by Colleen Enos, CHEC Director of Government Relations

You can almost smell the school supplies in the air as all families with school-age children or university students start scheduling their year and make the annual trek back to campus or begin rearranging and assigning their homeschool curriculum. Fall is in the air, but for the Colorado State Legislature, another budget session begins on August 21st to plug the self-induced hole in the 2025-2026 state budget. 

The session will last a minimum of three days but can continue as long as it takes the General Assembly to complete its work. Since Colorado law requires a balanced budget, Governor Polis announced a Special Session to resolve the issue.

The Governor’s announcement was entitled “Governor Polis Calls Special Session to Address Budget Hole Created by Federal Bill,” but it should actually be called “Governor Polis Calls Special Session to Plug Budget Hole Self-Created by Colorado Democrats.” Yes, it’s true, Governor Polis and Colorado legislators knew this was coming, but chose to ignore President Trump’s stated goals of making tax cuts permanent, adding work requirements to SNAP and Medicaid benefits, and reducing waste and fraud in those programs. Our state spent the federal tax cut money anyway. 

A new program to fund Medicaid for illegal immigrants called Health First Colorado and Child Health Plans Plus began on January 1, 2025, and proudly proclaimed that “immigration status does not matter.” Additionally, if illegal immigrants don’t qualify for those programs, Omnisalud is another option described as “a program that provides Coloradans, no matter what their immigration status is, including adults 19 and older, with a safe way to compare affordable, private health insurance plans and enroll on a secure online platform.” Perhaps this was a bad idea to implement right before President Trump was sworn in?

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) was initially created to be a temporary help for needy families, not to create a permanent dependent class of citizens. However, since the federal government has funded 100% of the program, it resulted in more money for states that kept welfare recipients on the program longer, thereby incentivizing a dependent class. HR1 reforms the program to require state cost-sharing, beginning in 2027, which provides a benefit to states that move individuals from welfare to the workforce. This commonsense solution will reduce costs and increase accountability. 

Sanctuary State Colorado doesn’t see it that way, though. We have illegal immigrants on our benefit rolls, and the federal budget bill includes an increase in noncitizen restrictions. SNAP is listed as a primary reason in Governor Polis’ statement on our resulting budget shortfall.

Our state leadership is desperate to blame President Trump and Republicans, but their failure to remember the state bills most recently passed is astounding. SB25-183, Coverage for Pregnancy-Related Services, which mandates abortion coverage in all health insurance plans in Colorado, including Medicaid, with no citizenship requirement, and HB25-1309, Protect Access to Gender-Affirming Health Care, which mandates health insurance coverage for hormone blockers, breast removal, and genital mutilation procedures for all, including minors, come immediately to mind. These two bills specifically increase health insurance costs all on their own, without the Medicaid reforms in the One Big Beautiful Bill. Never mind that Medicaid funds going to Planned Parenthood are prohibited for one year. Blame shifting has become an art here in Colorado.

The Colorado Joint Budget Committee warned, after our 2025 Budget challenges, that 2026 would bring more significant issues. Given that State Senator Kirkmeyer noted that the Democratic majority is ignoring the Republicans in their budget discussions leading up to the Special Session and that the governor dictates the topics that can be discussed, a bipartisan solution does not look likely.

With no mention of the positive results of reduced federal taxes on Coloradans and after the spending spree with federal COVID funds finally ending, Governor Polis wants us to believe that President Trump’s Budget bill was designed to hurt poor Colorado. In reality, the One Big Beautiful Bill was designed to make our country more fiscally responsible, and that includes Colorado, even if it is dragged kicking and screaming into the new world.

What you can do:

1. Pray for commonsense spending and solutions.
2. Call your state representative and state senator and:
   • Urge them to vote for fiscal responsibility.
   • Ask them to protect TABOR (the only thing that restrains spending in Colorado).
3. Consider running for office in places with officials who don’t share your values.

In Him,

About the Author: Colleen Enos

Colleen is a homeschooling mom of eight who just completed schooling her last two children. Her children range in age from 19 to 35 years old. She has been married to her husband, Mark, for 39 years, and they are now grandparents to five grandbabies. She has been a speech and debate coach for 17 years, pouring her time, effort, and energy into preparing the next generation to speak truth into our culture. Colleen serves homeschool families as the CHEC Director of Government Relations and is working hard to safeguard homeschool freedom through her work with the legislature. You can reach Colleen at colleen@chec.org.