this week on "moyers & company" -- nuns hit the highway on a road trip of faith and politics. >> the ryan budget cuts social services, devastates social services. they want you to think they're giving it to the deficit, but they're not. what they're doing is they're cutting taxes for the wealthy. >> come along for the ride. then, sister simone campbell and robert royal join me in the studio. >> let's not forget, there is no free lunch at the end of the day. that when something is paid for through a government program, it comes out of other people's pockets. >> announcer: funding provided

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welcome to our take on one of the hottest controversies of this overheated summer. my two guests have some insights you'll want to hear on faith and politics. sister simone campbell heads the catholic activist group network based in washington, d.c. a lawyer and poet, she has long been a fearless advocate for the poor and marginalized in america, so fearless she recently took on two other combative catholics, bill o'reilly and his alter ego, stephen colbert. robert royal is founder and president of the faith and reason institute, also in washington, dedicated, in his words, to "the twin strands out of which america and any good and free social fabric are woven." he is also editor-in-chief of this online publication, "the catholic thing," and the author of many books, including "the god that did not fail: how religion built and sustains the west." but first, buckle your seat belts. we're going to take a road trip

across america's heartland with "nuns on the bus." and as you watch, remember, this cross-country journey took place two mmonths before paul ryan became mitt romney's choice for vice president. >> faith is like walking through a mist with your eyes wide open. reminds me of when i was a kid in long beach and we'd stand out at the bus stop in the fog, and we'd try to tell by the headlights, was it a bus or was it a truck? you know, what was it? for me, looking down the road, i don't know. i don't have a clue. i just know this step is the right step. >> so it was that on a steamy morning earlier this summer, sister simone campbell and a handful of other nuns gathered in des moines, iowa, to set out

on a journey of faith and politics. simone belongs to the order of the sisters of social service. she is also an attorney who heads the catholic social justice lobby, network based in washington, d.c. >> will we move beyond individualism back to the principles of our founding fathers and mothers, i've asked, to be "we the people of the united states." >> she found herself in a bit of hot holy water when the vatican singled out network for not promoting all of the church's doctrines with equal verve. suddenly, the nuns were in the news. >> the vatican chastised the leadership conference of women religious, america's largest group of catholic nuns for caring too much about the very poor, and not spending enough time crusading against abortion and same-sex marriage. >> this small group of nuns in the catholic church is going feminist, and the vatican is obviously, figure of speech,

slapping them down. >> is this a group of radical feminists teaching outside the doctrines of the church? >> oh, heavens no. that's just ridiculous. >> we work every day to live as jesus did in relationship to people at the margins of our society. that's all we do. >> that's a cheap applause line -- jesus. you can throw jesus into anything and people are going to applaud. >> sister simone seized on her unexpected celebrity, and with the support of thousands of individual donors and a sympathetic labor union, she and four of her sisters-in-alms took to the road. from des moines to d.c., they would ride in solidarity with the poorest among us. >> network's mission from its beginning is about economic justice issues. we were founded 40 years ago by 47 catholic sisters to be the voice for and with those at the

margins of society all over the country. and so, it seemed like a great convergence to have this notoriety used for the sake of our mission. we know that the house-passed ryan budget will devastate our nation. and most people don't know what's going on. and that's why we decided to take to the road in our rather glorious bus. >> the primary message of their mission was to sound an alarm about the federal budget recently passed by the republican majority in the house. a budget titled "the path to prosperity" by its author, republican congressman, and now vice presidential candidate, paul ryan. >> what we're doing is trying to let people know that the ryan budget cuts social services, devastates social services, cuts food stamps. and while they're cutting all the social services, well what are they going to do with the money? they want you to think they're giving it to the deficit, but they're not. what they're doing is they're cutting taxes for the wealthy.

