One year later, people of faith should reckon with Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’

(RNS) — One year ago, President Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law. Rather than abundance for working families, it has delivered deepening inequality and increased hardship for people already struggling to make ends meet.

Throughout Scripture, we are reminded that societies are judged not by how they treat the powerful but by how they care for those who are hungry, sick, poor and marginalized. As a Quaker lobbyist, I have been taught to assess legislation with simple questions: What does this policy do to the dignity of every person? Will this law strengthen the common good?  Will it improve the lives of those most in need and generations to come? And perhaps even, would Jesus support the consequences of this bill?

By these measures, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act has failed.

While the law delivered sweeping tax benefits to wealthy households and corporations, it financed many of those benefits by reducing investments in nutrition assistance, health care and clean energy while dramatically expanding war-like immigration enforcement. One year after its passage, many families are experiencing the consequences through less food in the fridge,…