states and localities. Making housing more, not less affordable, should be the goal of any housing program in this country. It should be the goal of a country that understands its obligations, and Senator John Kerry has championed housing trust funds throughout his career.

"On issue after issue-not only these, but immigration policy, the outsourcing of American jobs, access to health care, workplace safety-we know the challenges that face the poorest in our society, and we are failing to act.
"This election gives us the opportunity to challenge the president's initiative and promote the capacity of our country to act together on our shared values. As such, the debate in this election needs to be about how to pursue creative ways to improve the lives of families - how we see the challenges before our society not as a burden, but as an opportunity.
"Steeling us in that fight will be our commitment to community and to help those most in need. We understand that call and obligation. For those of us in this room, failing to act-failing to summon the moral courage in this fight-is not an option. Rather, it is a calling guided by faith and values as we take on these historic fights.

"Ultimately, it is you who are the ones at the grassroots, forging bonds with communities, influencing policymakers, convincing them that our country is stronger when we draw upon our shared values of community and responsibility to tackle our biggest challenges. The scale of this debate is historic and ours is an urgent call - one to which I know we will respond. Renewing our commitment to these challenges is what Call To Renewal is about. It is what we value. And it is what we will fight for.

Thank you so much for having me."