>> especially galling to the sisters was that paul ryan, a fellow catholic, was invoking the church's doctrine of social teaching as justification for his priorities. >> i feel it's important to discuss how, as a catholic in public life, my own personal thinking on these issues have been guided by my understanding of the church's social teaching. simply put, i don't believe that the preferential option for the poor means a preferential option for big government. >> preferential option for the poor is an essential component of catholic social teaching. it holds that the needs of the poor should always be of primary consideration, and is the foundation of the church's ideal that the moral test of any society is how it treats its most vulnerable members. a test that the u.s. conference of catholic bishops says the ryan budget fails. declaring that it "will hurt hungry children, poor families, vulnerable seniors and workers who cannot find employment,"

these cuts, say the bishops, "are unjustified and wrong." >> of course, there can be differences among faithful catholics on this. the work i do, as a catholic holding office, conforms to the social doctrine as best i can make of it. what i have to say about the social doctrine of the church is from the viewpoint of a catholic in politics applying my understanding to the problems of the day. the overarching threat to our whole society today is the exploding federal debt. the holy father himself, pope benedict, has charged that governments, communities and individuals running up high debt levels are, "living at the expense of future generations and living in untruth." >> i wish he would talk to us i'd like to say, "well, how are thinking about this? what part of your catholic social teaching did you miss?" catholic social teaching is all about building community together. >> three hours northeast of des

moines, after stops in ames and cedar rapids, the nuns stopped in the river town of dubuque, where they visited a food pantry run by the sisters of the presentation. a charity already burdened by need, which would surly feel the weight of ryan's intended cuts to the food stamp program. >> and we usually get anywhere from 15,000 to maybe 20,000 pounds of food at that time. >> sister lynn wagner is the pantry's director. >> we have the elderly who can't make it on their social security payments or pension payments that they have. we have single-parent families, we have two-parent families. we have kids out of college that can't get a job that pays enough to pay rent and all that. a lot of jobs are minimum wage, basic pay, and that just doesn't cut it anymore. when groceries go up, and when milk is two bucks for a half gallon or something like that. it's just -- people can't make it.

>> most of these people that are using food stamps make a little bit above minimum wage and they still are in poverty. but the choice has been made to allow businesses to pay low wages. the idea is to keep costs down, increase productivity. but people have increased their productivity and their wages have not gone up. so from my point of view, this isn't charity. this isn't a handout. whether you like it or not, these are business subsidies. we have a choice as a nation. we can either provide a real safety net so that workers can eat, or we can mandate living wage. it's a choice. our choice recently of late has been to do the safety net, but now they want to do away with the safety net and say it's the people receiving the benefits fault. >> they're punishing you, but your children are the ones that get punished. by myself, i would be fine, but i have two little ones. it ain't about me, it's them. kids can't fend for

themselves. that's what they depend on you to do. >> can you imagine the struggle of that? to be able to care for your family and you can't put food on the table? in the richest country? it breaks my heart, breaks my heart. >> traveling east from dubuque, the nuns crossed the mississippi, heading for the lion's den -- paul ryan's home district in wisconsin. they arrived at the congressman's office in janesville to a heroes' welcome. >> when i was in catholic school, nuns weren't my heroes and i never thought i'd see the day where i forgave them and they were my total heroes, and that's what's happened. >> this is really a courageous move on their parts, and the fact that they're standing up for social justice -- that's what they're talking about here, social justice for

everybody. that is a major, courageous thing that they are doing. >> this is sister marge clark. >> paul ryan was still in washington, where congress remained in session, so the nuns were left to meet with his staff. >> i want to talk to paul ryan, i want to understand what he sees, learn from that and see if there's a way that we can be more effective, that we can claim our culture back, that we can claim our government back, that we can govern, not for stalemate or political points, but we can solve the problems, the serious problems of this 21st century. and talking to people who think differently when i can keep my patience is a really good way to do that. >> the meeting was cordial, and the confrontation the press would have loved to see never came to pass. >> what we are here to do is to lift up a different point of view and to say, "let's talk." the media is used to messages of fighting, and uses sports metaphors all the time. it's who scored points, who's

down for the count, who committed a foul. it's reduced it to making the citizens couch potatoes. because they think, "oh, it's a game. i'll watch, i'll wear my button. i'll wear my team's colors, i'll root." but democracy is all about the need for us as responsible people to govern ourselves. it's we the people. it's not we the politicians, or we the rich people or we citizens united. it's we the people. and we're losing our democracy. >> from janesville, the nuns carried their message across wisconsin, then south into the land of lincoln. >> the issue isn't that the people at the top are bad. the issue is not that this is class warfare. the issue is that we are all better when we all share.

