• Background
• Policy Base

Background Information
There are reports that the House leadership will make the initial budget total, or spending cap, so low it will force cuts in domestic programs like education, nutrition aid, housing, Head Start, clean air and water programs, and job training. These cuts were rejected in the Senate, and many Representatives continue to display courage by opposing the House budget. 

With or without a budget resolution to guide it, Congress must decide annually how to appropriate funding to many different programs. Typically, the Budget Committee is in charge of passing a budget resolution and then giving limits to the Appropriations Committee which then divides up the total allocation among its subcommittees for different areas like defense, housing, environment, hunger, etc. If there is no budget resolution passed, the House may insert a total annual spending figure into the first appropriations bill they take up. This budget resolution slashes spending for those who have the least and need help the most. It makes room for more tax breaks for those who have the most and need help the least. 

ELCA Policy Base
From social statements passed by the ELCA Churchwide Assembly

"We call for...

"...government to provide adequate consistent public funding for the various low-income services non-profit organizations provide for the common good of all.

Scrutiny to ensure that new ways of providing low-income people with assistance and services (such as through the private sector) do not sacrifice the most vulnerable for the sake of economic efficiency and profit." p. 12

Sufficient Sustainable Livelihood for All, 1999

"We of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America are deeply concerned about the environment, locally and globally, as members of this church and as members of society. Even as we join the political, economic, and scientific discussion, we know care for the earth to be a profoundly spiritual matter."

Caring for Creation: VIsion, Hope, and Justice, 1993

"We call for efforts to increase the participation of low-income people in political and civic life, and citizen vigilance and action that challenges governments and other sectors when they become captive to narrow economic interests that do not represent the good of all". p. 6

Sufficient Sustainable Livelihood for All, 1999

"This church will support proposals and actions to protect and restore...air, with special concern for inhabitants of urban areas...water, especially drinking water, groundwater, polluted runoff, and industrial and municipal waste."

Caring for Creation: VIsion, Hope, and Justice, 1993

"Our nation has responsibility to contribute a portion of its wealth to people in poorer nations through effective economic assistance," and that the purpose of such assistance "should be to reduce hunger and poverty in sustainable and environmentally sounds ways...While the United States has been generous in providing humanitarian aid, our nation dramatically trails the rest of the industrialized world in providing development assistance relative to our production of wealth." (16)

Sufficient Sustainable Livelihood for All, 1999