Statement of Texas Impact Board of Directors on State Budget Priorities

Texas’ biennial budget is our state’s primary moral document. More than our constitution, statutes and rules, the budget reflects the true priorities of the Legislature acting on behalf of the People of Texas.

As religious leaders of Texas, we urge you to fund programs and services that benefit the whole community and especially the vulnerable.

We especially urge you to improve the health of poor children in Texas by using newly available federal economic stimulus dollars to fund full-year eligibility for Children’s Medicaid for the upcoming biennium.

Members of the Texas House of Representatives:

Once every two years, 181 individuals, elected by the people of Texas, assume the responsibility of deciding how the State will distribute the collective resources of all Texans in the service of the whole community. As stewards of our financial, natural and human resources, you, our elected representatives, must make decisions that reflect not only the specific needs and priorities of today, but also the enduring character of our state and our hopes for its future.

This year, your task is made both more challenging and more rewarding by the presence of $11 billion in unexpected federal funds allocated to Texas through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. These funds offer you the opportunity to make real progress in areas such as education, health care and infrastructure that are long-standing challenges in our state.

As religious leaders who serve the spiritual and physical needs of Texans in communities throughout the state, we express our grave concern that legislators are making serious missteps in the appropriation of these new federal funds. These missteps are likely to jeopardize a large portion of these new and much-needed resources. They surely will jeopardize the possibility for transformation and renewal that Congress intends the funds to provide.

As proposed, the budget for 2010-11 would use more than half of Texas’ ARRA allocation to fill shortfalls in general revenue that are artificially contrived to avoid spending any of Texas’ billions of dollars in reserve funds. This strategy minimizes investment in services for the people of Texas and enables members of the community of Texas with great private resources to avoid supporting public systems and infrastructure. These may be the policy priorities of a privileged few, but they are not the priorities of the faith community, nor, we believe, are they the priorities of the people of Texas.

Legislators are gambling that the federal government will be permissive with states that use ARRA funds for purposes outside the intent of the ARRA legislation, but federal officials have already put Texas on a list of 16 states that will receive special ARRA monitoring over at least the next three years. This should be all the indication you require that Texas’ approach is misinformed and that further consideration is required.

In your floor debate on the budget, you will have the opportunity to consider more than 400 amendments to the proposed budget. Many of these amendments will attempt in one way or another to change Texas’ course with respect to our ARRA allocation.

We urge you to give full consideration and weight to the many amendments that would appropriate ARRA funds for longstanding policy priorities such as children’s health, education, environmental protection and restorative justice. We beg you not to give in to easy compromises and narrow victories at the expense of the greater good.

In particular, we add our voices to the thousands upon thousands of Texans who have been calling on you for the past six years to improve our children’s access to affordable health insurance. It is unconscionable that a state as wealthy and fortunate as Texas can go year after year with the highest rate of children without health insurance in the nation. If the availability of $11 billion in new funds is still not enough to provide health care to the most vulnerable in our community, people of good will must ask: How much free money would be enough to make children a priority for the Legislature?

We appreciate your service to the people of Texas and we know your task is not an easy one. We want to support you and offer whatever encouragement we can as you bear the responsibility for decisions made on behalf of the entire community. Please take this opportunity to make wise decisions that ensure our collective resources achieve their highest and best uses as tools of transformation.

This statement was unanimously approved by the members of the Board of Directors of Texas Impact on April 16, 2009.