>> they called out and called on congressmen who voted for the ryan plan while promoting their own faithful budget. >> that was created by the christian, muslim and jewish communities coming together -- >> a fiscal plan that they say is more in line with the values of a just nation. everywhere they went, a crowd was there to greet them. catholics and non-catholics alike gathered to bless the nun's journey. >> when we get off the bus and people see us, and they've got signs of support, that is just absolutely an incredible connection. >> sister diane donoghue calls herself a persistent activist. and she's proved it by walking alongside the poor for the better part of 60 years from india to east l.a. >> jesus talks about feeding the hungry, clothing the naked,

healing the sick. so it isn't like we've invented something in the last 150 years. we go back to the teachings of jesus. we are the church, the people of god. and so when you talk church you're talking about people coming together in a faithful response, and looking at and responding to the signs of the times. and our signs of the times right now is that the people at the top, who have the loudest voice and the most money, have an incredible amount of influence in terms of priorities. for people at the top to have a tax break is just totally unjust. people at the bottom need the revenue for services that really

count. >> in the concrete desert of chicago's south side, they come to an oasis called mercy housing. built by private donations and public funds, as a home for nearly 100 people who had been otherwise left to wander through this economic wasteland. that's where the nuns met shiesha smith. >> i grew up on the west side of chicago. around my teenage years, i was placed into foster care due to my mother's drug addiction. i witnessed a lot of bad things at an early age, but i maintained in school, i kept good grades, i was ranked 38th in my class and i went on to college. but i was pretty much just having a hard time with staying stable, and i think that had a lot to do with growing up.

it was kind of hard, you know, being stable so i took it on into my adulthood. >> shiesha wound up living on the streets, seeking refuge in homeless shelters. at age 24, she was convicted of drug possession and sentenced to two years probation. seven years later, she has found stability at mercy housing. >> the first step in getting yourself stable is having somewhere to come to call home. a roof over your head that's safe. an environment that's safe. if i didn't have mercy, i wouldn't be safe right now. i know a lot of us may say we need help, and we don't. i know that. i know some of us may play the system for our own advantage. i know that, too. however, i also know that there's people out there that do need it. and we should stick together to allow them opportunity to live, and know what life is.

life is not about struggling day to day. it's about living. help people live. >> the bus rolled on from illinois to indiana, then into michigan and ohio. the nuns on the bus were welcomed as messengers of good news, like the evangels of old. everywhere they went, they visited the places where other women of faith are the few among the desperate many. >> we are 150 years old, and my first reason for coming to st. augustine's was to work with the deaf. >> in cleveland, ohio, sister corita ambro breathes what life she can into the community around st. augustine's parish where she runs the church's hunger center. >> who fixed your hair so pretty? >> these people that come into

this hunger center, i love each and every single one of them, and they know that. and they'll often come to me and say, "can i have a hug today? i need a hug." because they need somebody to let them know that they are loved. and i found out the hard way that a touch is really important for so many of these people. i had a gentleman that came down into the hunger center and i gave him a huge hug and just, you know, thanked him for coming. one of the homeless men came up to me and he tapped me on the shoulder and he says, "you know what?" he said, "sister, i'm angry with you." i said, "well, why? why are you angry with me?" he says, "you know, i've been coming to eat here for three years and never once did you receive me the way you received him." and i couldn't. this gentleman had lice in his hair, his nose was on his beard, he was just a mess. he had at least five to seven coats on, and he stunk to high heaven. i just said to him, "jimmy, one of these days," because i didn't know how to handle it. one of these days.

and i remember going home and crying because i couldn't do it. i couldn't hug him. okay. and it was the hardest thing in the world. and every day, he'd come in and say, "is today the day? is today the day?" and i couldn't for a while. but through prayer and pushing myself, i got to the day when i could give jimmy a hug. and that day, something happened inside my heart, which opened it up to something i can never explain, and ever since that day i've been able to hug any one of them that walks into this hall. no matter what they smell like, no matter what they look like, no matter who they are. >> oh, heavenly father -- >> reginald anderson is one of the hundreds of people a day who have come to rely on the safe harbor of st. augustine's while they navigate the shallow waters of cleveland's economy. >> -- in jesus holy name we pray, amen. i wish that trickle-down effect would trickle on down to us. because everyone says that the economy is getting better, but it is i guess for those that have the money to sit back and weather the storm.

