Come to Washington to pray for a moral budget
by Jim Wallis

"Woe to you legislators of infamous laws...who refuse justice to the unfortunate, who cheat the poor among my people of their rights, who make widows their prey and rob the orphan" (Isaiah 10:1-2, Jerusalem Bible).

There are moments in every generation when a society must decide on its real moral principles. This is one of those moments in history: When our legislators put ideology over principle, it is time to sound the trumpets of justice and tell the truth.

In the early hours of the morning before leaving for their Thanksgiving break, the House of Representatives passed a budget bill that cuts $50 billion, including essential services for low-income families. Funding for health care, food stamps, foster care for neglected children, student loans, enforcing child support orders - all fell to the ax. If the House bill prevails, more than 200,000 people will lose food stamps, people already struggling to make ends meet will have to pay more for health care, and low-income students will find it harder to pay for college loans. When they return, the House also plans to pass a tax cut bill benefiting the wealthiest people in America.

Let's be clear. It is a moral disgrace to take food from the mouths of hungry children to increase the luxuries of those feasting at a table overflowing with plenty. There is no moral path our legislators can take to defend a reckless, mean-spirited budget bill that diminishes our compassion. It is dishonest to stake proud claims to deficit reduction when tax cuts for the wealthy that increase the deficit are the next order of business. It is one more example of an absence of morality in our political leadership. "Oppressing the poor in order to enrich oneself, and giving to the rich, will lead only to loss" (Proverbs 22:16).

The religious community has already helped influence the Senate - its version of the budget cut about $35 billion, with virtually no cuts in services to low-income people.

The decision to protect low-income families in the Senate was a bipartisan decision - supported by both Republicans and Democrats.

The House decision to sacrifice the poor was a victory of the extreme Republican leadership over all the Democrats and moderate Republicans who voted against the harsh and punitive House bill.

Congress now faces a stark choice that requires moral clarity and outrage. The differences between the House and Senate bills have to be resolved in a joint conference committee, and the result brought back to each body for a final vote in mid-December.

The convictions of the religious community must be brought to bear in these next few weeks - a final bill containing the House cuts that are an assault on poor families and children must not be passed. Budgets are moral documents that reflect our priorities. The choice to cut supports that help people make it day to day in order to pay for tax cuts for those with plenty goes against everything our religious and moral principles teach us. It is a blatant reversal of biblical values. It's time to act.

Contact your legislators.

Call your senators and representative during their recess and
over the next two weeks and demand they refuse to pass a budget
cutting services for low-income people.
[NO! WRITE LETTERS!]

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Let's be clear. It is a moral disgrace to take food from the mouths of hungry children to increase the luxuries of those feasting at a table overflowing with plenty.

There is no moral path our legislators can take to defend a reckless, mean-spirited budget bill that diminishes our compassion. It is dishonest to stake proud claims to deficit reduction when tax cuts for the wealthy that increase the deficit are the next order of business. It is one more example of an absence of morality in our political leadership. "Oppressing the poor in order to enrich oneself, and giving to the rich, will lead only to loss" (Proverbs 22:16).

The religious community has already helped influence the Senate - its version of the budget cut about $35 billion, with virtually no cuts in services to low-income people.

The decision to protect low-income families in the Senate was a bipartisan decision - supported by both Republicans and Democrats. The House decision to sacrifice the poor was a victory of the extreme Republican leadership over all the Democrats and moderate Republicans who voted against the harsh and punitive House bill.

Congress now faces a stark choice that requires moral clarity and outrage. The differences between the House and Senate bills have to be resolved in a joint conference committee, and the result brought back to each body for a final vote in mid-December.

The convictions of the religious community must be brought to bear in these next few weeks - a final bill containing the House cuts that are an assault on poor families and children must not be passed.

Budgets are moral documents that reflect our priorities. The choice to cut supports that help people make it day to day in order to pay for tax cuts for those with plenty goes against everything our religious and moral principles teach us. It is a blatant reversal of biblical values.

It's time to act.

Contact your legislators Call your senators and representative during their recess and over the next two weeks and demand they refuse to pass a budget cutting services for low-income people.

And it's time for an altar call to Washington, D.C.

Come to Washington: On Tuesday evening, Dec. 13 - as the budget
bill is being debated in Congress - religious leaders, pastors,
and church workers from around the country who serve the poor
day after day will gather for a worship service and training
session. The next morning, Dec. 14, we will kneel in the U.S.
Capitol Rotunda to proclaim the Word of God and to pray for
people in poverty. We will pray for those in our own
neighborhoods who are under assault, and we will call our
nation's political leaders to repentance - recognizing the
Bible's insistence that the best test of a nation's
righteousness is how it treats the most vulnerable among us. We
will pray for poor families and children and for the courage of
our political representatives to protect them from the budget
assault. And we also hope our prayers will shame those who would
sacrifice the poor for political gain and the benefit of the
wealthy - and hope to change their minds. Specifically, we will
pray that the principle of the Senate's bipartisan bill to
protect low-income people will prevail and the efforts of an
ideological House leadership to neglect the poor will fail. This
act of prayer is likely to result in peaceful arrests for those
who are willing. Our prayer will be an act of nonviolent civil
disobedience in the tradition of the civil rights movement led
by black churches. We believe that this moral battle over the
budget can still be won. The punitive House bill passed by only
two votes: Hearts can still be changed. We must lift up another
voice - a voice in prayer that speaks the truth of God's Word.

"But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you
and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find
your welfare" (Jeremiah 29:7).

We urge you to prayerfully consider joining us.
www.sojo.net/capitol. If you plan to participate, you must sign up on the Web site. If you cannot join us in Washington, I urge you to plan and join vigils at local congressional offices across the country in order to magnify our prophetic voice, and to send representatives or a delegation of faith leaders, service providers, and low-income people to join us in Washington. See tomorrow's e-mail for more details about how to organize a vigil near you.