Time and time again, since the beginning of the current economic crisis, politicians and commentators have told us that “a budget is a moral document.”  Just last week Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners asserted in a blog post that we are missing a simple religious principle in our budget debates: budget cuts should effect the wealthy, not those in need.  Rev. Brian McLaren has called budget cuts that affect the impoverished “morally unacceptable.”  We hear it so often because the phrase conveniently works for both sides of the debate.  Conservatives argue that it is immoral for the government to continue spending so much money, and end up foisting an ever-growing public debt onto the next generation of Americans.  Those on the Left argue that we have a moral...