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(OSV News) — With just one day to spare, the federal government Jan. 18 narrowly averted another potential shutdown, as Congress overwhelmingly agreed to an early March funding extension — the third such extension in four months.
Battles over the escalating size of the national budget — and with it, the national debt — are a key point of contention between lawmakers as they wrestle to draft a long-term spending agreement that would eventually finalize annual federal spending for the remainder of the 2024 fiscal year that ends Sept. 30.
For those Catholics actively ministering to the poor, congressional spending and saving priorities — when measured against the concerns of Catholic social teaching — might appear imbalanced.
But is the federal budget a moral statement? And federal borrowing a moral issue?
“Of course it is a moral document,” Joseph P. Kaboski, an economics professor and fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame, told OSV News. “Any budget tells you something about what you prioritize.”
The federal budget is, of course, not the only budget, he emphasized.
“You have to think of it as also reflecting what priorities you think the federal government should have in relation to states, local governments, individuals, etc. But the fact that it is a moral document is important to keep in mind — even as addressing the debt is a moral action,” noted Kaboski, who is a past president of the Catholic Research Economists Discussion Organization.
Continued below.
www.oursundayvisitor.com
Battles over the escalating size of the national budget — and with it, the national debt — are a key point of contention between lawmakers as they wrestle to draft a long-term spending agreement that would eventually finalize annual federal spending for the remainder of the 2024 fiscal year that ends Sept. 30.
For those Catholics actively ministering to the poor, congressional spending and saving priorities — when measured against the concerns of Catholic social teaching — might appear imbalanced.
But is the federal budget a moral statement? And federal borrowing a moral issue?
“Of course it is a moral document,” Joseph P. Kaboski, an economics professor and fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame, told OSV News. “Any budget tells you something about what you prioritize.”
The federal budget is, of course, not the only budget, he emphasized.
“You have to think of it as also reflecting what priorities you think the federal government should have in relation to states, local governments, individuals, etc. But the fact that it is a moral document is important to keep in mind — even as addressing the debt is a moral action,” noted Kaboski, who is a past president of the Catholic Research Economists Discussion Organization.
Bishops offer perspective
Continued below.
Is the federal budget a 'moral document'?
With just one day to spare, the federal government Jan. 18 narrowly averted another potential shutdown, as Congress overwhelmingly agreed to an early March funding extension -- the third such extension in four months. Battles over the escalating size of the national budget -- and with it, the...
www.oursundayvisitor.com
