Budgeting Compassion?

This week, I joined young people from all over the nation met in Sacramento, California to take action on a crisis.  Not the economic crisis, or the budget crisis, but a crisis of our nation’s children.  The Children’s Defense Fund, a nonprofit advocacy organization for children, gathered leaders from across the country to discuss a tragedy: the unacceptably high rates of incarceration of African American and Latino youth.

You might wonder.  What does this have to do with Christianity?  What does this have to do with government budgets?  What does this have to do with being a Democrat?  If you looked at my background, you also might wonder.  Why would an Asian American woman from the suburbs care about low-income African American boys?  Why would a public policy graduate student listen to the policy proposals of youth who never graduated from high school?  My top three reasons are God, government budgets, and the Democratic Party.

Often, we are too quick to isolate ourselves in the familiar, stick to the things we know and the people who look like us.  Often, we are afraid to reach across boundaries and tackle tough problems.  Often, we are afraid to live out the Gospel of Christ because we do not know what will happen if we do.  Yet God calls us each day to work for justice and equality, to act out of compassion and love.  As Christian Democrats, we must challenge ourselves to listen to the voices of the least of these and advocate for budgets and policies that reflect our belief in each American.