Balancing the federal budget with a constitutional amendment would slash Jewish social service programs, devastate America’s poor and hamper the Middle East peace process, many Jewish activists argue.
Alarmed by the potential ramifications, activists here have been engaged in an all-out assault on the proposed balanced budget amendment before Congress.
“What’s near and dear to many of our hearts as American Jews is at stake,” said Reva Price, director of the B’nai B’rith Political Action Network.
Activists engaged with the new Congress in the debate over the balanced budget fear the amendment is only the tip of a dangerous iceberg that presages an overall mood intent on gutting programs to save federal money.
Proposals on Capitol Hill range from cutting foreign aid to Middle East states to slashing the Justice Department’s Nazi hunting unit, the Office of Special Investigations.
The House of Representatives passed the balanced budget amendment Jan. 26 by a vote of 300 to 132.
The Senate was poised to vote on the measure Tuesday in a down-to-the-write nail-biting atmosphere of uncertainty.
If the amendment’s proponents gain the necessary two-thirds majority, or 67 votes, more senators would switch sides to avoid casting a politically dangerous vote against the amendment, activists predicted.
The amendment requires Congress and the president to balance the budget by the year 2002 or two year after the states ratify the amendment, whichever is later.
If the Senate passes the measure, 38 states would have to ratify the amendment.
The push to defeat the measure by the Jewish community was not without controversy.
Some Jewish activists chastised the American Israel Public Affairs Committee for not entering the effort to oppose the amendment.
AIPAC, the pre-eminent pro-Israel lobbying organization, has remained on the sidelines during the balanced budget debate.
Washington insiders say AIPAC has sat this one out because the organization believes that the amendment would not affect its major issues of concern: aid to Israel and the peace process.
But other Jewish activists disagree, saying Israel will suffer if the amendment finds its way into the Constitution.
Linda Heller Kamm, co-president of Americans for Peace Now, said because the amendment would have “dire consequences for the nation’s economy,” it would affect the ability of the United States to aid the peace process.
It is “highly unlikely” that the funding which secured the Camp David Accords would have been available if the amendment were in place in 1979, Kamm wrote in a recent article.
As a result of the agreement between Israel and Egypt, the United States guaranteed Israel $3 billion in annual aid and Egypt $2.1 billion.
Kamm, who also served as a former counsel to the House Budget Committee, argued that despite Israel’s strong relationship with the new Congress and the White House, “these connections may be of little avail when lawmakers are faced with the severe strictures of the balanced budget amendment.”
One activist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, called AIPAC’s decision to abstain from the debate “naive.”
“It is not possible that Israel, Egypt, the PLO and Jordan won’t suffer if this amendment becomes law. It will become impossible to protect foreign aid,” the activist said.
Another high-level official went farther, saying AIPAC’s absence is “not only naive but politically irresponsible.”
AIPAC officials, confirming their decision not to get involved in the debate, refused to comment any further on the issue.
For their part, Jewish Republicans say a balanced budget amendment “will not derail the peace process,” said Mathew Brooks, executive director of the Republican-aligned National Jewish Coalition.
Brooks said his group supports the amendment because “we have to rethink and reprioritize how our government spends money.
“Ultimately, there has to be some sacrifice,” he said.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that Congress would have to cut $1.2 trillion to balance the budget by 2002.
Assuming that Social Security, defense spending and interest payments on the debt are removed from the cutting block, the federal government would have to look toward the other half of the budget to save.
Among the big ticket items likely to be targeted are Medicare, Medicaid and welfare as well as smaller programs, including foreign aid and housing subsidies.
Analysts across the political spectrum estimate that programs across the board would suffer at least a 25 percent cut.
In addition to acting out of concern for major cuts in programs, many Jewish organizations have fought the measure because of their opposition to meddling with the Constitution.
“The Constitution is a well-balanced and durable document that shouldn’t be tampered with for short-term political gain,” said Jason Isaacson, director of the American Jewish Committee’s Washington office.
AJCommittee, like most Jewish organizations with a presence in Washington, sent letters to members of Congress arguing against the balanced budget amendment.
The amendment “is a gimmick” that will promote “the very opposite of sound economic policy,” the AJCommittee letter to senators said.
Diana Aviv, director of the Washington office of the Council of Jewish Federations, said the question is not the principal of a balanced budget. She, like most Jewish activists, said the budget should be balanced.
“The issue is the length of time and the way you do it,” Aviv said. “You don’t balance the budget in such a Draconian way and enshrine it in the Constitution.”
Aviv said she began fighting against the balanced budget amendment two years ago when Sen. Paul Simon (D-I11.) proposed a measure that was ultimately defeated.
“This is not about Republicans or Democrats,” Aviv said.
As evidence that the balanced budget amendment is just a precursor of things to come, Jewish groups point to other potentially alarming moves on Capitol Hill.
Various subcommittees on the House side have begun to pass rescissions to last year’s budget in anticipation of offering a tax cut and funding for disaster relief.
Plans now under consideration would cut programs “that provide indispensable assistance to the most disadvantaged members of our society,” David Kahn, president of the American Jewish Congress, wrote in a letter to House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) this week.
House appropriations subcommittees have proposed a number of cost-cutting measures, from slashing education programs for homeless youth, school lunch funds, energy assistance for the poor and low-income public housing for the poor and elderly.
These programs “should not be eliminated or destroyed in a frenzied drive-by shooting process that victimizes the poor,” Kahn wrote.
A House subcommittee also proposed scaling back President Clinton’s proposed $285 million debt relief for Jordan.
Instead the committee proposed $50 million, which would forgive about $105 million in Jordanian debt. Clinton’s request would have wiped out Jordan’s remaining $500 million in debt to the United States.
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