The Daily Sentinel reported July 30 that food insecurity for western slope children has spiked by 14% over the last year, to 23%. That means roughly 6,570 children, or about one in every five children in the Grand Valley, are currently going hungry every single day.
Why have things gotten so much worse on the Western Slope?
You won’t find the answer in the Daily Sentinel’s article.
It’s happening because on July 2, 2025, our own CD-3 House Representative Jeff Hurd voted for Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” a federal tax reconciliation bill that slashed social safety net programs, including SNAP (the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) which helped low-income households buy food. The bill also slashed Medicaid by about $1 billion statewide and kicked tens of thousands of Coloradans and working class families off their health insurance by making Affordable Care Act (ACA) monthly premiums unaffordable. The bill did, however, confer massive tax breaks on the wealthiest Americans. It helped the average person living in Pitkin County, for example, by saving them over $22,717/year on their taxes, while causing more families in Mesa County to go hungry. Despite pressure by Democrats via the longest government shutdown in history, Republicans refused to reinstate the health insurance premium support, leading insurance premiums in Mesa County to spike by an average of 38.4%, and putting health insurance out of reach for many families. Add the increasing cost of food to the increasing costs of day care, gasoline and diesel due to Trump’s war on Iran, and many western slope families are stressed to the breaking point with no relief in sight.
The Big Ugly Bill that caused this disaster passed by a close vote of 218-214, with 212 Democrats voting against and 218 Republicans voting in favor. The deciding votes on the bill were cast by Republican House Reps. Jeff Hurd and Gabe Evans of Colorado’s 8th District.
Reps. Hurd and Evans could have made a huge difference and saved a lot of suffering by their constituents by voting against the bill, but instead they kowtowed to convicted felon Trump by voting for his Big Awful Bill, knowing it would negatively impact lower income families while making the richest people in their districts richer.
The Daily Sentinel article about the increase in child hunger locally focused only on the impact the increase in hunger is having on food banks, while making no mention at all about the role CD-3 Rep. Jeff Hurd played in making so many more children in his own district suffer from hunger.