News

Washington, D.C. – Bread for the World today released the following statement regarding the fiscal year 2018 omnibus spending bill, which was signed by President Trump. The statement can be attributed to Rev. David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World:

“With this bill, the threat of massive cuts to anti-poverty programs has been put on hold. 

“The president and this Congress had both approved budgets that outlined cuts of more than $2 trillion from programs that help people in poverty. But thankfully, anti-poverty programs fared well in the negotiations of the last month. In fact, Congress has not finalized any significant cuts to anti-poverty programs since the Trump administration began.    

“Bread for the World has taken up an 'offering' from churches across the country – not an offering of money, but of letters to Congress urging continued funding for programs that help to reduce hunger and poverty in our country and around the world. Churches organized hundreds of letter-writing events across the country, resulting in hundreds of thousands of hand-written letters and personalized emails to their lawmakers. Clearly, Congress heard our message.

“Our celebration is tempered by the dramatic increase in deficit spending -- $2 trillion over the last four months, mostly for tax cuts for high-income people. Only 3% of this deficit spending went to programs for low-income people. So, when Congress gets serious about deficit reduction again – as they should do – no one should propose fixing the problem by cutting programs for people in poverty.”