As Congress and the president struggle to reach an agreement on taxes and federal spending, religious leaders gathered on Capitol Hill to once again urge lawmakers to protect anti-poverty programs. The interfaith group called cuts to those programs immoral.

Sister Deb Troillett (Sisters of Mercy of the Americas): “We as religious call on our country’s leaders to not push the country’s most marginalized peoples off the fiscal cliff, but rather to uphold the core values there are at the heart of our national string of who we are.”