The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a budget reconciliation bill that is contrary to Catholic social teaching. The bill is now waiting to be debated in the Senate. It should be strongly opposed.
Moreover, the church and the bishops of the United States should lead the way in speaking against this bill and calling on Catholics to work for its defeat. Because of its overall effects on those who are most in need, passing this budget would be a moral failure for American society as a whole. Unless the church opposes it in the clearest possible terms, we will squander the credibility of our witness to the Gospel and Christ’s command to care for the “least of these.”
Known as the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act, the legislation is anything but beautiful, at least from the perspective of Catholic teaching. It basically steals from the poor to give to the rich, and it will leave millions of low-income U.S. citizens struggling to survive. It also funds a mass deportation campaign that will separate immigrant families and profoundly harm children, including U.S.-citizen children. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.
It is estimated that the legislation would cut $700 billion over 10 years in Medicaid spending, leaving 7.6 million American families without health-care coverage. It also reduces spending for food assistance to the nation’s poorest by an estimated $300 billion over 10 years, adversely impacting 40 million low-income persons, including 16 million children. As many as 5.4 million per year could lose food assistance from the cuts. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the bill transfers wealth from citizens with the lowest tenth of income to those with the highest tenth of income, the largest transfer in U.S. history.
On immigration, it appropriates $75 billion for a mass deportation campaign, which includes funding for detention centers and a substantial increase in border and interior enforcement personnel. It allows these agents to remove people based on the suspicionof illegal activity, without judicial review. And it increases fees for such benefits as temporary protected status (T.P.S.), humanitarian parole and work permits for asylum applicants, leaving these important protection mechanisms out of the reach of qualifying families.
To make matters worse, the bill undermines other important church teachings, such as the need for a progressive tax structure based on the ability to pay and measures to combat climate change, as it raises taxes on the working poor and repeals clean energy tax credits.
The list goes on. The cruelty of this bill is historic.
This bill violates several principles of Catholic social teaching. The first is the preferential option for the poor, which teaches that the most vulnerable should claim the attention and assistance of the rest of the society. The second is the principle of solidarity, in which all people are interconnected and the powerful should be advocates for the marginalized of society. And perhaps the most important principle is the advancement of the common good, so that all members of society are given a chance to thrive and become full members of the community.
As passed by the House of Representatives, this bill forsakes the most vulnerable among us, widens both the economic and human gap between the rich and poor, and ignores the common good to benefit only the wealthiest in our country.
What would be the human costs of this bill? It is likely that millions will fall into poverty, leaving them to rely on churches and private charities, such as Catholic Charities, to survive. More people will go without health care, at least until they arrive at the emergency room, when their condition becomes critical. Immigrant families, many of whom sit in the pews at Mass every Sunday, will be separated, traumatizing children.
There is another factor for the church to consider in this debate, as well—its moral authority. Unless the church stands up for the poor and marginalized of the nation, consistent with Catholic teaching, its moral voice will be diminished in the future. There are times when the church needs to forsake political considerations and take a stand, even if that effort is unsuccessful. This is one of those times.
There is time to defeat this legislation, or at least to change it substantially, as the U.S. Senate has yet to consider it. But this will not happen unless the church states unequivocally its opposition to the House bill and any similar Senate version. An approach which opposes parts of the legislation but indicates support for other provisions—as was done when the bill was before the House—gives legislators the cover to vote for the bill. There are other ways to support the few parts of the bill worthy of it. They should not be achieved on the backs of the poorest of society.
In human terms, the Trump administration’s “big, beautiful bill” is in fact very ugly. For the sake of our church and nation, I call upon my fellow bishops and the Catholic community nationwide to contact their elected officials and petition for its defeat.
Correction: An earlier version of this article referred to a $175 million appropriation for a mass deportation campaign. The correct number is $75 billion.
