A Big Beautiful Bill or a Big Burden for the Black Community?

A Big Beautiful Bill or a Big Burden for the Black Community?

Pastors Raise Concerns, Yet Remain Determined and Not Deterred to Serve Their Communities of Faith

By Pastor Kyev Tatum
July 6, 2025 | Fort Worth, Texas

This Fourth of July will be remembered not for fireworks—but for a firestorm.

On July 4, 2025, President Donald J. Trump signed into law what his administration proudly calls “A Big Beautiful Bill”—a sweeping economic package described by supporters as a patriotic realignment of national priorities. But for many in the Black community, this “beautiful” legislation looks more like a bulldozer plowing through the fragile foundations of economic justice, community health, and educational opportunity.

Gone are the cornerstone programs of the Great Society. Gone are the compassionate policies from both Republican and Democratic administrations that once served as lifelines for the poor and the marginalized. Gone are the federal investments that offered a pathway out of poverty. And with their disappearance, so too fades a vital expression of America’s moral obligation to care for its most vulnerable.



I Know These Cuts Personally

These aren’t abstract numbers to me. They are my lived experience.

Without programs like Upward Bound, Student Support Services, Summer Meals, Summer employment, Job Corps, and Pell Grant and other federal student aid, I would not have made it out of the generational poverty that defined my early life. I would not have gone to college. I would not have become a pastor. I would not be writing this column today.

This bill didn’t just cut line items—it cut off ladders. It closed doors that were once held open for people like me. For millions of Americans—especially Black, under-resourced, and undercounted communities—this bill feels less like a blessing and more like a betrayal.



We Were Already Struggling—Now We’re Paying the Price

The Black community already bears more than its fair share of America’s burdens:
• Lowest life expectancy in the country
• Highest unemployment and underemployment rates
• Persistent racial wealth gaps
• Underfunded schools and hospitals
• Limited access to affordable housing, healthcare, and child care

And now, to fund massive tax breaks and increase defense spending, this administration has targeted the very programs we rely on most. While billionaires and defense contractors pop champagne, working families are being asked to tighten belts already on their last notch.



What Was Cut to Pay for the “Big Beautiful Bill”?

The newly signed law includes deep and deliberate cuts to critical federal programs—many of which have long served as lifelines for Black families and other underserved communities:
• Department of Health and Human Services (HHS): $33 billion cut (26%)
• NIH and National Cancer Institute: Cut by 39% and 37%, respectively
• Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services: Reduced and reorganized
• Office of Civil Rights: Eliminated
• LIHEAP (Home Energy Assistance): Eliminated
• Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD): 51% cut (from $89B to $43.5B)
• Department of Education: 15% cut
• Afterschool and Community Learning Centers: Eliminated
• Nearly 30 programs consolidated into a weakened block grant
• Long-term plan to eliminate the Department entirely
• Student Aid & Work-Study: Reduced
• Head Start & WIC: Slashed
• SNAP (Food Stamps): 25–30% cut—up to $220 billion over 10 years
• TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families): $20 billion cut
• SSI (for disabled children in multi-recipient families): Reduced
• Job Corps & Workforce Training Programs: 40% cut or eliminated
• Legal Services Corporation, AmeriCorps, and VISTA: Eliminated
• Over $1.9 trillion in non-defense discretionary cuts, gutting education, health, housing, nutrition, and civil rights

Let’s be clear: this is not fiscal discipline—it’s moral negligence.


A Redistribution of Wealth—Upward

This bill does not spread prosperity. It concentrates it.

It transfers resources away from the poor and working class, toward the already rich and powerful. It dismantles the social safety net not because it failed—but because it succeeded in lifting too many people toward equality.

This is not a neutral reallocation. It is a political statement: that some lives, some communities, and some futures matter less.


What Does the Church Say?

We are pastors. We are spiritual leaders. But we are also servants of the people—many of whom now stand directly in the crosshairs of these cuts.

Every week, we minister to:
• The single mother now priced out of child care
• The senior choosing between insulin and groceries
• The student watching their college dreams evaporate

And so we speak—not from a place of partisan politics, but from the prophetic tradition. Scripture commands us to defend the widow, the orphan, the poor, and the stranger. Any policy that enriches the few while forsaking the many is not just bad politics—it is ungodly.

As Jesus taught, “Whatever you did to the least of these, you did to Me.”


From the Pulpit to the Public Square

Now is the time for the Black church—and all churches—to rise.

We must not only feed the hungry—we must ask why they are hungry.
We must not only clothe the naked—we must confront the systems stripping them bare.
We must not only pray for justice—we must demand it.


So What Now?

The bill is law. The cuts are happening. The consequences are already unfolding. But we are not powerless.

We are determined and not deterred.

We will organize. We will educate. We will serve. We will pray.
We will continue building bridges where others build walls.
We will keep lifting our communities with faith-fueled determination.

And we will hold our elected officials accountable—because the burden may be heavy, but our resolve is heavier.


This bill may be called “Big and Beautiful,” but we must ensure it does not become bitter and brutal for the most vulnerable among us.


Pastor Kyev Tatum
New Mount Rose Missionary Baptist Church of Fort Worth
“Faith in Action. Justice in Motion.”