How The Big Beautiful Bill Hurts Black America

Forbes

4 days ago

US Capitol.
This morning, somewhere in America, a single mother rises before the sun. She takes two buses to a job that barely covers her rent. After a long day, she comes home just long enough to change clothes and help her ten-year-old with his homework before heading out to a second shift at a fast-food restaurant across town. Her son's inhaler is covered by Medicaid. Most months, her SNAP benefits run out about 10 days early. When that happens, she stretches the grits, waters down the milk, and prays that her son never has to carry the weight of his hunger or what it represents.
This is her life. Day after day. Month after month. Year after year. And now, she's at risk of losing even the vital benefits that help her make ends meet.
They call it the 'Big Beautiful Bill', though the name is a cruel contradiction. At a time when many families are struggling to keep their heads above water, it's hard to reconcile a proposal that slashes support for low-income households while expanding tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans.
This bill would remove the social safety net for millions of Americans – Black, Brown, white, urban, rural, Republican, Democrat – by making President Trump's tax cuts for the wealthy permanent, but at a devastating cost:
The GOP has long argued for entitlement reform under the guise of fiscal responsibility, but the party has never been blunter and more unapologetic in its position on who deserves help (the wealthy and influential) and who doesn't (working-class Americans scraping by in hopes of one day making a better life for themselves and their families).
You have to ask: is cruelty the point?
The GOP knows this bill will disproportionately punish the populations least equipped to handle such a fundamental disruption. Approximately 30% of Black Americans rely on Medicaid, despite representing about 14% of the population. One in five Black families rely on SNAP.
Now, if this bill is signed into law, these students may decide to delay their academic plans while they take on a second job to pay for their education without the help of subsidized financial aid. Sadly, with this policy, some may never enroll in the first place. Black borrowers already carry more student debt than any other group, so the elimination of subsidized loans is a huge blow to Black students pursing post-secondary education, many of whom are the first in their families to do so.
Meanwhile, those who stand to benefit the most from this bill - the top 1% - are sheltered from the hard choices and harm inherent to it. They don't have to choose between rent and medicine. Their children will never know the pain of going to bed on an empty stomach or putting off college because they can't afford the cost of attendance. Their wealth will continue to rise, while ours will stagnate.
It's a familiar story: the rich get richer, and Black America is handed the crumbs – and the bill.
The GOP will sell the bill as a return to 'fiscal discipline,' and that its passage is necessary to 'make America great again.' Despite their best efforts to hide the ball, their intent is crystal clear by what they prioritize in the bill and what they choose to cut. Proposals that shield the fortunes of billionaires are deemed non-negotiable, while programs that serve single mothers, Black children, and first-generation college students are dismissed as waste, fraud, and abuse.
Black America has heard this story before.
After the Civil Rights Act, Nixon's 'New Federalism,' often left urban, predominately Black communities susceptible to prolonged underinvestment and discrimination. Then came Reagan's 'welfare queen,' a not-so-subtle dog whistle designed to sway public opinion and justify the gutting of public assistance programs. Years later, Clinton, signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act , which replaced direct welfare assistance with TANF block grants. 'Personal responsibility,' sounds good in a headline, but TANF's rigid provisions made it harder for poor, Black families to get the support they once had a right to.
And when the 2008 financial crisis hit, the federal government moved swiftly to rescue banks deemed 'too big to fail.' Meanwhile, Black homeowners – many targeted by predatory lenders – were left to fend for themselves. No bailouts. No safety net. Just lost homes, depleted savings, and shattered dignity. And unfortunately, Black homeownership never rebounded as data shows today.
The decisions made in Capitol Hill in the coming weeks could deal the final blow to Black Americans already stretched thin and barely holding on. Will the single mother I mentioned earlier have to skip meals to cover her son's inhaler co-pay? Will a young Black student still see college as a realistic goal, or will subsidized student loans be eliminated before he even has a chance to apply?
These families may never meet the architects of this bill, but make no mistake, they are deciding what parts of their lives matter and what parts are expendable all in the name of tax breaks for those who already have more than enough.
The Civil Rights Act promised a level playing field. This bill flips that promise on its head. It treats fairness as a privilege, extended only to those who already have a seat at the table. That's how we find ourselves here, sixty years later, debating whether policy should expect children to outgrow hunger.
It isn't just unjust. It's immoral.
Our elected officials have two jobs: to run the government well, and more importantly, protect the most vulnerable among us from harm. With this bill, the House GOP has abandoned both. They'll hit the Sunday shows and, without a hint of irony, tell the American people this is responsible reform. But the only thing this bill responsibly protects is the stranglehold the wealthy have on working people just trying to survive.
Don't fall for it. This bill isn't about fiscal responsibility or economic stability. And don't let them gaslight you into believing these were hard choices. They weren't. They were easy, calculated decisions made at the expense of people with the least power to push back. To them, the lives of those who will suffer the most simply don't matter. The single mother juggling two jobs to keep the lights on? She's dismissed as lazy. A burden. She should bootstrap harder. It's a familiar narrative – used for decades to justify cruelty in the name of policy.
What other explanation could there be? GOP leaders lined up to gut programs that feed children, house seniors, and keep the sick alive. And for what? All to give more tax breaks to the ultra-wealthy, who already have more than enough.
That's not a government tightening its belt. That's a government tightening its grip around the necks of working people.
Any American - elected or otherwise - who dares to call that 'beautiful' is showing us exactly what – and who – they value. And it's not us.