Charity Pushes Congress for More Spending on Social Programs

An antipoverty charity is calling on Congress to allocate more money
on social programs to help poor Americans, despite politicians
concerns about budget woes.

“Fiscal responsibility — the last refuge scoundrel lawmakers cling to
— is an insult at a time when tax cuts for the wealthy and the fiasco
in Iraq has sucked hundreds of billions of dollars out of the
treasury,” writes Todd Post, editor of Bread for the World’s annual
report on hunger, which was released last week.

On the Bread for the World Institutes’s
blog, Mr. Post argues that the government should allow more poor people
access to the Child Tax Credit and support efforts to help low-income
families save money for education, start a small business, or buy a
home.

Mr. Post also writes that the Washington-based charity’s new report,
The 2008 Bread for the World Institute Hunger Report: Working Harder
for Working Families, focuses less on hunger issues than it has in the past. “There is still
too much hunger in America,” Mr. Post writes, “but the issue is not a
lack of food, rather it stems from economic injustice.”

This year’s report says that despite stereotypes that impoverished
people don’t have jobs — or choose not to — two-thirds of children
growing up in poverty in the United States have one or more working
parents.

What do you think? Is this the time for nonprofit groups to push Congress for greater spending on social programs? If so, what programs require the most
attention?