Faithful to Congress: "Don't cut vital programs"

["Lesley Crosson" <LCrosson@churchworldservice.org>]

Media Contacts:
Lesley Crosson, Church World Service, (212) 870-2676,
media@churchworldservice.org
Jan Dragin - 24/7 - (781) 925-1526, jdragin@gis.net
 
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 
Nation’s faithful down to the wire with Super Committee, Congress:
“Don’t cut programs that will cost lives, harm America”
 
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Monday November 21, 2011 -- While members of the
Congressional Super Committee all but acknowledged their failure to
reach an agreement on the federal budget, humanitarian agency Church
World Service joined with people of faith in cities across the United
States on Sunday in sending a clear message to the Joint Select
Committee on Deficit Reduction and Congress that cuts to programs for
the most at risk families and children in the United States and abroad
would cost lives and harm America. 
 
As part of a nationwide Super Vigil, people of diverse faith
communities united in prayer at public rallies in cities across the
country. At a rally in Washington across the street from the White
House, the crowd heard national leaders representing Christian, Jewish
and Muslim faiths speak to the moral imperative to protect the most
vulnerable among us. 
 
Church World Service (CWS) Advocacy Director Martin Shupack was among
the Washington faith leaders calling on members of the Joint Select
Committee on Deficit Reduction to not reduce the deficit by placing an
undue burden on the poor while shielding the wealthiest from additional
sacrifice. 
 
 Shupack, one of four faith leaders who led the rally in a Litany for a
Faithful National Budget, said, “We live in a world that is intensely
interconnected. Loving our neighbors requires that we promote the global
common good. Yet, programs may be severely cut that respond to HIV and
AIDS, extreme poverty, food insecurity, overwhelming debt, violence
against women, natural disasters and other urgent needs.” The rally
group responded, praying “for a just and compassionate budget” for those
“who live on the margins of our world.”  
 
“Members of Congress are listening to the top 1 percent of Americans
who take home 25 percent of all household income. They're listening to
Wall Street bankers and the Tea Party, bankrolled by billionaires, who
want their tax cuts,”Rev. Richard Cizik, president of the New
Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, told the ralliers. “Like
Old Testament prophets, we stand here today to say that any political
leader or system that pursues profits and power at the expense of the
common good stands under divine judgment. 
 
“God will not be mocked. Greed will not go unpunished. Justice for the
common man is our cry,” he said. “Let's fund not tax cuts for the
wealthy but our nation's future competitiveness. That means funding
programs that build skills and productivity.”
 
Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon, General Secretary, National Council of the
Churches of Christ in the USA, said that its member denominations agree
to one message for U.S. political leaders: “Do not try to solve
America's budget problems by taking away from those who have least to
give. That's why we are part of the Faithful Budget Campaign, and why we
are taking part in Sunday's interfaith Super Vigil, asking God to move
the hearts of policy makers in order that fairness and compassion will
guide their decisions,” he said.
 
Rabbi Jack Moline, Director of Public Policy, The Rabbinical Assembly,
told ralliers and Congress, “When the Torah tells us that the poor will
never cease from the land, we are not to read those words as an excuse
for neglect.” 
 
Rev. Jennifer Butler, executive director of Faith in Public Life, told
the assembly,“As a pastor I cannot stand idly by as more and more
families struggle to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads.
And I cannot remain silent as misguided politicians push an immoral
agenda that punishes these people to pay for massive tax cuts for the
wealthiest Americans.”
 
Dr. Sayyid M. S
yeed, national director for Interfaith and Community
Alliances, Islamic Society of North America, said, “The federal budget
reflects the moral conscience of the American people and so it must
reflect our moral commitment to protect those who are poor and
vulnerable here in America and around the world.”
 
Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson II, Director of Public Witness for the
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) said, "We are witnessing through the
Faithful Budget Campaign growing numbers of persons of faith who declare
that our Creator has something to say about political leaders using
people in poverty as political pawns in their fight over the federal
budget. . . . God's truth will not be silenced in this federal budget
debate." 
 
In addition to the D.C. prayer rally, religious Americans gathered this
weekend for prayer demonstrations and other acts of religious activism
in Richmond, Va.; Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Harrisburg, Pa., Dallas
and Midland, Texas, Phoenix, Ariz., Cincinnati, Ohio, Seattle, Wash. and
Sarasota, Fla. In Los Angeles, the Sisters of Social Service are
celebrating their 85th anniversary as a congregation featuring a Super
Vigil as part of their basic mission to respond to the social needs of
society.
 
Following Sunday’s Washington rally, CWS’s Shupack said, “If no
acceptable agreement is reached by the Super Committee in the short time
before the deadline, Congress will now have an immediate need to vote to
continue payroll tax relief and unemployment insurance for the sake of
working Americans and the unemployed, and for the sake of an economy
that needs this money circulating. 
 
“During the months ahead, Congress will have to make decisions that are
going to be fair and just before January 2013 when automatic deep cuts
come in,” he said. “Congress will have to find a way to fiscal health by
putting people back to work, increasing revenues and instituting only
cuts that don’t harm the poor here and abroad.”
 
Shupack and the Interfaith leaders presenting at the Washington vigil
are among those spearheading a Faithful Budget Campaign in recent
months. 
 
In July, the campaign organized high-level meetings with policymakers,
a Washington fly-in of top religious leaders, daily prayer vigils near
the U.S. Capitol Building and a peaceful demonstration in the Capitol
Rotunda just days before Congress passed the debt ceiling compromise
that culminated with the arrest of CWS’s Shupack and 10 other faith
leaders for refusing to stop praying for the nation’s most vulnerable. 
 
Over the past six weeks, the Faithful Budget Campaign and its network
of religious worshipers have flooded congressional offices with
telephone calls and letters encouraging them to preserve vital funding
for the most vulnerable at home and worldwide.
 
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