WASHINGTON (ABP) — In an attempt to call attention to congressional budget cuts, more than 100 Christian leaders were arrested at a frigid Capitol Hill protest Dec. 14.
The leaders — from mainline Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox and evangelical churches — were protesting the House's passage of budget cuts that will remove thousands from food stamps and other public assistance.
Republican leaders have said the cuts are needed to make a dent in the federal deficit, which has been driven up by the cost of the Iraq war, recovery efforts from Hurricane Katrina and other natural disasters, and a series of deep tax cuts. Many liberals and moderates have criticized the cuts because they are heavily beneficial to the wealthiest Americans.
Savings with the cuts are estimated at around $50 billion over the next five years. That would represent less than half of 1 percent of the $14.3 trillion in federal spending planned for the same period.
The House plan included approximately $700 billion in cuts to food stamps, which would remove more than 200,000 people from the aid program over the next five years.
The House budget cuts must be reconciled with a much-smaller Senate package that doesn't include the cuts to food stamps.
But the House has also passed a new tax cut of more than $70 billion, which would far outweigh the spending cuts.
The protesters called that anti-biblical.
“The budget that Congress is considering is, quite frankly … immoral,” said Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), addressing the group at a press conference before their protest.
The demonstration was organized by the evangelical anti-poverty group Call to Renewal. It featured clergy men and women wearing clerical collars, pulpit robes and liturgical stoles shivering in subfreezing temperatures, holding signs that read, “Budgets are moral documents” and “For poor people: Access denied.” They prayed, sang and testified as they knelt on the steps of a building that houses Congress members.
Call to Renewal founder Jim Wallis, who is also editor of Sojourners magazine, said there was “a Christmas scandal in this nation,” but it didn't have to do with the “war on Christmas” so many conservative evangelical Christian groups are worried about.
“It has to do with a budget that is an assault on low-income people and poor families,” Wallis said.
He quoted from the “Magnificat,” the Latin name for the song that Mary sang when she found out she was to bear Jesus, according to Luke's Gospel. In the New International Version, Mary says of God, “He has brought down rulers from their thrones, but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things, but has sent the rich away empty.”
Wallis said the House had inverted Mary's song: “This budget and these tax cuts fill the rich with good things and they send the hungry away empty.”
Republican leaders say the tax cuts and a balanced budget ultimately will spur economic growth that will provide more money for social programs.
Such a policy “grows the economy, increases federal revenue — and increased federal revenue makes it easier for us to pursue policies that we all can agree have social benefit,” said acting House Majority Leader Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), according to the Washington Post.
Yonce Shelton, a Call to Renewal spokesman, said Capitol Police arrested 114 protesters on the steps of the Cannon House Office Building, just across Independence Avenue from the Capitol. A Capitol Police officer told an ABP reporter the protesters were charged with blocking the entrance to a congressional office building, which violates District of Columbia law.