*This post is part of our “Faith in Action: Moral Courage for a Nuclear-Free Future” series
By Danny Hall, Lead Capitol Hill Representative & Faith Community Outreach Coordinator for Back from the Brink
On June 30, 2025, hundreds of faith leaders, directly impacted individuals, and moral advocates gathered in Washington, D.C., for a Moral Monday action led by Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II and Repairers of the Breach, in partnership with the Institute for Policy Studies and the Economic Policy Institute. We came not just to protest a budget—we came to expose a system. A system that abandons the poor, punishes the vulnerable, and protects power at all costs. A system that, in the words of the movement, commits policy murder.
Speaker after speaker testified to the violence of this system—not metaphorical violence, but real, bodily harm. The kind that comes when a mother can’t afford her medication. When a rural hospital shutters. When a returning citizen is denied food and housing. When a family is torn apart by incarceration or deportation. These are not isolated tragedies. They are the predictable outcomes of a political logic that treats some lives as disposable.
And this year’s proposed federal budget makes that logic brutally clear.
It includes over $3 trillion in tax cut extensions for the wealthy and corporations—while slashing Medicaid, SNAP, housing assistance, and other vital programs that keep people alive. It would strip health coverage from more than 17 million people. It would eliminate food assistance for millions of children, seniors, and working families. It would gut housing vouchers, disability services, and community health centers. And it would do all of this while increasing funding for militarized policing, immigration enforcement, and nuclear weapons.
This is not fiscal responsibility. It is moral failure.
“If I Should Die Before I Wake…”
Elena Hurley of West Virginia stood before us and offered a prayer that no one should ever have to say:
“If I should die before I wake, because I don’t have my medication to take, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”
She lost her Medicaid after returning to work—just as her elected officials told her to do. Now, she lives with a chronic condition and no access to the blood thinners that keep her alive. Under the proposed budget, millions more would face the same fate.
Her story is a window into a system that punishes people for doing exactly what they’re told—work hard, follow the rules—and then abandons them when they need care. It’s the same logic that undergirds our nuclear policy: a system that claims to protect life while preparing to destroy it.
“This Isn’t the American Dream?”
Sangria Noble, a formerly incarcerated mother and grandmother, spoke of “generational cages”—the economic and social barriers that have haunted her family for decades. She described the cost of survival: the price of prison phone calls, the denial of SNAP and housing assistance for her son after release, the impossible trade-offs between caring for her children and paying for her own medication.
“This isn’t the American dream,” she said. “This is a sentence passed down through policy—generation after generation.”
The budget would make that sentence even harsher. It proposes new restrictions on food and housing assistance for people with criminal records—ensuring that punishment continues long after incarceration ends.
This is the same logic that fuels nuclear deterrence: the belief that safety comes through domination, that control must be maintained through threat, and that some lives—whether incarcerated, impoverished, or foreign—are expendable for the sake of “security.”
“They’re Going to Kill My Baby”
Charles Keith told the story of his brother—wrongfully sentenced to death in Ohio—and the toll it took on their family. He watched his mother deteriorate under the weight of fear and grief.
“They’re going to kill my baby,” she said again and again.
Charles reminded us that this budget is not just about numbers. It is about life and death. It is, in his words, “a death penalty for the poor.” And it is being carried out not with a gavel, but with a spreadsheet.
That same logic—of state-sanctioned death, of impunity for the powerful—is what sustains the nuclear status quo. It is a system that allows one person to launch a civilization-ending strike while millions go without healthcare. It is a system that protects weapons, not people.
“Medicaid Saves Lives”
Heidi Case, a queer disabled teacher, shared how Medicaid allows her to live independently, contribute to her community, and continue her advocacy.
“Medicaid saves lives,” she said. “It keeps people with disabilities in the community, in service, and in dignity.”
The proposed budget would cut Medicaid by hundreds of billions of dollars—forcing people like Heidi into institutions or onto the streets. Meanwhile, the same budget increases funding for nuclear weapons modernization—tools that destroy life, not preserve it.
“It’s a Danger”
Karen, a minister from rural Appalachia, warned that this budget could shut down five hospitals in her region—including the one her elderly father relies on. She described the impossible choice he faced: call an ambulance and risk financial ruin, or drive himself 25 minutes to the nearest ER.
“Losing a local hospital isn’t just an inconvenience,” she said. “It’s a danger.”
That danger is not just local—it is global. The same government that cannot keep rural hospitals open is investing in weapons that could wipe out entire cities. This is not a failure of priorities—it is a reflection of them.
A Shared Logic of Violence
What united the voices on June 30 was not just grief—it was clarity. The clarity that this budget is not a mistake. It is a reflection of a deeper logic: a logic that prioritizes punishment over protection, austerity over abundance, and control over care. It is the same logic that builds prisons instead of schools, that surveils instead of supports, that criminalizes poverty instead of addressing its root causes.
