May 20, 2025 10:02 AM UTC

Get More Smarter Roundup for Tuesday (May 20)

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• by: Colorado Pols

Happy “World Bee Day.” Please celebrate responsibly. Let’s Get More Smarter! If you think we missed something important, please include the link in the comments below (here’s a good example). If you are more of an audio learner, check out The Get More Smarter Podcast.

Get Smarter Today About: Congressional Republicans struggle to make the math work in their budget bill; the Trump administration changes COVID-19 vaccination guidelines; and there’s another Democrat in the race in CO-08.

Warm Up Those Brains…

► David A. Graham of The Atlantic looks at how House Republicans just can’t make the math work on President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill”:

Any straightforward accounting points to one conclusion: The president’s “One, Big, Beautiful Bill” (as Republicans insist on formally calling it) would make the country’s fiscal situation worse. It would slash taxes for years to come, and although it would make some budget cuts, they aren’t anywhere near enough to cover the difference. The bill is projected to add trillions of dollars to the deficit; the only real disagreement among analysts is over how many trillions. Yet Republicans leaders keep trying to pretend otherwise.

The past few days have seen a flurry of activity on the bill. On Friday, the House Budget Committee failed to advance the bill after Republican fiscal hawks voted against it. Representative Chip Roy pointed out that the plan relies on lots of upfront spending and claims cuts based on future actions that Congress is unlikely to take. “We didn’t come here to claim that we’re going to reform things and then not do it, right?” he said last week.

Later on Friday, the credit-rating agency Moody’s lowered the nation’s rating from the top Aaa to Aa1 with a negative outlook, citing, um, greater federal spending without greater taxes to cover it. “Over the next decade, we expect larger deficits as entitlement spending rises while government revenue remains broadly flat. In turn, persistent, large fiscal deficits will drive the government’s debt and interest burden higher,” Moody’s said in a statement.

Republican leaders’ response to the downgrade has been denial. On Meet the Press, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said, “I think that Moody’s is a lagging indicator. I think that’s what everyone thinks of credit agencies.” Even insofar as this is true, why exacerbate the existing problems that Moody’s notes? This morning, Majority Leader Steve Scalise told CNBC, “This bond downgrade is another serious blow that shows that America needs to get its fiscal house in order. We start to do that in this bill.” Never mind that Moody’s is responding to exactly the bill’s approach.

Elsewhere, The Washington Post looks at the so-called “five families” in the House Republican caucus who are feuding over the big spending bill.

Curiously, Colorado Reps. Jeff “Bread Sandwich” Hurd (R-Grand Junction) and Gabe Evans (R-Fort Lupton) are members of four of the five “families,” with neither participating in the House Freedom Caucus. Hurd may want to form a new caucus himself; we’d suggest calling it the “Cave-in Caucus.”

► President Trump is telling Congressional Republicans NOT to mess with Medicaid funding. That position may change before the end of the day, of course. 

► State Rep. Shannon Bird (D-Adams County) formally launched her campaign for Congress in CO-08 on Tuesday morning. Fellow Democrats Manny Rutinel and Yadira Caraveo are already running for the nomination in hopes of defeating incumbent Republican Rep. Gabe Evans. 

► The Trump administration announced that annual COVID-19 vaccines for healthy younger adults and children will no longer be routinely approved by the Food and Drug Administration. If we just pretend that COVID doesn’t exist, we’ll be fine!

► University of Denver political science professor Seth Masket writes that media outlets are missing the bigger story this week as they focus on the health of former President Joe Biden, who has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer.

Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it was charging Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) with “assaulting, impeding or interfering with law enforcement” following her appearance outside an ICE detention center in Newark. Needless to say, an administration seeking to arrest an elected member of the opposition party — not for fraud or campaign finance violations but for protest — is a major five-alarm fire for democracy.

Here’s more on the arrest of Rep. LaMonica McIver, via The Associated Press:

McIver is being charged with assault after a skirmish with federal officers outside an immigration detention center, said New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor, who also announced Monday that she was dropping a trespassing case against the Newark mayor whose arrest led to the disturbance.

Interim U.S. Attorney Alina Habba wrote on social media that McIver is facing a charge of assaulting, impeding or interfering with law enforcement, but court papers providing details were not immediately released or publicly available online.

The prosecution of McIver is a rare federal criminal case against a sitting member of Congress for allegations other than fraud or corruption. The case instantly taps into a much broader and more consequential power struggle between a Trump administration engaged in a sweeping overhaul of immigration policy and a Democratic party scrambling for ways to respond.

Within minutes of Habba’s announcement, McIver’s Democratic colleagues cast the prosecution as an infringement on lawmakers’ official duties to serve their constituents and an effort to silence their opposition to an immigration policy that helped propel the president back into power but now has emerged as divisive fault line in American political discourse.

