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Promises to keep—on both sides of the aisle

11 Nov 2012 - Preaching the News for Sunday

Christ “will appear a second time, not to take away sin but to bring salvation,” this Sunday’s reading from the Letter to the Hebrews attests. Now that the campaign is over and voters have spoken, both parties promise to bring a bipartisan spirit to politics. And it is up to citizens to keep them to their promises in the days ahead and help bring together a divided nation.One of the big stories on election night was the role played by minorities in giving President Barack Obama a second term. Strong turnout from Latinos, African Americans, and Asians as well as a decided edge among women and younger voters propelled him to a convincing win. In his victory speech, the president offered an early olive branch. “In the coming weeks and months,” he said, “I am looking forward to reaching out and working with leaders of both parties to meet the challenges we can only solve together.”Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called on Republicans to cooperate with an expanded Democratic majority Wednesday, a day after the Democrats picked up at least one more seat in that chamber. "It is better to dance than to fight," said Reid. "It is better to work together. Everything doesn't have to be a fight."For his part, Republican House Speaker John A. Boehner offered a potential path to compromise, saying Republicans are “willing to accept new revenue” to tame the soaring national debt and avert an ugly battle over the approaching “fiscal cliff,” a series of severe tax hikes and program cuts scheduled to take effect in January if Congress and the president cannot find a better path forward on fiscal issues.Boehner said Tuesday’s election amounted to a plea from voters for the parties to lay down their weapons of the past two years and “do what’s best for our country. That is the will of the people. And we answer to them.” Sources: Articles by Ted Barrett, Catherine E. Shoichet, and Ashley Fantz for CNN, Lori Montgomeryfor the Washington Post, and Paul Taylor and D’Vera Cohn for the Pew Research Center

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Can U.S. economy avoid a precipitous fall?

02 Dec 2012 - Preaching the News for Sunday

“People will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming,” this Sunday’s gospel warns of the end times. While fear is not quite that great concerning the prospect of the U.S. economy heading over the “fiscal cliff” at year’s end, tensions are indeed running high. There are signs, however, that Democrats and Republicans may be inching their way toward a compromise on the year-end deadline for a deficit-reduction plan.Business executives and others who’ve met with President Barack Obama in recent days describe a chief executive who is confident a compromise will be reached that avoids the precipice, with Republicans agreeing to tax increases for the wealthy and Democrats accepting some deep spending cuts.The White House already sees signs that the public pressure-campaign is melting GOP opposition. The latest example comes from Rep. Tom Cole, former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. The Oklahoma Republican said on Tuesday that the GOP should agree to a quick deal that keeps the Bush era tax rates for 98 percent of taxpayers while letting the top two rates increase.Others are less optimistic, worried a deal will be stymied by partisan politics. Debt-fighting duo Erskine Bowles, a Democratic business figure and former White House chief of staff, and former Sen. Alan Simpson, a Republican, are making the rounds encouraging a bipartisan solution to the problem. They served as cochairmen of President Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform and are cofounders of the Campaign to Fix the Debt.“We’ve got a real crisis in this fiscal cliff,” said Bowles in a joint appearance with Simpson Wednesday. “It would be insane to breach this fiscal cliff. Yet I think there is only a one-third possibility we will actually get something done before Dec. 31.”Homily hint: While economics is important to us all, Advent invites us to ask: Where does our ultimate hope lie—in a tax break or in the saving love of a God so generous as to come to dwell among us and to live and suffer and die just as we do? A question worth pondering this Advent season. Sources: Articles by Ben White for Politico and Dave Cook for The Christian Science Monitor

barack obama democrats republicans fiscal cliff tom cole erskine bowles alan simpson campaign to fix the debt
Year-end fiscal cliffhanger