for those that don't have the economic wherewithal to sit back and weather out that storm, it's kind of hard. we live in the day to day realities of life, you know trying to pay bills, trying to eat, trying to feed our families, trying to clothe our families. you know, i don't really pay much attention to what the experts say as far as the forecasting of the economy is. i look at the people around me and i see, are they eating? are they paying bills? are they getting evicted? and that's my barometer of just how well the economy is doing. if i could -- if i could just simply wave a magic wand and put all the politicians in the shoes of the average american, let them wonder how they're going to pay next month's rent or mortgage. i think once they saw just how hard it was for the average person, i think they'd have a whole different outtake on governing. >> from ohio, their journey took them east through pennsylvania with stops in pittsburgh, harrisburg, hershey and philadelphia.

then south into maryland and virginia. they stopped to visit with farmers who grow produce destined for local food pantries. and celebrate mass with a congregation of immigrants in richmond. finally, 14 days and some three thousand miles after they left des moines, the nuns on the bus pulled into the nation's capitol. >> nuns in the bus, speak for not just for catholics, not for christians only, not for jews, they speak for all of us. >> as great and educational as this trip was, as inspirational as this trip was, it was also a journey of heartbreak and anguish.

and it was a journey of hope. for me, this trip has been totally about touching the pain of the world as real for all these people we've seen and being hopeful. we have hope that the pain of the world isn't the end of the story. and that frees our imagination to think of our world in a new place. to think of this place between the partisan politics to a center, to think of a church where everyone could be cared for. to think of a lobby like ours, where we could really be voices for the folks who are at the margins. it frees up our imagination. the bus trip was a prophetic imagination, it turns out, and who knew it? it's fabulous. this is pledge time for public television. some stations with be stepping away from us briefly to ask for your support. for the mst aoment.l l resume ijust a moment.

>> announcer: we now continue with "moyers & company." sister simone, this trip thoroughly entwines you in faith and politics. and now you're engaged in a partisan battle over the ryan budget. what does this activism do for your contemplative life, which i know is very much a part of who you are? >> well, it's the -- from my perspective, it's the fruit of my contemplative life. for me, the contemplative life is all about listening deeply to the movement of the spirit among us and to touch the heart of what might frighten me or touch the heart of where jesus would go in the gospel. and so listening deeply to the needs of the world around us, we've got to be engaged politically in our nation. >> but does it make you uncomfortable? do you feel vulnerable? >> oh, i feel scared, a number of times, yes. but the thing is when it comes from that deep inside space where you're listening to the gospel and listening to the spirit alive in our world, it

just seems right. it just seems right. >> at the same time, you've been criticized by the conservative bishop of paul ryan's own diocese in wisconsin, bishop robert morlino of madison. here's a video. >> is this an appropriate thing for a group of sisters to be engaged in? >> congressman ryan has made his prudential judgment about how best to serve the long term needs of the poor. he has done that in accord with i don't have to approve his decision or his budget or what i do approve of is that he is a responsible catholic layman, who understands his mission and carries it out very responsibly. i would think, though, that the religious sisters should concentrate on giving that witness of holiness of all the wonderful works that they do, rather than bussing around for political issues.

is it hard to be criticized by one of your bishops? >> well, i don't know what bishop morlino was thinking. i know paul ryan is being-- i mean, he keeps saying that it's so i can affirm that. the problem is that our bishops firmly say that this budget's immoral. it fails the moral test, so there are some inconsistencies there. so i don't take the criticism as being as, i don't know, as painful as it would otherwise be. >> on the other hand, a parish priest in bishop morlino's diocese, who used to be the ryan family's pastor says ryan's austerity budget is inconsistent so robert, help us non- catholics sort this out. what's this debate all about?

