Faith Leaders, Lawmakers Argue GOP Bill Benefits the Ultra-Wealthy by Hurting the Poor

WASHINGTON (RNS) — Religious leaders are ramping up pressure on lawmakers to reject the Republican-led budget bill currently before the U.S. Senate, arguing proposed cuts to health care benefits and food assistance programs as well as provisions involving public education will disproportionately hurt low-income Americans.

Part of an effort that has built momentum over the past two months, on Tuesday (June 10), hundreds of clergy and religious leaders from mainline Christian, Black Protestant, evangelical and Catholic traditions rallied on the steps of the U.S. Capitol against the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” that passed the House and is set to be voted on by the Senate.

“This bill chooses to take from the poor and give to those who already have enough,” said the Rev. Teresa Hord Owens, general minister and president of the Disciples of Christ.

As she closed in prayer, she said, “May your will be done, and may this bill be killed,” sparking cheers from the crowd.

The faith leaders were joined by a group of prominent Democratic senators, including Chris Coons of Delaware, Raphael Warnock of Georgia, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

“This so-called big, beautiful bill pushes 16 million people off of health care and literally takes food from the mouths of hungry children. An enormous tax cut for the very wealthiest is the definition of an immoral bill,” said Coons, a Presbyterian and graduate of Yale Divinity School.

Warnock, who is a pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, recounted how he was arrested in 2017 for protesting a reconciliation bill before he became a senator.

“Here I am, eight years later, having transformed my agitation into legislation, my protest to public policy,” he said. “But I’m here today because I still know how to agitate. I still know how to protest. I’m not a senator who used to be a pastor — I’m a pastor in the Senate.”

Arguing the bill takes “food out of the hungry mouths of children in order to give people like Elon Musk a tax cut,” Warnock noted some senators are churchgoers and he cited the biblical Book of Amos.

“God is not impressed by you quoting Scripture, God is not impressed by you showing up to church on Sunday,” he said. “The test of your faith is the depth of your commitment to the least, the left out.”

Warnock was echoed by Coons, who told Religion News Service he hoped the cries of faith leaders would impact his Republican colleagues.