It seems that as surely as night follows day, the rich will oppress the poor. Today the U.S. Senate chose to continue that malignant tradition by voting in favor of the “Big Beautiful Bill” which would more aptly be called “The Big Bogus Boondoggle,” because of its brazen transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the already obscenely wealthy. Many of the Republicans who voted for this monstrously awful legislation are self professed Christians, including Vice President J.D. Vance (his chosen name by the way) who cast the pivotal vote to give the GOP a one vote win. These Christian politicians’ votes however are tantamount rejections of basic Christian ethical teachings from throughout the Bible. Many things are hard to decipher in the various texts of the Bible. How God views the rich oppressing the poor is not one of them. Time and again the writers proclaim that accumulating wealth at the expense of the poor is an egregious sin.

Every politician who voted for this bill is in defiance of this fundamental biblical teaching. To paraphrase Senator Warnock, one must indeed wonder if they’re reading the same book. Jesus of course taught that accumulating wealth made it well-nigh impossible for the rich person to enter the Kingdom of God and that one cannot serve both God and money. Jesus is not the only person in the New Testament to condemn accumulating wealth though. As David Bentley Hart (DBH) notes in his introduction to his translation of the New Testament, the writers show “no common sense” notions of wealth by ever proclaiming that a person’s wealth can be benignly gained and held. Rather, the N.T. “alarmingly enough, condemns personal wealth not merely as a moral danger, but as an intrinsic evil.” (emphasis in original) As Dr. Hart notes further, the N.T. condemns “wealth, in and of itself.” (Hart, xxvi, xxviii)

In the book James, ostensibly written by Jesus’ own brother, we see the veracity of DBH’s words in his introduction. In James 2:1-7 he admonishes Christians who have shown partiality to the rich and states clearly that it is the “rich who oppress you.” Later in chapter five he warns the rich oppressors that their comeuppance is sure to come saying that they will weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to them. Dr. Phillip J. Long wrote that James’ concern for the poor was due to the impoverished condition of many priests in Judea and the increased social tensions between rich and poor that resulted from that disparity. I wonder if GOP politicians have given any thought to what happens when large numbers of oppressed people are simply pushed to damn far. I doubt it.

One of the most well known biblical statements about wealth, “for the love of money is the root of all evil,” is found in 1 Timothy. The epistle’s author prefaced that by saying that those who follow Jesus should be content with having food and clothing, rather than focusing on getting rich. It’s no secret that wealthy Christians have ignored that biblical teaching since it was written either by accumulating wealth at the expense of others or collaborating, in hopes of personal gain, with the wealthy for their mutual benefit. Many members of Congress and the Senate are wealthy, and or, collaborate with the wealthy to maintain and increase the gap between rich and poor. That is precisely what is happening in Washington D.C. with the Big Bogus Boondoggle.

The BBB will increase the budget deficit by trillions of dollars according to reports from the Congressional Budget Office and media outlets. Such is the increase that Elon Musk is now vowing to spend large amounts of money in the primaries against those who voted for it. The MAGA bromance between Trump and Musk appears to be irrevocably broken. Meanwhile, the world waits for the Epstein Files to be released, but I digress. The BBB also adds over $150 billion to the already bloated and obscene “defense” budget. It calls for an additional $150 billion for Trump and Miller’s fascist mass deportation program that is now being directed at naturalized American citizens, as well as though who sought asylum legally, and undocumented immigrants. In every conceivable way, this piece of legislation is evil and should never become law. Every politician who has voted for it already should be ashamed of themselves, but again, I doubt any of them ever will be. They should keep Jesus’ name out of their mouths.

“RISE! All you mighty people!” — Bob Marley and the Wailers