Community leaders and educators detail devastating local impacts of cuts to health care and food assistance and how the added pressure on Colorado’s budget puts education at greater risk as well.

THORNTON, Colo. (July 13, 2026) – One year after President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law, Denver area residents, educators and community leaders gathered Monday to describe the real-life consequences of the law that took from working families to pay for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts for billionaires and large corporations.

Families Over Billionaires, together with state partners brought its nationwide Who Pays? Bus Tour to North Star Elementary School, where speakers warned that cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, higher health care costs, and growing pressure on Colorado’s budget are already hurting families and local communities.

• More than 3 million Coloradans have already lost their health care coverage.
• More than 26,000 people in Colorado have already lost SNAP benefits.
• The expiration of enhanced ACA premium tax credits has doubled the cost of insurance premiums for 225,000 of Colorado families.
• Colorado’s taxpayers are now shouldering billions in additional costs shifted from the federal government.

Last summer, many of the same organizations rallied in Thornton, urging Rep. Gave Evans to oppose the bill. Monday’s event marked a return to the district one year later to assess the law’s impact—and to hold elected officials accountable for supporting it.

EXERPTS

Kristen Crowell, Executive Director of Families Over Billionaires

• “We’re here today to make sure that we are holding Congressman Gabe Evans accountable for betraying our community, for refusing to grow a spine and stand up to Donald Trump. And we’re doing it all in the blazing heat. So let’s bring the heat to Washington D.C..

• “Shame on you all in Washington D.C. that enable this chaos and insanity. We’re just asking for normal shit. We’re just asking for normal things: good food and a good education and access to see a doctor when we need help. We’re asking for childcare to be affordable so we can work one job. We’re actually asking for dignity, and we’re asking to live without fear that the Washington D.C. politicians can snatch it away from us at any given time.”

Emma Pinter, Adams County Commissioner

• “When the federal government makes [these cuts], it is us and our neighbors who are making it up. We are the ones funding the food bank when there isn’t enough money for it. We are the ones helping a neighbor out who has an emergency eviction. We are the ones doing the GoFundMe for somebody who has an unexpected medical bill who is uncovered by insurance suddenly.

• “One of my dear friends is a hairdresser, and her husband is a mechanic. And I talked with her last week, and she said they spend $4,000 a month on health insurance. And as a small business owner, it was too expensive with her kids to support, and she was making the difficult decision to stop carrying health insurance and just risk it out there in the world. We know what happens when families make these choices. They end up in the emergency room. They don’t get primary health care, and they end up with catastrophic medical bills that harm them, harm our community, and basically cripple our medical system with all kinds of debt.

• “Gabe Evans needs to see how unpopular these cuts are and how much they are hurting regular Americans, just like you and me. … I don’t have any neighbors making a living wage who get away with not paying their taxes, but the rich do all the time. It is time to fix our broken tax system, and ensure the ultra wealthy and corporations pay their fair share.”

Dr. Vince Markovchick, Retired ER Physician, The Committee to Protect Health Care

• “There wasn’t a day that I worked in the ER that I saw somebody with a very serious illness or injury, and that is obviously one of the worst days of their life. … So they have the tragedy of worrying about their medical condition, compounded by the fact that they had no insurance, and most of these people were working one or two jobs, but they were uninsured. In the wealthiest country in the world, this should not have ever been happening. … Patients deserve better, children, families, seniors, and all of us deserve better.”

Debra Sutton, Medicaid recipient and member of United Economy

• “Medicaid made it possible for me to access the urgent care I needed to make a full recovery both times. It also kept me from falling into medical debt, by covering my expenses. That’s what those greedy billionaires don’t get. They’re trying to line their pockets with millions of extra dollars, and I’m trying to make ends meet. When they rig the systems in their favor, it makes me and thousands of others like me terrified.

• “We don’t deserve to have our medical healthcare ripped away. Medicare and Medicaid are not wasteful spending. These programs save lives. When billionaires rig our tax system for their profit, they are just not threatening just Medicare. They’re threatening our lives.

Lori Goldstein, D12 School Board President and former science and special education teacher

• “Schools often become the first place families turn to when other community supports are reduced. While we are committed to serving every child, schools cannot replace an adequately funded healthcare system.

• “Year after year, Adams 12 has had to make difficult financial decisions, and now these federal cuts threaten to make the situation even worse. … Education should never be viewed as an expense. It is an investment in Colorado’s future.”

Carry Weaver, social studies teacher, STEM Launch

• “When we hear budget cuts, you think about numbers. But I think about my students, their faces, their dreams, their hopes, and their futures. Because when you cut funding for a program or a position, the work doesn’t disappear. Either students lose a service that they really need, or it falls on an already overwhelmed educator.

• “Educators will always step up for kids. We always have. We stay late. We spend our own money. We give up our time to coach clubs, comfort students, or call families. We do whatever it takes because we love our students. But goodwill isn’t a staffing plan, and dedication can’t replace people.

• “Every year, our students come to school with greater academic, social, emotional, and mental health needs than ever before. They need more support, not less. Yet every year, we’re asked to do more and more with fewer people beside us, while students quietly receive less and less.”

Kevin Vick, high school social studies teacher and President of the Colorado Education Association

• “We here in Colorado are having to make up for the failures of the federal government.

• “Great public schools are one of the best investments we can make in our future. They help children reach their full potential, give families confidence that their kids have every opportunity to succeed and provide employers with the skilled workforce they need to grow. The bottom line is, when we invest in public education, everyone benefits, not just the wealthy few.”

Steve Wash, high school English teacher, and President of the District 12 Educators Association

• “We’re still stretching every dollar. We’re still asking educators to do more with less. We’re still making impossible choices about staffing, student supports, and opportunities for our kids. That tells us something important: this isn’t about whether one community values education – Adams 12 does. This isn’t about whether educators are doing their part – they are every single day. It’s about a system that has left Colorado schools underfunded for decades, even as our student needs continue to grow, and it’s about whether our nation is willing to make the investments our children deserve.

• “Should communities keep being asked to do more and more on their own, or should we make sure that everyone who has benefited the most from our economy helps invest in the public schools that create opportunities for generations to come?”

Denver was the 15th stop on the 17-city Who Pays? Bus Tour, which began June 30th in Portland, Maine, and concludes on July 16th in Tucson, Arizona. At each stop, local residents share how policies that favor billionaires and large corporations are affecting their communities.

Who Pays? bus tour national partners include: GenZ For Change, Protect Our Care, Committee to Protect Health Care, National Women’s Law Center, Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, DemCast USA, National Nurses United, Oxfam, Unrig Our Economy, Americans for Tax Fairness and State Revenue Alliance.

Also see the latest op-ed from Kristen Crowell on Heartland Signal: “OP-ED: Billionaires got a break. The rest of us got the bill.”