Nevada Democrats bring guests who’ll be impacted by Trump’s funding cuts to Congressional address

Nevada Democrats and others from across the US are using Tuesday night’s event to highlight the negative real-world impacts of the Trump administration’s first six weeks in office. 

Growing up with a number of serious health conditions, Las Vegas teen Dominic Rampa has always defied the odds. 

Rampa endured a challenging birth that his mother Rebecca Ennis said left him with less than a 1% chance of survival, and since then has developed numerous immunodeficiencies, a blood-clotting disorder, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, and other conditions. While experts have told Ennis that those with health problems like Rampa’s can live into their 30s, Rampa — now 19 — tries to live his life as uninhibited as possible. 

“Dominic is funny, mischievous, sarcastic, and he has a heart the size of Texas,” Ennis told reporters on Tuesday, shortly before divulging his love of video games and playing the guitar. 

While Rampa remains a kid at heart, Ennis said she and her son have begun to sound the alarm over proposed cuts to Medicaid, the federal service that provides health insurance to pregnant women, children, and other low-income or disabled Americans, many of whom have no alternative for healthcare coverage. The two Las Vegas residents joined Nevada US Sen. Jacky Rosen as guests to President Donald Trump’s address before a joint session of Congress Tuesday night. 

Republicans in the US House recently approved a Trump-endorsed budget proposal that seeks to cut approximately $880 billion in Medicaid funding over the next decade — cuts that opponents say would eliminate coverage for millions of Americans, and risk interrupting life-saving care for folks like Rampa, whose care without Medicaid would cost nearly $200,000 annually. 

“Last week I was asked what losing Medicaid would mean to us,” Ennis said. “It’s quite simple: my son would die.”

She continued: “I have a love-hate relationship with Medicaid, but I am so grateful for it. It has given us one more birthday, one more Thanksgiving, one more chance to hear him laugh.”

Rosen and Ennis both said they hoped Rampa’s presence at Trump’s speech made Senate Republicans reconsider going through with the proposed cuts. Republicans control the US House and Senate, meaning they do not need any Democratic support to send a budget bill to Trump’s desk. 

“Anyone out there who still thinks Medicaid should be cut, I want them to look my son in the eye and tell him that his life doesn’t matter,” Ennis said. 

Trump’s speech, while technically not a State of the Union address, outlined little of his administration’s policy objectives over the next year, and instead touted what he said were accomplishments his first roughly six weeks in office (many of his executive orders, for example, have been struck down by the courts). But with speech of such high caliber, it has become common practice for Congressional figures to bring attendees from their home districts. 

Nevada Democrats and others from across the US used Tuesday night’s event to highlight the negative real-world impacts of the Trump administration’s first six weeks in office. 

Nevada Democratic US Rep. Steven Horsford on Monday told The Nevadan he was bringing Yolanda Garcia, a hotel worker on the Las Vegas Strip and Culinary Union member who has advocated for Horsford’s Tipped Income Protection and Support (TIPS) Act, a proposal that would eliminate federal taxes on tips and ban the federal subminimum wage. 

Horsford concedes that Trump may have been the one to popularize a federal push to get rid of taxes on tips. But Horsford argues his TIPS Act is better for workers than the legislation Trump is championing, which Horsford said could allow the ultra wealthy to give tax-free tips to family and business associates under the guise of a tip. 

“I know President Trump may bring up his concept of a plan, but I’m the only one with a bill that actually achieves eliminating the no tax on tip with guardrails that ensures billionaires can’t cheat the system and that raise the wage for tip workers by eliminating the sub minimum wage,” Horsford said during a phone interview.

Senator Catherine Cortez Masto and Rep. Susie Lee, meanwhile, brought education advocates to highlight how Trump’s proposed dismantling of the Department of Education would affect rural schools and special education programs. 

Jason Shipman, principal of Florence Drake Elementary School in Sparks, attended Tuesday’s speech as Cortez Masto’s visitor and Lee brought public education advocate Michelle Booth. Both worry that a partial or total dismantling of the Department of Education would cause irreversible damage to states already struggling with K-12 funding, like Nevada, which consistently ranks near the bottom of national rankings for per-pupil funding and test scores. 

“The department of education provides essential services,” Lee said. “And, to me, having Michelle here symbolizes, one, this complete dismantling will have real-life impacts on families. And, two, that her family still continues to struggle with rising prices in the grocery stores, rising prices at the gas tank, rising housing costs.” 

Lee continued: “[So] what is the president going to do to help families like hers?”