And it is the same logic that governs our nuclear posture.
When a government claims it cannot afford to feed children or care for the sick, but can afford to modernize a $2 trillion nuclear arsenal, that is not a budgeting error—it is a moral choice. It is the same authoritarian logic that justifies preemptive strikes, executive overreach, and the threat of mass death in the name of “deterrence.”
This is not security. It is a global extension of the same domestic logic that treats some lives as expendable.
A Moral Vision for Our Future
That’s why movements like the Poor People’s Campaign and Back from the Brink are aligned—not just in values, but in vision. We believe in a future where no one is disposable. Where security is measured not by weapons stockpiles, but by whether people have what they need to live. Where budgets reflect care, not cruelty.
And that’s why we support H. Res. 317, a resolution in Congress that calls for a national commitment to a world free of nuclear weapons, a no-first-use policy, and justice for nuclear-impacted communities. It is not a distraction from the fight for a moral budget—it is part of it.
Because we cannot build a just society while clinging to the tools of annihilation. And we cannot claim to value life while funding systems that destroy it.
Take Action: Demand a Moral Budget and a World Free from Nuclear Violence
We need your voice. Right now, you can urge your member of Congress to:
✅ Oppose the proposed budget cuts to Medicaid, SNAP, housing, and disability services
✅ Support H. Res. 317 and help lead the world back from the nuclear brink
👉 Use this one-click tool to contact your representative and take action now!
It only takes a minute—but your voice could help shift billions from punishment to protection, from abandonment to care.
Forward Together
The people who spoke on June 30 are not naïve. They are truth-tellers. They are survivors. They are moral leaders grounded in lived experience. They may not speak in the language of deterrence theory or disarmament policy—but they know what it means to be treated as expendable. They know what it feels like to be told there’s no money for their medication, their housing, their food—while billions are poured into systems of control and violence.
Their testimonies call us to a broader reckoning. As a movement, we must name the full scope of that violence. We must recognize that the same logic that denies healthcare to the poor also justifies the existence of weapons that can destroy entire cities. That the same budget that cuts SNAP and Medicaid expands the power to kill without accountability—at home and abroad.
Movements like the Poor People’s Campaign and Back from the Brink are not fighting separate battles. We are part of the same moral uprising. We believe in a future where no one is disposable. Where budgets reflect care, not cruelty. Where security is rooted in justice, not domination.
And we believe that nuclear disarmament is realism. It is grounded in the hard truth that no system built on the threat of mass death can be stable, just, or permanent. It is grounded in the evidence of history: near-misses, false alarms, and wars enabled—not prevented—by nuclear arsenals.
Deterrence, by contrast, is idealism. It is a belief system that assumes perfect rationality, perpetual restraint, and flawless systems. It survives not because it works, but because we’ve been lucky—lucky that mutual assured destruction hasn’t failed, lucky that false alarms haven’t triggered catastrophe. But luck is not a strategy.
And even when deterrence “works” in the narrow sense of avoiding direct nuclear exchange, it has enabled something else: wars of aggression by nuclear-armed states against non-nuclear adversaries. From Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, nuclear weapons have not prevented conflict—they’ve reshaped it. They embolden powerful states to act with impunity, knowing their arsenals deter outside intervention. This is not peace. It is coercion. It is a world where power is defined not by justice or diplomacy, but by possession of the most destructive tools imaginable.
A moral budget requires us to reject that fantasy. To stop investing in the machinery of annihilation and start investing in the conditions of life. To recognize that the same logic that abandons the poor at home threatens the survival of us all.
“You will not kill us—or our neighbors—without a fight.”
History will record our response. Let it mark this as the moment we chose realism over delusion, courage over complacency. Our lives, our communities, our democracy, and our planet depend on it.
*Faith in Action: Moral Courage for a Nuclear-Free Future
Faith traditions have long stood at the forefront of movements for peace, justice, and the sanctity of life. In this blog series, “Faith in Action: Moral Courage for a Nuclear-Free Future” we explore how people of faith are responding to the moral and existential crisis posed by nuclear weapons. Through reflections, event recaps, and contributions from our interfaith partners, this series offers a space for spiritual voices calling for disarmament—and a reminder that confronting the threat of nuclear annihilation is not just a political issue, but a deeply human and moral one.
While Back from the Brink is a secular campaign, we are proud to stand in solidarity with faith-based partners who see nuclear abolition as both a spiritual imperative and a call to justice. Together, we bear witness—and take action—for a future free from nuclear weapons.
If you’re part of a faith group that’s interested in getting involved with Back from the Brink, you can reach out to Danny Hall at danny@preventnuclearwar.org.