how much time have snigt well, look, one of the things we have to be clear out to begin with is how catholics think about morals principles. there are certain moral principles that are absolutes. you can't commit murder. you can't commit adultery. you can't steal. these are things that apply to everybody in every circumstance, without exception. when we step into the political realm, as we're doing in this particular case, things become very complicated. and i myself don't have a perfect answer for every bit of the problem that we face right now. there's some very big questions being put to us as a society. we see on the one hand that a sister and her fellow sisters rightly show, we need to support the poor. and i agree entirely with that. these are people who are absolutely at the margins. and i agree entirely with that. now the big question is always how best to do that. >> you mean financially. the fiscal cliff everybody's -- >> lead us off the fiscal cliff. so there are differences when we

get into -- the bishop used the term "prudential judgments." now it's prudential judgment to say that we need a larger support tem. medicaid or other support systems for the absolutely poor. but the prior question that has to be answered, when we think about social justice, is, "is there going to be excess wealth to be distributed? is thereing a going to be a functioning system? it seems to me to be missing in much of what's talked about in certain catholic circles, when you talk about social justice or the preferential option for the poor. >> given that, would you have been theologically comfortable on the bus? >> probably not. probably not. because my own work is, of course, different than what the nuns do. my own work is to think about larger questions about how religion and politics intersect. and i found that this is a country whose tradition --

and we have to respect the country that we're in. if you lived in france or some other countries, they're quite used to centralized systems. we're not in the united states. alexis de tocqueville, the frenchman who wrote the famous book "democracy in america" came to the united states -- >> 1830s. >> right. and he was flabbergasted. he said famously that in france where you see the state, in america you see a private association. i myself, i mean, this is kind of a joke, but i don't hear jesus go to matthew the tax collector and say, "matthew, you need to collect more taxes." he's speaking to people individually. it has to begin at that level, with obviously some governmental role in some of these issues. >> in the bible, as you say, when jesus speaks of helping the poor, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, taking in the sick, he says, you do it. he doesn't say, "go and ask caesar or go and get the senate to pass taxes. when jesus looked at the rich man, whom the bible tells us he

loved, he said, go, sell what you own and give the money to the poor. and you have have treasure in heaven. it was westbound a personal act of sacrifice. do you see the point in what robert is saying? >> i think absolutely. what we saw on the bus trip were personal acts of sacrifice. problem is that we've got now, is that the problem is so huge, it is so far beyond individual charity. additionally we have the teaching within our church that pope benedict xvi makes very clear that until we have justice, we can't have charity. and the idea that largesse alone, on the part of the extremely wealthy, will fix this problem is really wrong. it has not happened over the last ten years, when the wealth gap in our nation has grown so dramatically. we also know from catholic social teaching that the role of government is to positively balance out the excesses of any culture. our current excess is this huge, individualistic i've got mine, nobody else can have it approach. so we, in catholic social teaching, pope benedict teaches, in charity and truth -- charity and truth was cyclical. >> cyclical. that the role of government then

becomes to balance out excess. i would agree if people would generously give, if we didn't have the huge wealth gap, if we didn't have years of millions of people in our country being without health care, if we didn't have all this experience of the poor becoming poorer, that the minimum wage doesn't even get people out of poverty now, i would think, okay, just le bonheur let the free market do it. it's failed. it's time we say it. it's failed. >> let me interrupt you. you tend to put this in very black and white terms. it's only this, or we need this. let's just look at the history of the catholic church, take that. and there are other christian denominations, jewish groups. the churches and other religious bodies in this country built the university system. they built the schools. they built hospitals. they built elaborate cathedrals. all without any government intervention. now, we live in a different age than in those older days, but it's not impossible. i take it that the nuns on the bus also want to inspire people in the private sector to come together and to do things.

and let's not forget, there is no free lunch at the end of the day. when something is paid for through a government program, it comes out of other people's pockets. the question is not should it be -- there are certain things we're going to decide should be done and others we don't want to have to be done. the question is whether that's the best way to do these things that must be done. i myself have gone out with the children, they hated this when they were younger, and stood outside of supermarkets and asked people to get food. we were going to put it in a shopping cart and take it to a local soup kitchen. the kids hated it. it would have been much easier to take the equivalent dollar amounts. there's something about that personal commitment to other people that is very different than paying taxes to a government program. >> i agree. most of those programs that we saw on the road, that's what they did. but what is difficult now, the need is so huge.

