WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd joined House Republicans this week in voting to adopt a budget resolution that calls for up to $2 trillion in spending cuts and up to $4.5 trillion in tax cuts over the next 10 years.
The resolution would likely increase the deficit by about $3 trillion in that time and mean trimming Medicaid spending.
The resolution competes with a less detailed version Senate Republicans adopted last week, reflecting the two chambers’ differing approaches to carrying out President Donald Trump’s domestic policy agenda. The Senate version was designed to be the first of two resolutions, with a later resolution that would allow making the 2017 Trump tax cuts permanent.
Both Colorado senators joined other Senate Democrats in opposing the Senate resolution in an overnight “vote-a-rama” session – a series of back-to-back amendment votes attempting to stall the final vote.
The advantage of pursuing budget resolutions is that once the House and the Senate adopt agreeing resolutions they can begin reconciliation, which requires a simple majority vote versus the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster and pass most legislation in the Senate. It allows Congress to change mandatory spending, which includes Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP and other programs. Social Security cannot be changed under reconciliation.
The House and Senate resolutions must be in agreement before committees begin drafting appropriations bills. Though Trump has endorsed the House resolution, Senate Republicans still want to adjust the plan and ensure they can make room to make the Trump 2017 tax cuts permanent, among other things, Politico reported.
These resolutions kick-start the budget process for the 2026 fiscal year by laying out a 10-year road map for the appropriations bills that Congress must pass to fund the government by Oct. 1 and are entirely separate from the March 14 deadline for Congress to fund the government for 2025. The resolutions themselves do not carry the force of law.
The House adopted its resolution after days of uncertainty and Speaker Mike Johnson’s last-minute scramble to win over Republican holdouts. Some strong fiscal conservatives wanted larger spending cuts to match the tax cuts and avoid deepening the deficit, while Republicans from swing districts voiced concerns about impending cuts to Medicaid.
Several Republicans wrote a letter to Johnson warning that “slashing Medic aid would have serious consequences” and saying that “we must ensure that assistance programs – such as SNAP – remain protected.”
The resolution instructs the House Committee on Energy and Commerce to cut $880 billion from its mandatory spending. Because Medicare and Medicaid make up the vast majority of the mandatory spending that the committee oversees, as The New York Times explains, it will likely have to cut into Medicaid to fulfill the resolution.
As many as 26% of Hurd’s constituents are enrolled in Medicaid, higher than the national average of just under 23% and the highest share of any Colorado congressional district, according to data compiled by NYU Langone Health.
Politico recently listed Hurd, alongside fellow Colorado Republican freshman Gabe Evans, among some of the 11 most vulnerable Republicans to vote for the resolution. Hurd won his seat by five percentage points while Evans won by less than a percentage point.
Hurd posted a video statement on the social platform X Thursday evening, clarifying that the budget resolution is just an “opening framework” and that he will be “fighting to make sure that the voices of Colorado’s third district are heard.”
“There is zero policy changes in this resolution, but it does set the stage for us to begin those policy changes and to deliver on the things that we campaigned on, securing the border, growing our energy economy, and protecting Colorado families,” he said. “As Congress moves forward, I’m gonna be looking to protect the services and benefits that so many families in my district rely on, things like Medicaid and SNAP.”
A spokesperson for Hurd’s office said with a two-seat majority, every Republican had the opportunity to provide input on the resolution, including Hurd.
The resolution also instructs the House Committee on Education and Workforce and the Committee on Agriculture to make sizable cuts, while giving House committees that oversee spending on border security and the military funding increases. Those cuts could impact SNAP, student aid, child nutrition and crop insurance, among other programs.
Hurd has voiced support for making the Trump 2017 tax cuts – which are set to expire at the end of this year – permanent. The resolution makes way for extending the tax cuts, but not making them permanent, by directing $4 trillion to $4.5 trillion in tax cuts over the next 10 years.
“I’m optimistic that we can make these permanent,” he told Fox News on Feb. 6. “Again, that money is better in the hands of American hardworking families. And I know that’s something that matters to President Trump, and it matters to me, and I think I’m optimistic that we can deliver on it.”
A report from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan research institute, noted that the 2017 tax cuts “skewed to the rich” with households that have incomes in the top 1% receiving an average tax cut of more than $60,000 and households in the bottom 60% receiving an average tax cut of under $500.
The Senate adopted its budget resolution Feb. 21 in a 52-48 vote after an overnight “vote-a-rama” session in which Democrats called votes on over two dozen doomed amendments. Both Colorado senators read amendments in participation of the Democrats’ overnight effort to stall a final vote on the Republican resolution.
Though Trump had already endorsed the House plan, Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., pushed ahead on the vote as a “plan B” while the House version faced an uncertain future.
The Senate resolution lays out fewer specific cuts than the House version but calls for increased spending on defense and border security to support Trump’s plan to scale up deportations.
During the Democrats’ overnight “vote-a-rama” effort, Sen. John Hickenlooper read an amendment that would prevent the Senate from considering measures that would raise energy prices “by slowing or blocking the development of clean energy infrastructure.”
Sen. Michael Bennet also read an amendment that would reinstate the roughly 5,500 workers who have been terminated from the Forest Service, National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Land Management.
Bennet told The Durango Herald that extending the Trump tax cuts would be “a terrible use of the American people’s resources.”
Neither of the senators’ amendments passed.
This story has been updated to include a response from Rep. Jeff Hurd’s office about his involvement in shaping the budget resolution.
Kathryn Squyres is an intern for The Durango Herald and The Journal in Cortez and a student at American University in Washington, D.C. She can be reached at ksquyres@durangoherald.com.
