Most of us agree that those of us who work hard ought to make a decent living. We should be able to put food on the table, take our kids to the doctor when they get sick, and retire with dignity as we grow older.

The MAGA Republican budget has placed all of this and more on the chopping block. In a nutshell, it takes the wealth that working people have collectively created to care for our needs and puts that wealth into the pockets of the ultra-rich, destroying the public programs and services on which our families rely. 

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office confirmed that Republicans will have to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicaid, in addition to cuts in other critical programs, in order to achieve their plan of slashing $2 trillion from the federal budget. Trump and GOP legislators claim they won’t touch Medicaid, Medicare, or Social Security, but the CBO analysis – along with recent Executive Orders recklessly slashing federal agencies – indicate otherwise. 

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CD3 Representative Jeff Hurd voted in favor of the GOP’s inhumane budget, despite the hardships it will cause to families in his congressional district. No wonder Rep. Hurd has avoided facing his constituents’ at in-person Town Halls, even in his home town of Grand Junction. 

Medicaid is the single largest source of health coverage in the U.S, providing coverage to children, pregnant women, parents, seniors, and people with disabilities. In CD3, about 220,000 people are enrolled in Colorado’s Medicaid program, Health First Colorado. That’s nearly 30% of all CD3 residents, the highest percentage of any district in Colorado. 

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In Garfield County, about 22% of residents are enrolled in Health First Colorado. That means about 14,000 of our neighbors will be negatively impacted by the slashing of Medicaid. Our local hospitals and healthcare providers who rely on Medicaid reimbursements will take a loss as well.

The House Budget also slashes the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by hundreds of billionaires of dollars. SNAP is our nation’s most important anti-hunger program. It  provides financial assistance to help people buy eligible food items at grocery stores and farmers markets. On average, SNAP recipients receive about $6.16 per day per person to feed their families. 

SNAP participants include working families with low-paying jobs, low-income older adults, people with disabilities living on fixed incomes, and other individuals and households with low incomes. About 62% of SNAP participants are families with children. In our congressional district, SNAP participants include 16,000 households with children.

If taking food away from children is not bad enough, the gutting of SNAP will also hurt “the farmers who grow our food, the truckers who haul it…and the grocery stores that sell it,” as Representative Angie Craig (MN-02), a ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee stated. “These cuts endanger hundreds of thousands of jobs along a food supply chain that starts in rural America and ends at dinner tables in every community across the country.”

The Republican budget also calls for cuts to K-12 education, clean air and water projects, and transportation and flight safety.

While children, farmers, truckers, and our environment take a hit, the House Budget offers a generous boon to one group: individuals who make over $400,000 a year. Funds slashed from Medicaid, SNAP, and other programs would total $1.5 trillion – which is the approximate cost of the huge tax giveaways that the GOP budget provides to those with annual incomes above $400,000.

More and more Americans are fed up with MAGA Republicans slashing programs and services that are vital to our basic well-being, so that they can bankroll their billionaire buddies. They think they can distract us from their budget scams by sweeping us up in their false claims and hateful rhetoric about our immigrant and trans neighbors. But Americans are not falling for it. Even in deep red districts in states like Wyoming and Texas, Republican Members of Congress are facing furious constituents and getting booed off the stage.

On April 5, Americans will be taking to the streets for a national day of action to demonstrate our outrage at the Trump/Musk/MAGA regime. The overarching rallying cry will be “Hands off!” – hands off our Medicaid, our SNAP, our Social Security, our public lands, our undocumented neighbors, our trans siblings… Our families deserve the freedom to thrive.

Scholars of authoritarianism have found that when the portion of a population actively participating in non-violent protests reaches a threshold of just 3.5%, serious political change ensues. No authoritarian regime has withstood a protest movement that includes 3.5% of its population without either accommodating the movement or disintegrating.  

If you have not yet actively participated in the resistance movement, April 5 is a great time to start. You can find Hands Off! Rallies at handsoff2025.com. 

Debbie Bruell of Carbondale previously chaired the Garfield County Democrats and is a past member of the Roaring Fork Schools Board of Education.