What do you mean by crushing my people, by grinding the face of the poor? - Isaiah 3:15
Congress just gave final approval to the 2006 federal budget - a document that religious leaders across the country called "immoral" for slashing taxes for the wealthiest Americans and paying for the tax cuts with deep cuts in anti-poverty and health care programs.
Now the president's 2007 budget proposal is out.
The new budget contains even deeper cuts in social service spending and makes permanent tax cuts for the richest of the rich. The "least of these" that Jesus said we must protect keep getting left behind in Bush's America.
The Rev. Dr. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, said in advance of the budget release:
"It's as if the President wasn't listening to his own State of the Union Message. He acknowledged that many U.S. citizens `have felt excluded by the promise of our country,' and he promised to `work for the day when all Americans are protected by justice, equal in hope, and rich in opportunity.'"
Edgar said the words "rang hollow" in light of cuts for benefits programs in the 2006 budget, and the prospect of deeper cuts in 2007.
"It was encouraging that more members of the House - Republicans and Democrats - voted against these cuts this week after voting for them in December," Edgar said. "I hope that's an indication that an ancient message from Scripture is getting through to them: those who remove hope and opportunity from the poor are acting in opposition to God's law."
The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities reports:
An Administration's budget is a statement of its priorities. This budget's priorities are clear: it features cuts in numerous domestic programs that serve low- and middle-income families alongside continued -- and substantially expanded -- tax cuts of very large size that concentrate their benefits on people high on the income scale.
Click here for their full preliminary analysis of the road the president intends to lead America down.
This will be a long and difficult year for people of faith opposed to abandoning children, the poor, sick, and elderly to the wind. But what choice do we have? God is calling us to a difficult task.
Related Post: The Religious Right Abandons The Poor