there's such a huge need. do you know bread for the world figured out that with the cuts in the ryan budget that we've been talking about, just food stamps alone, because congressman ryan says that churches can take care of it -- >> i didn't say that. i'm saying that's one of the elements. >> this is what congressman ryan -- i'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but congressman ryan says, "churches will take care of it. but bread for the, who specializes in -- >> it's an organization that deals with hunger around the world. >> everyone would have to raise $50,000 additional money every year, for ten years, in order to meet the amount of money that's being cut from the food stamp program. that's not possible. what we saw on the bus trip was that sisters take some federal money. we leverage it with private money. we leverage it with volunteers. we leverage it with corporate

cricks. we make effective programs. but it's federal money is the cornerstone of making these works. >> i agree with the sister that this is a huge problem. we know that from current debates about the economy that something like half of the people in the united states currently receive federal checks of some sort. they get federal support of some kind. there's something wrong with this. it seems to me that the catholic vision is not simply to to counter-balance -- >> i agree. >> what is right or wrong in a given society. the catholic vision says initially through the concept called subsidiarit."

>> paul ryan uses that word, by the way. what's the definition? a working definition? well, look, subsidiarity is really a vision of the whole of society. what it says is in essence, the lowest level of a society that is capable, that can take care of a problem, should deal with it. so in a normal course of affairs parents go out and earn a living, take care of their children, provide for their needs, education, et cetera. then you may have kind of-- neighborhood associations, churches, specific towns and cities. and you only kick the can, so to speak, up to the federal or even an international level, when there's no other body that can deal with the problem as it exists. now unfortunately it seems to me that we look very quickly to the federal government, because we assume it's only the federal government that can take care of these things. but there is something wrong when something like 70 percent of the taxes that get paid, get paid by the top 10 percent. so that's a pretty significant chunk from people who are so-called wealthy and not paying their fair share. and yet, there's a massive problem that exists in society. one of the things that a person of my general perspective would argue is that the ideal, the ideal that we begin by saying that there are responsibilities that our ideal is to try to make sure that those families are able to do things for themselves and then other communities, and only turn to the higher levels

of government. turning to government is, of course, very dangerous. this is a last resort. it's like going to war. >> let me play for you paul ryan's response to a question about the policy implications of his own interpretation of catholic social teaching. here it is. >> talk to me a little about morality and the debt. where does your catholic faith play into the way this budget proposal was crafted? >> well, a person's faith is central to how they conduct themselves, in public and in private. so to me using my catholic faith, we call it the social magisterium, which is how do you apply the doctrine of your teaching into your everyday life as a layperson. to me, the principle of s subsidiarity, which principle of subsidiarity, which is really federalism, meaning government closest to the people governs best. having a civil society of the principal of solidarity where

we, through our civic organizations, through our churches, through our charities, through our different groups where we interact with people as a community, that's how we advance the common good. by not having big government crowd out civic society, but by having enough space in our communities so that we can interact with each other, and take care of people who are down and out in our communities. those principles are very, very important, and the preferential option for the poor, which is one of the primary tenets of catholic social teaching, means don't keep people poor, don't make people dependent on government so that they stay stuck at their station in life. help people get out of poverty onto a life of independence. >> that is very close to what you think? >> well, i have qualifications about that. first of all, subsidiarity is not just about government. it's not about federalism. he then went on to talk about civil society institutions. that is very much -- and we should talk about individuals, individual initiative, individual responsibility, as you were pointing out, is jesus talking to you saying, you must do this thing. we have to take a dynamic view of economies. economics is a matter of

dynamism. when we talk about minimum wage, for example, i've debated this. i've tried to talk it through with economists. economists, of course, disagree about everything. either you need more stimulus or you need, you know, less. >> that's why you're here and not the economists. yes, you've got a couple and look at them on tv, wow, they are just holding on by their fingernails. suppose the minimum wage made that job go away, which tends to happen in certain circumstances. not always. this is also another thing that has to be factored into the dynamic nature of what an economy is. so the circumstances that you're in may make it okay to raise the minimum wage. if the economy is booming, maybe it helps. in other circumstances, you may actually find yourself with an unintended consequence that not only is that family holding on with minimum wage, it has no job anymore. that might be the most tragic thing of all.

