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Political Advocacy Tracker is a roundup of what Christian activist organizations have been talking about the past week.

Most pundits have concluded that this year, the key issue will not be social issues but the economy. This week, family groups appeared to join the conversation.

When CitizenLink's readers receive their October magazine, they will find the focus is not on abortion or gay rights. The topic was the recession, government spending, and the debt.

For the cover story, Citizen's staff wrote, "Much of the grassroots attention has been rightly focused on the dismal economic picture, especially a national debt that has ballooned beyond most people's ability to comprehend it. Increasingly, that debt—and the burden that it places on Americans' children and grandchildren—is being recognized as a family issue."

On its weekly webcast, CitizenLink's Tom Minnery said some conservatives had plans that would reverse the policies of President Obama and the Democrats in Congress, but he was not completely confident that Republicans would do much better.

"The problem is that the Republicans seem to do best in this kind of atmosphere when they're opposing what the Democrats are doing," said Minnery. "When the Republicans are in control, as they [were from] 2000 to 2006, they didn't grab hold of the problems in the country and set us on a new direction. It was only when the Democrats came in and tried this government-centric way of spending and borrowing in order to stimulate the economy—and it hasn't worked—now the Republicans are coming up with stuff. Now it's good, but we've got to do something about this to get on a different track."

Pat Robertson shared a similar concern, comparing current spending policies to "an infection" that may be too late to treat. But he also questioned Republicans' ability to do better.

"Will [the Republicans] be big spenders like they were under Bush? They might," Robertson said on Christian Broadcasting Network. "So, we're just asking for fiscal restraint and moderation and some adults in power."

American Family Association's (AFA) Elijah Friedeman was more optimistic about Republicans on the group's blog. "The main gripe from the general public about Congressional Republicans is that they're not offering any ideas. Well, even if Republicans weren't offering any ideas, it would be better than what we have now. But Republicans are offering up ideas, Democrats are just ignoring them," said Friedeman.

Family Research Council president Tony Perkins also objected to President Obama's economic policy. He took aim at the President's new proposals for "more government spending on visible, but questionable, infrastructure projects" and what Perkins called "a $3.8 trillion tax increase on Americans" (which would result if all of the Bush-era tax cuts are not renewed by the end of the year).

"As our economy continues to falter, and mounting evidence shows the President and the Democratic Party's spendaholism is causing more damage than relief, permanently extending tax cuts just might be the stability many families need to get through the current tough times," said Perkins.

Perkins called for people to "sign our petition to stop President Obama's 2011 tax hike." The petition, however, only tangentially addresses the tax change. The petition calls on Congress to make permanent the Child Tax Credit and to increase the credit from $1,000 per child to $5,000 per child for all families (there currently is an income cap of $110,000 for married couples).

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September (Web-only) 2010, Vol. 54