16 Dec 2012 - Preaching the News for Sunday

As we reach the halfway point of Advent this Gaudete Sunday, Alice Camille in this week’s Exploring the Word writes of the crossroads between testaments old and new upon which John the Baptist stands. The nation stands at a crossroads this week as well: Will politicos reach a budget deal in time to avert the looming “fiscal cliff” that everyone says they want to avoid but no one seems willing to compromise to do so?On Monday President Barack Obama presented a new offer, and on Tuesday Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives John Boehner made a rare statement from the floor of the House admonishing the president to offer more specifics. “Where are the spending cuts?” he asked. “The longer the White House slow-walks this process, the closer our economy gets to the fiscal cliff.”For his part the president said that if Republicans relent on their resistance to tax rates going up on the wealthy, “then we are prepared to do some tough things on the spending side. . . .Taxes are going to go up one way or another,” he said, “and I think the key is that taxes go up on high-end individuals.”If the public back-and-forth between Boehner and the president reflects what's happening behind the scenes, negotiations to avoid the cliff have a long way to go in the short time remaining in 2012, observers say. Economists have warned that failure to strike a deal could send the economy back into a recession.A senior Republican fiscal hawk, Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, faulted both sides for playing politics. "There's no leadership in Washington either at the presidential level or the leadership level in Congress," he said Tuesday night. "People are playing to the media rather than playing to the future of the country."Homily hint: With economic uncertainty in the air, and pressure to buy gifts upon us, this Sunday offers an excellent opportunity to remind those in attendance that joy has no price tag and rejoicing carries no debt-limit. Encourage one and all to search out alternative ways of giving that involve their time and talent more than their treasure. Sources: Articles by Jackie Calmes and Jonathan Weisman for the New York Times and Fred Barbash for Reuters

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Are we destined to be cliff-dwellers in 2013?

06 Jan 2013 - Preaching the News for Sunday

With all the recent talk of “the fiscal cliff,” it feels as though we are living in the age described in the reading from the Book of Isaiah this Sunday: “See, darkness covers the earth, and thick clouds cover the peoples.” Now that a "cliff" agreement is in place, will the New Year be filled with the kind of hope also found in the reading, where the people are promised that “upon you the Lord shines, and over you appears his glory”? Stay tuned.Congress broke a rancorous stalemate Tuesday to pass legislation designed to avert the so-called cliff. But the compromise bill, which blocked most impending tax increases and postponed spending cuts largely by raising taxes on upper-income Americans, left a host of issues unresolved and guaranteed continued budget clashes and brinksmanship between the parties in coming months.As a result of the bill, only about 0.7 percent of households will be subject to an income tax increase this year, according to the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan research group in Washington, D.C. The increases will apply almost exclusively to households making at least half a million dollars, the center estimated in an analysis published Tuesday.But lawmakers’ decision not to reverse a scheduled increase in the payroll tax that finances Social Security, while widely expected, still means that about 77 percent of households will pay a larger share of income to the federal government this year, according to the center’s analysis. The tax this year will increase by two percentage points, to 6.2 percent from 4.2 percent, on all earned income up to $113,700.Indeed for most lower- and middle-income households the payroll tax increase will most likely equal or exceed the value of the income-tax savings. A household earning $50,000 in 2013, roughly the national median, will avoid paying about $1,000 more in income taxes—but pay about $1,000 more in payroll taxes.If further evidence were needed that the fighting isn’t over, the United States hit its borrowing limit on Monday and lawmakers failed to include raising the limit as part of the cliff deal. The Treasury Department will enact what it calls “extraordinary measures” to avoid a government default, but it can only protect the nation’s credit for so long. Watch in the coming months for another Washington fight over whether, and how, to raise the debt ceiling.Homily hint: How do citizens maintain a hopeful view of the future when their politicians can’t seem to make decisions that address the nation’s most pressing problems? That is a question for which there is no easy answer, but it perhaps reminds us why our ultimate trust has to be with God, not any earthly institution or financial plan. Asking the question “In whom do we place our trust?” provides a good starting point. Sources: Articles by Jonathan Weisman, Binyamin Appelbaum, and Catherine Rampell for theNew York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Sophie Quinton for the National Journal

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