>> that's the scare tactic used on minimum wage in california. we ended up raising minimum wage. what happened is the economy grew. the problem is, if we believe in the free market, you shift money to get the economy going. you shiite money where there's pent-up demand. where is their pent-up demand now? at the bottom not the top. >> doesn't the paul ryan budget try to fix the economic woes we're on the back of the poor? the bishop seems to be saying -- >> bill, i think that that's really putting it rather strongly. i mean, if you look at paul ryan, does he look like the kind of guy who just says, the heck

with the poor. we need to get america going. we, you know, going to throw these people under the bus. excuse me sister, "and, damn the torpedos. you know, we're going to go straight ahead and we're going to make -- i think that he knows and some of the positions that they are -- anybody who has lived in washington or dealt with these issues knows you may have to start out a little bit further along than you really want to be at, so that when you inevitably begin to walk some things back, you at least get on the table that there are some hard choices that have to be made. what we're facing right now is unprecedented. i mean, i think we agree -- >> in terms of? >> in terms of the size of the economic difficulty that we face. maybe in the 1920's and the 30's during the great depression, something on a similar scale got going. but we're talking about the possibility-- and if europe and the euro start to go south on us-- the possibility of a global economic downturn, yet again. there are already countries in europe that are in negative growth right now, several of them. not only greece, but italy, spain, and a couple of others. if that comes to the

united states and we have no plan for what are we going to do if there are not revenues that are available for many of the things that we want to do, then we're even in worse trouble. and in-- we're in worse trouble from trying to support the poor as much as for the rest of the society. >> i find myself troubled by that. i share your concern about the financial circumstances. but i think the analysis is sorely lacking. what has happened over the last 12 years has been we did have a surplus in our budget. it could have been remedied. we had two tax cuts, significant tax cuts that shifted money to the top. we then decided to go to war twice. we chose not to pay for them. we then did the t.a.r.p. that's true. it added to the rescue -- that added to some of the -- >> the bailout. >> the bailout. and we have an aging population. all those facets are putting pressure on our current population. none of those facets putting pressure because of social programs. >> given the realities you both have described, why not support a living wage as opposed to these harsh austerity measures. your bishops and others say will fall hardest on the people you visited this summer. what is a living wage, bill?

enough for a family to -- >> even if we got the buying power that minimum wage had in the 1907s, that would be significant because it would put people above the poverty level. i understand it would be something like $12 an hour. isn't that fair? the pieces argued, global economy, integrated, we can't have high wages. the piece i find most problematic in that when ceos have had this tremendous escalation in their salaries and the shareholders get these tremendous dividends and yet none shared with the workers at the bottom. that to me is wrong, it's immoral. it's a problem. >> yes, it's a problem there's been this increase in income equality. i agree entirely. i think some of it has been, frankly, obscene. but it's not been shared with workers. workers in the united states live better than the average worker ever before. >> but the wages of working people have been stag napt

for -- >> thirty years. >> up a little bit. but largely stagnant. that does seem to me to be a critical issue. >> there's so many moving parts in the economy. if you try -- what would a living wage be for? if you're talking about $20 an hour, $20, $25, $15. if we think that it's possible sort of from the top to specify what different parts of the economy will be, we're not allowing the market to do what it does so brilliantly. that is it allows people to make judgments and adjust certain things. after all, not every person working is working for some large corporation who has a ceo making $300 million here. most jobs, most new jobs created are in small business, as everybody knows, this means businesses around the margins that maybe in their startup years are going to have to be austere. they are inviting people to

invest themselves, not only their time, in making these companies government it can make a difference whether somebody has a better looking job down the line or not. i'm very skeptical. i think one of the weak spots is it looks as if it's easy to command what a living wage would be. it's not all that easy to determine at all. >> i think it's very easy to say way more than $7.25 an hour. additionally i think it's easy to say in our society right now with mobility the way it is and people moving across boundaries, the idea we have a little community that everybody knows each other, may happen in janesville but doesn't happen in the rest of the nation. there's big issues to be dealt with. >> your visits on the bus tour are to community-run programs and they are making a difference to the people we saw in the film. while he's short on specifics, paul ryan claims his budget will empower those very kind of commune-centered solutions. the problem of poverty the

