February 25, 2025 11:01 AM UTC

The "Big Beautiful Bill" That Could Wreck Gabe Evans

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper has a warning that Evans and other Republicans would be wise to heed. Via POLITICO:

Sen. John Hickenlooper said Tuesday that the Trump administration’s broad cuts to federal programs will come to hurt farmers, veterans and food stamp recipients — and Republicans will come to regret it.

“If these cuts continue and suddenly farmers aren’t going to be able to get crop insurance, right, for their crops, that’s going to cripple small farmers way more than the big guys,” the moderate Colorado Democrat said at POLITICO Playbook’s First 100 Days breakfast series Tuesday.

“I guarantee you that will get connected to all these other cuts, and there will be a lot of people showing up at their Republican House member saying, ‘How can you support this?’” he added.

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As the Washington Post reports from Capitol Hill this morning, a fateful vote in the U.S. House is scheduled for today on a budget resolution that would set in motion massive cuts to the nation’s social safety nets, including funding for Medicaid health care that 1.1 million Coloradans rely on–yet still apparently has not managed to win over the support of hard-right fiscal hawks, who want to inflict even more pain. At the same time, vulnerable Republicans in swing districts are looking at the damage this budget would do to their own constituents and realizing that they might personally pay the highest political price:

Republicans’ push to enact President Donald Trump’s tax, immigration, national defense and energy agenda is at risk of faltering, lawmakers say, as House Speaker Mike Johnson attempts to coax his slim majority into an agreement that still may be far away.

Johnson (R-Louisiana) is set to put a budget resolution up for a floor vote Tuesday, but is facing a potential revolt from swing-district Republicans wary of cuts to social safety net benefits and fiscal hawks who say the bill’s $2 trillion in spending cuts don’t reach far enough into federal coffers.

Two out of the 4 Colorado Republicans in Congress have yet to weigh in either way on the vote they’ll be casting later today. Reps. Lauren Boebert and Jeff Hurd have likewise stayed quiet. Hurd’s CO-03 district has the highest concentration of Medicaid recipients of any Colorado congressional district, so his vote on this bill will tell us a lot about how Hurd intends to manage the contradiction of pleasing the MAGA movement in Washington while doing no harm to constituents back home. Rep. Jeff Crank recently reposted the House GOP conference chair vowing to “stay on offense,” and we’d be surprised if Crank upsets Speaker Mike Johnson’s wobbly apple cart.

As for the state’s most vulnerable Republican, freshman Rep. Gabe Evans? As we noted yesterday and Denver7 reported over the weekend, Evans appears to be on the Trump Train with his canned statement that hasn’t changed in a week:

“While we have only have topline numbers from the proposed budget, I look forward to working with my colleagues in Congress to protect hard working families, this includes commonsense spending reductions that combats waste, fraud, and abuse, tax cuts for small businesses and working class families, and increased border security measures to deliver our neighborhoods from transnational criminal organizations and fentanyl,” Evans said.

Despite this mealy-mouthed support for “commonsense spending reductions,” in an audacious zigzag that would make ex-Sen. Cory Gardner proud, Evans yesterday posted the above photo from his recent visit to the Tepeyac Community Health Center in Denver’s Elyria neighborhood. This is the same location where last week, Democratic Rep. Diana DeGette held a press conference to warn about the devastating consequences of the Republican budget plan. Colorado Newsline:

At a news conference alongside U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, a Denver Democrat, leaders with Denver Health, Tepeyac Community Health Center and the Colorado Hospital Association said Medicaid cuts would lead to reduced services, layoffs and even facility closures around the state.

Republican budget proposals in Congress could roll back how much money the federal government provides to match states for Medicaid, a joint health care program for people with low incomes or disabilities that covers 1 in 5 people living in the U.S.

Jim Garcia, CEO at Tepeyac Community Health Center…said Medicaid represents about 10% of the center’s revenue and is essential to ensuring it is able to offer integrated care, meaning patients can access medical, mental health and dental care at the same place. Medicaid cuts would lead to patients delaying or foregoing care, he said, which could lead to higher costing emergency hospital visits.

Presumably the good folks at Tepeyac had the same message for Gabe Evans? As a member of Johnson’s paper-thin majority, Evans has the power (with the help of just a couple of colleagues) to send Republican leadership back to the drawing board in search of a compromise that can please polar opposites.

At some point soon and maybe today, Evans will be forced to choose between health care cuts that will devastate thousands of families in his district, or turning against the Trump agenda he ran on. It’s a choice that could define, and by that we mean shorten, Evans’ career in electoral politics.