Click below to keep learning things…

Get Extra Smarter…

► Colorado Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, along with Reps. Diana DeGette (D-Denver) and Joe Neguse (D-Boulderish) are calling on the Department of Transportation to address recent communications problems at Denver International Airport. From a press release:

Following last week’s communications outage at Denver International Airport (DEN) and the Denver Air Route Traffic Control Center in Longmont, Representatives Joe Neguse and Diana DeGette joined Colorado Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper in penning a letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Acting FAA Administrator Chris Rocheleau. The Colorado lawmakers called on the officials to take decisive action to alleviate heightened air travel concerns, including immediately reinstating FAA personnel terminated by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to address low staffing levels at air traffic control towers and make much-needed updates to aging aircraft communications infrastructure.

Click HERE to read the full letter from the Colorado Democrats.

► It’s not just you; Colorado is getting older. From Tamara Chuang at The Colorado Sun:

For years — decades, actually — Colorado’s population was getting younger. As the state and its outdoor activities became a prime attraction for young professionals who moved here for a job and then started a family, a number of babies helped bring down the median age — at which half of the population is older and half is younger.

But there are fewer babies being born and Colorado has seen migration into the state slow down. Also, longtime Coloradans are retiring and staying put.

“It’s largely aging in place,” said Kate Watkins, the state demographer who took on the role in December. “And we’re seeing lower birth rates across counties. Some of our more rural counties tend to have, on average, slightly higher fertility rates than more metropolitan areas. But across the board, we’re aging in place.”

► The City of Denver has delayed — again — making a decision about whether to spend $800 million to expand the National Western Center. 

► Governor Jared Polis is expressing serious concerns about using National Guard troops for immigration enforcement. 

► Jeanette Vizguerra, who is currently being held in an ICE detention facility in Aurora, has been named a winner of the Robert F. Kennedy (not Junior) human rights award. 

► Democratic lawmakers in Colorado are asking Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to preserve the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) ahead of peak wildfire season in our state. 

► As Jessica Bowman writes for the Durango Herald, administrators with La Plata County mental health services are worried that proposed Medicaid cuts could decimate their programs.

► Colorado food banks are seeing an increase in demand as concerns mount over Congressional Republican efforts to cut SNAP benefits. 

► Right-wing “parental rights” groups are suing Colorado because they are scared of transgender people.

► Six Colorado cities are suing Gov. Jared Polis in an effort to block housing reforms, as Seth Klamann writes for The Denver Post:

Aurora and five suburban cities are suing the state of Colorado and Gov. Jared Polis in an attempt to block two land-use bills passed last year that seek to build more housing.

The lawsuit was filed in Denver District Court on Monday by the cities of Arvada, Aurora, Glendale, Greenwood Village, Lafayette and Westminster.

They argue that two bills signed into law by Polis in 2024 — which seek to increase density and eliminate parking requirements near transit stops — violate the provision of the Colorado Constitution that gives local governments the authority to set rules within their own jurisdictions.

The municipalities also contend that an executive order signed by Polis on Friday is unconstitutional. In that order, the governor directed several state agencies to prioritize giving more than $100 million in various state grants to cities that comply with the recent land-use reforms, including those challenged in the lawsuit.

Kevin Bommer of the Colorado Municipal League went so far as to accuse Polis and lawmakers of [eyeroll] “bullying” local governments.

► Elon Musk will “step away” from political spending in the near future, saying he feels like he has “done enough.” On this, at least, we agree.

Say What, Now?

Alrighty, then:

Your Daily Dose Of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

► A Delaware animal shelter is trying to figure out what to do with a shitload of chickens. 

► South Dakota Republican Sen. Mike Rounds is trying — and failing — to offer a good reason for why President Trump should be allowed to accept a $400 million airplane from Qatar.

ICYMI

► Seth Klamann of The Denver Post talks to Attorney General Phil Weiser about the 20 lawsuits Colorado has joined in opposition to Trump administration cuts and policies:

Limitations on transgender health care. Threats to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds. The tumultuous whipsaw of on-again, off-again tariffs.

Since President Donald Trump returned to office in January and unfurled a flurry of executive orders and directives, Colorado has joined with blue-state allies to file 20 lawsuits challenging those and other actions — a rate of more than one suit per week. It’s a litigious streak outpaced only by Trump’s blistering spree of executive orders and the Republican’s unprecedented attempts to pull the nation’s purse strings to his chest.

Colorado’s top elected lawyer, two-term Democratic Attorney General Phil Weiser, is no stranger to litigation against Trump: Weiser’s office sued the president and his administration at least 11 times during both men’s first terms. Just four months into Trump’s second term, Weiser has already surpassed that total, and he argues that the “level of lawlessness” is unprecedented.

“We’ve had to essentially stretch ourselves as a department to keep doing what I’ll call our normal work, as the people’s lawyer,” he said in an interview last week. Then there’s what he calls the “abnormal” task of the Trump era — “an unprecedented situation of being a constant evaluator of, ‘Is this action harming Colorado and is this action illegal?’ ”

“So we ask those two questions again and again and again,” Weiser said. “And 20 times, I’ve had to say: ‘Yes, it is.’ ”

► 9News runs a truth test on an ad praising President Trump that is airing on Colorado TV stations:

► Don’t miss the latest episode of the Get More Smarter Podcast for an in-depth rundown of the 2025 Colorado legislative session with Denver Post Statehouse Reporter Seth Klamann: