By Reverend Rosalind Osgood, D.P.A.
Florida Senator District 32
They call it the “Big Beautiful Bill.” They market it like a cure-all—grand, patriotic, and promising prosperity for all. But beneath the polished language and political theater lies a bill that betrays the very people it claims to serve adding $2.4–$2.8 trillion added to national debt (2025–2034)
As a faith leader and public servant, I speak not just from policy analysis but from a deep moral conviction rooted in liberation theology—a theology that teaches us to see the world through the eyes of the poor, the excluded, and the oppressed. The “Big Beautiful Bill” fails that test. It doesn’t uplift the people at the bottom. It steps on them.
Liberation theology reminds us that justice is not charity. It’s not a handout or a tax credit—it’s a restructuring of society so that no one is crushed under the weight of inequality. As the liberation theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez once said, “So you say you love the poor? Name them.” The poor have names. They have faces. And they are noticeably absent from this bill’s priorities.
This legislation gives to the powerful and takes from the struggling. It slashes funding for affordable housing, Medicaid. SNAP and public schools while handing tax breaks to massive corporations. 75% of benefits flow to the top 20% of earners; lowest-income households may see net losses. The poorest 20% could lose about $700 a year. This bill wraps deregulation in the language of “freedom” but imposes deeper burdens on working families, particularly in Black and Brown communities that have already been left behind.
This isn’t liberation. This is legislative gentrification—pushing the vulnerable out of their own future.
It is easy to dress up oppression in patriotic language. It is easy to call a bill “beautiful” when you are not the one who will suffer under it. But let’s be honest: no policy is beautiful if it increases poverty, shrinks access to healthcare, guts education, and pretends that economic justice will somehow “trickle down” to the people who need it most.
Where is the justice for the grandmother on a fixed income watching her rent skyrocket? Where is the support for the single parent trying to find safe childcare while working two jobs with no benefits? Where is the investment in communities still dealing with the generational trauma of redlining, underfunding, and incarceration?
Liberation theology holds that God has a preferential option for the poor. That phrase makes some people uncomfortable, but it should. It means we are judged morally and spiritually by how we treat the least protected person among us. Not the donors. Not the lobbyists. Not the corporations. The people.
And by that standard, this bill fails.
The “Big Beautiful Bill” is not a path to equity. It is a distraction from it. It’s a smokescreen that makes it look like we’re doing something bold when we’re doubling down on what has never worked: prioritizing wealth and hoping justice follows. But justice doesn’t follow power. It confronts it.
This bill asks struggling communities to be patient while others get a head start. It tells them to wait for jobs, wait for aid, wait for opportunities. But as Dr. King said, “Wait almost always means never.” And we’ve been told to wait long enough.
I don’t oppose this bill because I lack imagination. I oppose it because I have a vision that is more just, more inclusive, and more grounded in faith. A vision that puts children before shareholders. A vision that funds schools, not tax shelters. A vision where dignity isn’t earned through productivity but recognized as sacred from birth.
Real economic policy should reflect real values. It should be judged by how well it serves the hungry, the homeless, the worker, the incarcerated, the elderly, and the young. If a policy doesn’t serve them, it doesn’t serve us.
So, I am extremely disturbed by this bill. Not out of partisanship, but out of principle. Not because I want to obstruct progress, but because I believe in real progress, the kind that changes lives, not just headlines.
To those elected members of congress who supported this bill, I say: go back to your districts. Listen to the people at your food banks, your faith-based institutions, your nursing home and hospitals. Ask them if this bill reflects their needs. Ask them if this bill sees them. And ask yourself if you still believe public service is about the public.
Because if we cannot name the poor, we cannot claim to love them. And if we are not here to lift them, then what are we doing here at all?
Let’s build policies that heal, not harms. Let’s write laws that liberate, not just legislate. And let’s have the courage to stand with the people, even when politics get uncomfortable.
