wfn.org | Religious leaders ask Bush to help poor

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

Oct. 18, 2001     News media contact: Joretta Purdue 7(202)
546-87227Washington    10-21-71B{482}

WASHINGTON  (UMNS) - Religious leaders are asking President George W. Bush
to help the nation's poor through the economic stimulus package being
developed.

Two United Methodists were among 20 people who signed a letter to Bush that
was delivered Oct. 18 by Bread for the World, a Christian anti-hunger
organization. They were Bishop Felton Edwin May, who serves the
denomination's Baltimore-Washington Annual (regional) Conference, and the
Rev. Bob Edgar, a United Methodist clergyman who heads the staff of the
National Council of Churches.

"With our economy sputtering, and layoffs mounting by the tens of thousands,
the first to feel the effects are those at the bottom of the economic
ladder," the leaders wrote. The letter lists hotel and restaurant workers,
airline industry personnel, sales clerks and factory workers, and aides and
drivers "that are the sinews of our economy" - "hard-working people, who
even in a strong economy, live paycheck to paycheck."

The leaders call on the president, who is a United Methodist, to recommend
three measures to help low-income people:
7	Increased funding for the food stamp program.
7	Increased funding for the Special supplemental Nutrition Program for
Women, Infants and Children (WIC).
7	A two-step, $1.50 increase in the federal minimum wage.

"As people of faith, we deeply believe that the needs of low-income people
in the country should come first in any plan to revive our country's
faltering economy," the leaders said. "This is not only morally right, it is
economically sound."

These three measures would directly and quickly return money to the economy,
according to the letter. "These programs target low-income people who do not
have the luxury of saving money at this time.

"All our faith traditions tell us: God cares deeply for the poor and needy,"
the leaders said.

The letter was signed by the staff head of the Islamic Society of North
America, the president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, and
leaders from the Episcopal, African Methodist Episcopal Zion, Presbyterian,
Christian Reformed, American Baptist, Unitarian Universalist, United Church
of Christ and Evangelical Covenant churches. 

Other signers represented Lutheran Social Services, the National Congress of
Black Churches, the Women's Missionary Society of the African Methodist
Episcopal Church, Call to Renewal, the Leadership Conference of Women
Religious and the Conference of Major Superiors of Men.

The writers pledged to do all they can to reduce poverty and end hunger.
"But we cannot do it alone," they told the president. "Our government must
do its part."

They advised President Bush that the number of people in the United States
struggling with hunger - 31 million - will increase "unless those federal
programs and policies that reduce hunger and poverty are sufficiently
calibrated and funded to meet the challenge at hand."

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United Methodist News Service
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