Prayers of the Faithful: Religious leaders are pressing super-committee members not to forget the needs of the poor.
“With the country slipping back into recession and Congress gridlocked along partisan lines, faith leaders from the districts of every Republican member on the super committee are urging them to reject the antitax ideology that they say would unfairly burden the nation’s most-vulnerable citizens.
More than 75 clergy members from across the country have signed a petition that condemns the six Republicans on the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction for putting the pledge they made to a Washington lobbyist–Grover Norquist’s “Taxpayer Protection Pledge”–ahead of the pledge they swore on the Bible when they took office.
The taxpayer pledge was championed by Americans for Tax Reform, an advocacy and taxpayer group founded by Norquist in 1986 as part of the effort to protect the lower marginal tax rates established by Congress during the Reagan administration.”…
“Kristin Ford, communications director for Faith in Public Life, believes that although their message is not a new one, the super committee will think twice when it hears the message from the faith community–particularly from pastors within their own districts. She said that the petition’s goal is to approach the gridlock in Congress from a unique, respected, and politically neutral perspective–that of the clergy.
The pastors who signed the letter do not identify in a political way, she said. “These are people who are pastors first.”
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