c. 2003 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ As the Bush administration scrambled to restore to its $350 billion tax cut package a provision whose elimination excluded nearly 12 million low-income children from an increased child tax credit, church leaders gathered in Washington to pressure the president and Congress to do more to help the nation’s poorest families.

For three days, ending Wednesday (June 11), the church leaders prayed and lobbied White House officials and members to Congress.

At a prayer meeting held in a Senate meeting room Tuesday (June 10), church leaders and members of Congress gathered to voice their opposition to large tax cuts that favor the rich.

Led by the Rev. Jim Wallis, head of Call to Renewal, a national network of religious organizations working to fight poverty, leaders of Catholic and Protestant churches urged members of Congress to act quickly in extending the child tax credit to low-income families.

“This terrible injustice, this exclusion, has to be fixed,” Wallis said during a conference after the prayer meeting.

Signed into law last month, the tax cut raised the $600-per-child tax credit to $1,000 for middle-class families but allotted no additional money to families with incomes too low to pay income tax.

“These kids are left out again and again when political decisions are made,” Wallis said. “This is a political sin that must be repented for.”

Last week, the Senate voted to extend the tax credit to the 6.5 million excluded low-income families.

Although President Bush expressed support for the Senate bill, House Republicans they would accept the expanded child tax credit only as part of another, broader tax cut.

Speaking at the prayer meeting, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi joined church leaders in calling for a more inclusive tax policy.

“The Bible tells us that to minister to the needs of God’s children is an act of worship. Was it an act of worship for us to say to those families, to those children, that though your parents work and they make just the minimum wage, that you are not worthy of a tax cut to provide food, clothing, shelter, and necessities?” Pelosi said.

Christian leaders say Bush’s support for faith-based charity work has not been matched by public policy.

“The president has said that faith leaders and organizations must be at the table where social policy decisions are being made, and we haven’t been,” Wallis said.

In a June 9 letter to the president, 34 church leaders reprimanded the administration for laying the burden of caring for the poor on the faith community:

“Mr. President, the `good people’ who provide such services are feeling overwhelmed by increasing need and diminishing resources. And many are feeling betrayed. The lack of a consistent, coherent and integrated domestic policy that benefits low-income people makes our continued support for your faith-based initiative increasingly untenable.”

Other church leaders said the Bush administration not only has failed at “compassionate conservatism,” but also has endorsed policies that have harmed to the nation’s poor.

“There’s a big difference between a war against the poor and a war on poverty, and this administration hasn’t figured that out,” said the Rev. John Chane, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington.

Several church leaders said the Senate bill is only a first step in redressing injustices against the poor.

Wallis called for providing more government money for child care and improving wellfare.

“When money is being diverted to war and homeland security and we have a big tax cut, there’s little left for low-income people,” he said. “These are basic issues of justice about how the pie is being distributed. We don’t want to be left fighting for mere pittances around the edges.”

DEA END ALTER