Immoral Budget Decisions part 1: Introduction

I recently re-tweeted something from MoveOn.org about the latest Republican budget proposal, and then I followed it up with a tweet echoing that I actually did for once agree with MoveOn's slogan that the proposed cuts are immoral. This led to a stimulating discussion with a fiscally conservative friend of mine, and as a result of that I've decided it's a good idea to flesh out my ideas in a series of blog posts. This first post will give the gist of my overall argument, and subsequent posts will be focused on compiling references I've drawn on and evaluating the details of my points.

I like analogies, so I'll start off with a story. Imagine two brothers, one of whom is pretty well off, and another who has just gotten into some dire financial trouble. The second brother goes to the first and asks for some money, and the first brother says to him, "I'm really sorry, brother, but I'm having a bit of a budget crisis myself and I really can't afford to help you out right now."

Is the first brother making an immoral choice at this point? Not necessarily. Although I certainly advocate making sacrifices for the sake of helping others, with all we know about the brothers now it could very well be that the well-off brother is telling the truth, and so I wouldn't want to pass judgement at this point.

Now suppose the story continues with the poor brother walking by a car dealership and spotting his brother chatting with a dealer about a sport car. As his brother goes into the dealer's office to close his purchase, the poor brother says hello to the well-off brother's wife and mentions that he didn't know their family was in need of a new car. "Oh we don't need that car," she says, "I just haven't been able to get him to shut up about it. We don't even have the cash on hand to pay for it, so he's financing the thing. I told him he should reconsider but he just wouldn't budge."

Does this part of the story change how we should view the first brother's choices? I would argue that it does, and very much so. For one, the well-off brother is choosing to send himself further into debt at a time when getting out of debt would give him the ability to help his brother. His own financial health impacts not only him but others in his life as well. Perhaps most telling, though, is the fact that even though the well-off brother claims to be in a crisis, he still feels confident enough to take on the extra debt of a new car. If he can finance a car, though, why can't he finance his brother? If he really doesn't need the car, why wouldn't he forgo that purchase and perhaps even take out a loan on behalf of his brother if he's that confident in his credit? Surely that would be a much better reason to take on debt. The other things the first brother does with his finances informs us about his motives, and in this case I think it would be fair to call his priorities and choices immoral.

This analogy is of course imperfect, so I advise against extrapolating too much from it. It does illustrate the central point of contention I have with the GOP budget proposal though. They are slashing already bare-bones programs that provide needy children lunches, pregnant women health care, and homeless veterans shelter. At the same time, much larger and more expensive areas of waste exist on the federal level that they are completely unwilling to discuss. Subsidies to industries such as oil conglomerates who are posting record profits, inefficient and unregulated contracting to private firms, and even superfluous defense projects the Pentagon brass rejects as wasteful are all examples of areas where cuts are either morally neutral or even positive, and Republicans are largely unwilling to take these on. All this, and I haven't even mentioned their virulent fight against a meager 3% increase on the marginal tax rate for the top tax bracket!

Republicans like to talk a lot about balancing the budget and reducing the deficit, goals I definitely agree with. However if we're going to do so, we should have all options on the table, and we should prioritize cutting true waste over cutting programs that actually help people. Putting the needy on the chopping block ahead of real trash is more than irrational and shortsighted, it is immoral.

Stay tuned for follow up posts with details and references!