Faith Communities Urge Congress to Oppose the $1.15 Trillion Pentagon Budget

September 2026

As faith communities across the United States, we write to urge you to oppose a record-breaking Pentagon budget and to reject the $1.15 trillion topline for Fiscal Year 2027. Our traditions are united by a shared moral conviction: the call to protect human dignity, care for the vulnerable, and pursue peace demands that our nation make wiser and more just choices with its resources.

A $1.15 trillion Pentagon budget would constitute yet another increase over an already staggering $1 trillion FY26 budget, which was passed through a combination of appropriations and reconciliation packages. As Congress debates this unprecedented increase in military spending, millions of Americans are losing access to health care, food assistance, and other vital support. The United States already spends more on its military than the next nine countries combined, including China and Russia. While we are sympathetic to genuine security needs, an increase of this magnitude neglects the human security needs of the American people and would represent a moral failure.

Across our many faith traditions, we are called to tend to the least among us, not to build ever-larger arsenals of destruction while cutting the programs that sustain our communities.  

More than $1 trillion has been cut from Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, and SNAP—programs that millions of families depend on for food and health care. Now, even as an estimated 5 million people are losing food assistance, some in Congress are pressing for even more in military spending through billions of dollars in supplemental spending and budget reconciliation packages. These choices have made our communities less safe.  

We are also deeply troubled by the lack of accountability that accompanies this spending. The Pentagon has never passed an independent audit. To pour more money into an institution that cannot account for the funds it already receives is not stewardship. If the Department of Defense truly cannot operate within a $1 trillion budget, Congress should be holding hearings to find out why—not rushing more money out the door.  

True security is built on the shared prosperity that comes from housing, health care, clean air and water, adequate nutrition, and quality public education. A nation that neglects its sick, its hungry, its unhoused, and its children while funneling ever-greater sums into an unaccountable military apparatus is fundamentally insecure and fails to reflect the values of a just society—let alone those of the many faith traditions that have helped shape this nation’s moral character.  

We therefore call on Congress to:  

1. Reject the $1.15 trillion Pentagon topline and oppose any further increase in Pentagon funding for FY 2027, including plus-ups sought through supplemental or reconciliation packages.  
2. Protect and invest in programs that make life more affordable for those struggling. Ensure adequate investment in human needs programs, including Medicare, the Affordable Care Act and SNAP, and ensure Pentagon spending does not further eclipse non-defense spending.  
3. Refuse to fund unauthorized war, including Iran, Latin America and elsewhere, and invest instead in the true sources of security—diplomacy, peacebuilding, foreign assistance, and nonviolent approaches to human, national, and global security.  

At this critical moment, we ask Congress to act with moral clarity. We urge you to move forward wisely, justly, and in the spirit of the common good.  

Sincerely,  

Alliance of Baptists
American Friends Service Committee
Church of the Brethren, Office of Peacebuilding and Policy
Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd, U.S. Region
Council on American-Islamic Relations
Faithful America
Franciscan Action Network
Friends Committee on National Legislation
Human Appeal
Latin America Working Group Education Fund  
Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns
Medical Mission Sisters, Justice Office
Mennonite Central Committee U.S.
National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd
National Council of Churches
Pax Christi USA
Presbyterian Church (USA), Office of Public Witness
Sant’Egidio Foundation for Peace and Dialogue
Sisters of Mercy of the Americas – Justice Team
Sisters of St. Dominic/Racine Dominicans Leadership Team
Sojourners
Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice
United Church of Christ
The United Methodist Church - General Board of Church and Society
US Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO)
Voices for a World Free of Nuclear Weapons