Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices: Money

Fourth Case Study: Allocating Public Money

Part I: Case Studies and Jewish Sources 25 Source 5 No slogan of democracy, no battle cry of freedom, is more striving than the American parent’s simple statement, which all of you have heard many times: “I want my child to go to college.” Lyndon Baines Johnson, quoted in The Columbia World of Quotations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), www.bartleby.com/66/13/ 31113.html (accessed December 2, 2007). Fourth Case Study: Allocating Public Money You are a state legislator. Your state, like many others, has recently required substantial budget cuts in order to remain fiscally sound. Even if taxes were raised significantly, there simply would be no way to avoid either cutting programs or reducing the amount of money allocated to them. You are committed to voting in a way that is consistent with your understanding of Jewish values. Assuming that there is no emergency in any of the following social programs but that there is a continuing need for them. Assume that the current allotments are as follows: a. Transportation (including repairing olds roads and bridges and building new ones, as well as public transportation)⫽$2.5 billion b. K–12 education (including teachers’ salaries, maintaining and constructing school buildings, administrative costs, and free lunch programs for the poor)⫽$8.25 billion c. Higher education (state college and university system)⫽$1.3 billion d. Health and human services (including retraining programs for the unemployed, senior services, services for the disabled, mental health services, and drug and alcohol abuse prevention programs)⫽$6.5 billion e. Law enforcement (including police, fire, prisons, and terrorist prevention measures)⫽$900 million f. Government (including salaries for legislators, state employees, and their aids; cars and office expenses; and communications costs)⫽$550 million g. Parks and recreation (including state parks and wildlife refuges and water conservation programs)⫽$100 million Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices: MONEY 26 Questions 1. How would you prioritize the current social programs? 2. Assume $2 billion must be cut from the state budget; how would you achieve this? Traditional Sources (Note: For traditional Jewish sources relevant to all cases, see p. 3.) 1. Leviticus 25:35–38 If your kinsman, being in straits, comes under your authority, and you hold him as though a resident alien, let him live by your side. Do not take interest or profit from him, but fear your God. Let him live by your side as kinsman. Do not lend him money at advance interest, or give him your food at accrued interest. I the LORD am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, to be your God. 2. Micah 6:8 “He has told you, O man, what is good, And what does the Lord require of you? Only to do justice And to love goodness, And to walk modestly with your God.” 3. Mishnah, Megillah 4:1 If the townspeople sell the town square [where at times religious ceremonies were performed], they may buy with the proceeds a synagogue [on the principle that we may exchange something for a more holy purpose but not for a less holy one]; if they sell a synagogue, they may buy with the proceeds an ark [in which to place scrolls of the Torah]; if they sell an ark, they may buy wrappings [for the Torah scrolls]; if they sell wrappings, they may buy scrolls [of the biblical books other than the Pentateuch]; if they sell [such] scrolls, they may buy a scroll of the Torah. But if they sell a scroll of the Torah, they may not buy with the proceeds scrolls [of the other biblical books]; if they sell scrolls [of the other biblical books], they may not buy wrappings [for the Torah scroll]; if they sell wrappings [for the Torah Part I: Case Studies and Jewish Sources 27 scroll], they may not buy an ark; if they sell an ark, they may not buy a synagogue; and if they sell a synagogue, they may not buy a town square. The same applies to any money left over [from any of these purchases]. 4. Mishnah, Sanhedrin 4:5 For this reason Adam was created alone: to teach you that destroying a single life is to destroy a whole world, even as to save a whole life is to save a whole world. And for the sake of the peace of creation, that no one should say to another, “My ancestor was greater than...