I recently had the opportunity to attend an event put on by Data Driven Economic Strategies here in Colorado Springs, at which the state’s budget Director, Mark Ferrandino, was invited to speak. It was intended to be – and indeed ought to have been – an informative session calmly and impartially examining issues related to the state budget and the economy.

Instead, Ferrandino abused the opportunity and turned it into a partisan forum to blindly recite national Democratic Party talking points about the recently passed federal budget bill, H.R.1, colloquially referred to as the “One Big Beautiful Bill”.

In the course of parroting the lines handed down to him by national Democratic Party leaders, Ferrandino presented information to the audience that was misleading at best, and completely false at worst.

To listen to Ferrandino and the rest of the Democratic Party machine, the cause of every economic problem in Colorado is HR 1 – not the state’s spending priorities, not regulatory pressures, not expanded Medicaid rolls – nope, they say, it’s all HR 1. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Watching the state’s budget director deflect blame for the state’s finances in that manner reminded me of watching an amateur magician, the kind you might hire for a child’s birthday party, using simple sleight-of-hand to try trick you into seeing something different than what is actually happening.

So, what did this dreaded H.R. 1 budget bill do? Well, the biggest, and most important thing it did was stop a $4.5 trillion tax hike from taking hold, a tax hike that would have negatively impacted every taxpayer in the nation – not just the “rich”. Without H.R. 1, the across-the-board tax cuts from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act – tax cuts that helped create the booming economy we had pre-COVID – would have expired. That would be taking more money out of the pockets of working people and putting it into our bloated state and federal bureaucracies.

H.R. 1 also eliminates tax on overtime and tips – those are tax cuts that directly benefit regular working Americans. CEO’s and billionaires don’t get paid overtime or receive tips.

The bill also significantly raises the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction to $40,000 in 2025 and increases it every year until 2029. This is an enormous benefit for most working Coloradans, which will help them on their state and federal income taxes.  And yes, it did include some reductions in business taxes, including a 20% deduction for small business owners and independent contractors setting out on their own, taking the leap to start their own business. 

H.R. 1 also reduces corporate taxes, which are passed down to consumers in the form of higher prices. It allows for 100% depreciation and deduction of research and development costs. Most economists call those “pro-growth” policies; Ferrandino somehow manage to label it “class warfare.”

The bill did more than just allow every taxpayer, in every tax bracket, to keep more of their own hard-earned money, however. It also took some crucial first steps to begin to address the 800-lb gorilla in the room. That is unsustainable government spending that has caused record levels of inflation and a $37 trillion debt burden. The main drivers of this spending have been Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the latter of which has been irresponsibly managed by Democrats at both the state and federal levels. The Democrats foolishly and recklessly expanded the Medicaid rolls well beyond the populations it was intended to help, taking the bait of federal handouts as part of the so-called “Affordable Care Act.” We knew back in 2023 that those federal matching funds were one-time monies that we shouldn’t have spent. But the ruling party in Denver spent it anyway, and now it has come home to roost. This is in no way the fault of H.R. 1. Artificially inflating the Medicaid rolls was an entirely self-inflicted fiscal wound. The reforms to Medicaid in H.R. 1 – things like work requirements, and eliminating the benefit for illegal aliens – are what most people would consider common-sense policies to at least attempt to control the unsustainable level of federal spending.

To put this all in perspective, Colorado’s 2019-20 budget was $30 billion. In 2026-27, according to budget director Ferrandino, it will be a whopping $50 billion – a 66% increase in seven years. Colorado’s population grew by nowhere near that rate in that time. So, while the state budget has exploded, Colorado taxpayers and small businesses are shouldering a greater share of the burden for the ruling party’s fiscal mismanagement and growth of government.

It is disappointing, but perhaps expected, when D.C. politicians twist facts and distort the truth in pursuit of an ideological agenda. But I would have hoped we might expect better from the state’s budget director. Sadly, we cannot.

Larry Liston is the State Senator for Senate District 10.