As religious leaders from diverse congregations in New England, we call upon our New England Congressional Delegation to recognize that the budget of the United States is a moral document, and to act on this realization as they vote on the Federal Budget this year. The federal budget – as with our personal budgets – reflects our values. In both, priorities drive expenditures. Perhaps more than any other indicator, the federal budget reflects our American character and proclaims our morality as a people.

The New England Joint Action Campaign has articulated the fundamental moral values we believe should be reflected in the federal budget. This campaign is the work of a coalition of a dozen community organizations spread across six states. These organizations represent tens of thousands of families and include hundreds of religious congregations, local unions, tenant organizations, and community groups.

Participants in the New England Joint Action Campaign vary in race, gender, religion, ethnicity, income, education, and political party, but they share certain basic values and call on our Congressional delegation to enact a budget that reflects these values.

Share prosperity. We believe that the great prosperity of America should be shared so that no child in a country of historic wealth goes to bed in the street. Currently federal subsidies help tens of thousands of families in New England obtain affordable housing, but these subsidies have been under threat. There is no more basic family need than a roof over their heads, an affordable roof. Without help, many low- and moderate-income families spend over half of their incomes on housing and many others are left homeless. Funding for critical housing assistance programs like Section 8 and Community Development Block Grants is essential to maintaining a strong workforce, strong families, and healthy communities, and it is a vital way to reflect our compassion and the value of shared prosperity.

Widen opportunity. We believe that equality of opportunity is a fundamental American value, and that every child and adult in our country should have equal opportunity to improve themselves and to contribute their skills fully to our culture and economy. In our Information Age, there is no more basic pathway to opportunity than a decent education. There are no more fundamental federal programs to promote open educational opportunity than the ones we support – Adult Basic Education to help people gain critical English and literacy competency, and Pell grants to help low-income students get a college degree. (To give just one example of how these programs affect our families, currently more than 140,000 New England residents need and receive Pell grants.)

Be practical. Sharing prosperity and widening opportunity are practical means for creating healthy, democratic, economically sustainable communities in New England. Failing to make housing affordable hurts our local economy. Workforce Housing Councils around our New England States can testify that the widening gap between wages and housing costs makes it much more difficult to recruit workers to fill many jobs such as those in retail trade, child care, health care and the hospitality industry. Cutbacks in basic educational opportunity, as national experts agree, will hurt our economy, under-employ human resources, make our states and nation less competitive globally, and undermine the hopes and dreams of millions of families.

No one disputes the importance of controlling the federal deficit. But we are a prosperous nation, a land of opportunity, and a practical people. We can find the dollars to practice these values – if those values truly remain within our American morality and our American character.

As religious leaders we urge Congress to enact a budget that preserves long-standing American values of shared prosperity, widened opportunity, and practicality. We urge Congress to do this by protecting funding for the housing and education programs that help sustain and develop our families and communities – Section 8, Community Development Block Grants, Pell Grants and Adult Basic Education.

Our nation and a watchful world will read this year’s federal budget as a representation of our values as a nation and our morality as an American people.