The Faithful Budget plan doesn’t provide concrete numbers but instead urges the federal government to increase spending for several social programs while cutting funds for defense, border patrol and prison operations to name a few.

The Presbyterian Church (USA) joined 37 other religious groups last week in touting a “faithful” federal budget plan that critics say will create “permanent subsidies” and punish productivity.

Dubbed the Faithful Budget initiative, the interfaith coalition released a 54-page document urging Congress to reject a current spending plan by House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan and instead draft a budget that would “act with mercy and justice by serving the common good, robustly funding support for poor and vulnerable people, both at home and abroad, and exercising proper care and keeping of the earth.”

PCUSA Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons and J. Herbert Nelson, director of the Office of Public Witness (formerly called the Washington Office), joined religious leaders from other Christian denominations as well as Muslim and Jewish leaders on March 22 and were scheduled to meet with House and Senate leaders to discuss the plan.

“Right now, members of Congress are approaching budget decisions from a perspective of scarcity,” Nelson said last week. “But this is the wrong approach. This nation has abundant resources, not only in money and commodities, but in human spirit and a commitment to care for one another.”

Ryan’s plan, which has garnered heavy support among his fellow Republicans, would cut President Barack Obama’s latest budget plan by $5.3 trillion over the next 10 years and would reduce federal spending from 12.5 percent of the Gross Domestic Product in 2011 to 3.75 percent by 2050.

“By following our sacred imperative to ‘love our neighbor as ourselves, we not only can pass a budget that makes sense, but pass a budget that begins to create a more just society and a healthier world,” Nelson said.

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