In his budget for 2004-05, Governor Schwarzenegger proposes to cut food assistance, health care and other safety net services to the working poor and their children. It's indicative of the corner that our elected leaders have backed themselves into in recent years. After all the rhetoric about "cutting waste," he is in fact proposing to cut sustenance for tens of thousands of families.

When Finance Director Donna Arduin outlines budget "solutions" that include cuts in child care for mothers in welfare-to-work programs, or reducing services to the homebound, she is shredding safety net services that have proven to be valuable and efficient. At Catholic Charities, we're terribly concerned about the impact on struggling families, but we're also concerned about the dubious reasoning that underlies these proposals.

Fundamentally, the governor and a number of Legislators from both parties misdiagnose the cause of California's fiscal woes. They lay blame with State spending and neglect to acknowledge the role of tax cuts in creating the deficit. Since 1998-99, the State has enacted $5.6 billion in tax breaks. Since 1991 the state has enacted tax cuts costing $9 billion. Since 1981, corporate income taxes have fallen 46 percent. This doesn't even include federal tax cuts that affect state tax collections. By comparison, State spending has not kept pace with the growth in personal income.

Catholic social teaching has long upheld a positive view of government. Contrary to a libertarian view, we don't believe that government is by its nature wasteful. On the contrary, our tradition holds that government has a number of valuable roles, including education, police and protection of the poor and vulnerable. We believe that as a society we have a duty and responsibility to one another, which is mediated in part through government.

Moving from the philosophical to the practical level, however, many of the Governor's cuts to the safety net are further ill advised and not simply because of the harm they will cause the poor. In the case of food stamps, the Governor's proposal will mean losing major federal funding --- money that most other states gladly claim.

Most of the 100,000 people that would be cut off of assistance under the Governor's plan are receiving food stamps from the federal government. Specifically, the proposed $4 million cut in state administration will translate into a $202 million loss in federal program funds. Aside from the families that need the aid, this is also a major loss to California grocers, distributors and farmers. It eventually ripples back to the State, in the form of diminished tax revenue.

I'm not an accountant and don't claim to be expert in fiscal policy. But we at Catholic Charities know a lot about serving the poor, and we can tell you that the governor's plan will increase waste, not reduce it, because food stamps are actually a very efficient way of distributing food.

In contrast to collecting and transporting canned goods and assembling them into boxes for distribution, or cooking and serving meals at soup kitchens, food stamps allow a family to select exactly what they need, when they need it. Most food stamp recipients have minimum wage jobs (often more than one job), and although they need assistance, they can't easily afford the time to find and secure a box of donated food.

Every Catholic has a stake in this discussion. Over the past two decades, we've seen a tremendous increase in the number of hungry people coming to parish doors --- a reflection of a changing economy and of federal cuts. As a consequence, we at Catholic Charities have had to divert resources from job training and counseling in order to handle emergency food and shelter services. We'd rather be spending our time promoting long-term self-sufficiency, but our first obligation is the immediate health and survival of the poor.

As people of faith, we need to confront rhetoric that glibly equates assistance to the poor with waste. Over the next several months in Sacramento, this will be a central issue as the Governor and Legislature attempt to develop a state budget. Let's encourage our representatives to seriously take into account the needs of the poor.

Rick Mockler is the executive director of Catholic Charities of California. He can be reached at rmockler@cacatholic.org.