As Congress goes back to work this week, Florida's religious leaders are calling for a public outcry over massive cuts to food aid in pending legislation.
Both the House and Senate would cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, formerly known as food stamps. The Senate would cut SNAP by $4.5 billion, while the House would cut $16 billion.
In Florida – the state with the nation's second-highest usage of SNAP – nearly 1 in 5 people gets food aid.
And Wednesday, Reverend Russell Meyer, director of the Florida Council of Churches, said the religious community can't take up the slack.
"The resources for handling the needs of the vulnerable and the poor are not within the church itself,” Meyer said. “And to ask the church itself to do that would be to put a tax on people of faith that would not be shared by the rest of society."
Wednesday, religious leaders said it would cost every Christian and Jewish congregation in the U.S. $50,000 apiece for ten years to make up the cuts.