$700 Million TANF Surplus: Pastors Urge Gov. Lee to Help Needy Families

Advocacy group says policy of hoarding is a moral failure

A group of Tennessee pastors affiliated with the Southern Christian Coalition called on Gov. Bill Lee to use the state's $700 million in surplus TANF funds to help families in need.

TANF, which stands for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, is designed to help families struggling to make ends meet by providing short-term assistance to meet basic needs.

The state's TANF program, known as Families First, describes the program this way:

The program provides participating families with temporary cash assistance, transportation, child care assistance, educational supports, job training, employment activities, and other support services that empower them to build a foundation for economic stability.

The Southern Christian Coalition notes that although some funds are being expended, the program holds a surplus in excess of $700 million and that those funds should be spent in order to ease the burden for economically challenged families.

On behalf of the group, Rev. Travis Meier, Pastor of First Lutheran Church of Nashville, said:

"Budgets are moral documents. They show how you distribute resources and how you invest back in your communities if you're a state overseeing a budget. Knowing that budgets are moral documents it's easy to assume that Governor Lee and the Supermajority Legislature think that corporations are more important than our children. Currently there is over $700 million in the TANF fund, $700 million of money reserved for children that are in need of housing, clothing, food, basic resources. Here in Tennessee one-fifth of our children live in poverty. Now if budgets are moral documents and we see that Governor Lee and the Supermajority are willing to give corporations tax breaks it seems amoral to me that they would leave all that money on the table and not invest it back into the wellbeing of our children. It's amoral and it's antithetical to Jesus."

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