federal beaurocracy has not been able to solve. are you willing to give him a chance on that? >> absolutely not. the fact is that the federal government has been supporting in part these very programs we're at. what people don't know is that the federal government money helps at the cornerstone. i totally agree, so big, so complex, we all need to be part of the solution, individual, business, corporation, and government. we all need to work together on it. congressman ryan would prefer just to pull the government out. it's not reasonable, it's not possible, it's not doable. my people would suffer. >> sister, are you saying there are positions in paul ryan's budget that just pull out the federal government and welfare. >> that significantly curtail it and with medicaid -- especially with medicaid and some of the other, the health care provisions of that, that would decimate, decimate services. >> my understanding is that it would lead to about 10 million people, an estimated 10 million

people losing food stamps. >> another 20 million people losing health care coverage. >> paul ryan speaks about the dependence developing on welfare programs. is that your concern -- one of your concerns that dependence is the unintended consequence of good, benevolent intentions on the part of government. >> sister had people we want to support. i agree it's a heart wrenching thing to see people put in those circumstances, but what's the alternative. we've seen this -- >> good question. what is the alternative. >> change the wealth gap. that's a big part of the problem, the rich have gotten dramatically -- >> how do you do that? >> i agree it's complex. part of it is tax structure. hedge fund folks that make billions of dollars but pay way less percentage to what you and i pay. >> 15% to the third we pay on ours. >> exactly.

there are a lot of fixes where there's more revenue out there. >> you can confiscate the wealth at the top 1%. i forget what the figure is but it lasts -- maybe covers one budget deficit. >> that's a step. >> in the normal course of affairs, subsidiary, one of the great discoveries of the 20th century because it started to come forward -- >> which means. >> we talked about this with paul ryan, not simply different levels of government operating it's the difference of society as a whole which includes the role of the government, federal and international governments, it goes all the way down to the responsibilities of individuals. at each level there are responsibilities that in the ideal circumstance we want to see those different levels operating on their own. >> the piece missing in this whole conversation is the impact of solidarity. we'd like to think they are

dichotomy but they aren't, they u.n.ity. as long as everybody had a strong sense of solidarity, so i hold your concerns, your worries, your engagement as important as my own. and that i make my decisions as much for the group in sense of solidarity for the group and for everyone else up the chain that you very well spoke of, that's solidarity. >> i think all people -- everybody i know, you'd have to be a monster not to have any interest in people poor around the united states and the people around the world. the difficult of what you're talking about, seems to me, i try not to quote libertarians but i'm going to quote friedreich von hayek. >> the austrian economist. >> the austrian economist, who called this "the fatal conceit."

that we can know, you know, "i'm going to be in my desire for solidarity, i know what to do about that and i know what to do about that and i know to what to do about that. we don't. >> i agree. >> one of the reasons why the market properly fenced around with institutions works so beautifully is it allows the intelligence and the practical application of various people in all sorts of areas that we can't possibly know the details of. it allows those people with their own dynamism and creativity and intelligence to do things that a central planner cannot do. >> you said something quite important, that markets work as long as there are fences around them. but you seem to think that democracy no longer serves as a brake on raw and unregulated capitalism. >> absolutely. for me, i really think this is about the soul of our nation and will democracy work or will we continue this polarized yelling at each other, the talking heads. i'm grateful for this conversation. but can we talk together about how do we solve it. i agree it's complex. i agree the answer is not government. i agree that the way forward has to include the market. but i also know it is not working now, and we need to find some new mechanisms.

>> is there any common ground? >> yeah. i would absolutely say a prudential approach to this set of circumstances is to say those people who are just holding on, we can't simply abandon them. we have to find some other ways. but we have to make -- we have to attempt to move from where we are now to someplace else. i myself would lean more towards less government, because there's the perennial danger. this goes back forever in political philosophy that it's dangerous to give powers over to government. >> robert royal, sister simone campbell, thank you very much for this conversation. >> thank you. >> thank you. ♪ that's it for this week. at billmoyers.com we have more

to say about poverty and american politics in a web-only video essay. there's also additional coverage of thethbue s r. nuns on the bu. see you theranyoe se seu here see you theranyoe se seu here next time.e -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com

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