Horsford predicts more ‘WTF' moments as House committees take up Trump budget bill

Yahoo

13-05-2025

evada Democratic Rep. Steven Horford at a rally featuring Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders in North Las Vegas, March 20, 2025. (Photo: Michael Lyle/Nevada Current)
Rep. Steven Horsford (D-NV) is expecting fireworks this week as three House committees are slated to mark up President Donald Trump's 'big beautiful' budget bill. A draft released over the weekend from the Energy and Commerce Committee includes work requirements for Medicaid recipients, and in an effort to save money, changes how states raise their portion of Medicaid funds.
Horsford, a member of the Ways and Means Committee, which is scheduled to mark up the bill on Tuesday, says he is tracking the proposed elimination of the provider tax, which is imposed on nursing homes and hospitals in Nevada to help offset the state's share of Medicaid funding.
All states, with the exception of Alaska, rely on provider taxes to help increase the amount of Medicaid funding they receive from the federal government. A Senate Finance Committee document from January estimates a savings to the federal budget of $175 billion over a decade by eliminating the tax.
Nevada has a 6% provider tax in place on nursing facilities and hospitals. In 2023, Gov. Joe Lombardo's budget estimated the tax would generate $388 million in the 2024/25 fiscal year.
'I think you'll see some more 'WTF' moments,' Horsford said of the mark up sessions during a phone interview Monday, harkening back to his exchange last month during a House hearing with a U.S. trade representative, who said he learned while testifying that Trump had paused some tariffs.
'He announced it on a Tweet?' Horsford barked at the official. 'WTF! Who's in charge?'
Hours before the pause, Trump, via social media, advised investors to buy stocks, leading to questions about improper manipulation of the markets and allegations that Trump insiders are profiting from the president's political moves.
On Monday, Bloomberg reported that purchasers of Trump's $TRUMP meme coin spent $148 million to win a chance at dining with Trump at his private golf club later this month, according to crypto intelligence firm Inca Digital.
Trump's move to 'invite his biggest investors from his crypto meme' to the event 'flies in the face of logic and ethics,' Horsford said.
Horsford says Trump's assertion Sunday that the U.S. will accept a 747-8 jumbo jet from the Qatari royal family to replace Air Force One violates the Foreign Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits a federal officer from accepting gifts and other benefits from a foreign government, without approval from Congress.
'This president doesn't give a 'f' about standards,' Horsford said. 'The Supreme Court basically said he has full immunity to do anything that he chooses as the president, and he's definitely showing that now in the first 100 days of this presidency.'
So far this year, Congress has passed half a dozen bills, leaving the government to operate largely on executive fiat.
Horsford is hoping legislation aimed at curtailing corporate buying of housing stock nationwide will resonate on both sides of the aisle.
Almost one-third of homes in North Las Vegas and 15% of homes in Las Vegas 'are owned by these corporate, out-of-state hedge funds,' Horsford said, which are targeting 'working-class neighborhoods that are predominantly Black and Latino.'
Horsford's Housing Oversight and Mitigating Exploitation Act of 2025 (HOME Act) would make it illegal for corporate investors to sell or rent at unreasonable prices during an affordable housing crisis.
'Even when they convert the property to a rental, they're gouging renters, charging upwards of 30% more, evicting at higher rates, and not maintaining the properties,' Horsford said, adding the 'bill has gotten traction. There are Republicans who identify that it's a problem.'
Another bill, Utilizing National Land for Opportunities and Community Key (UNLOCK), seeks to make federal land available, 'especially for multi-family properties,' says a news release. Unlike other measures sponsored by Nevada congressional delegates, Horsford's would allow the Bureau of Land Management to not only sell, but also lease land to local governments and Native American tribes.
Horsford joined other Nevada Democrats who condemned Rep. Mark Amodei, the state's only Republican in Congress, for submitting a last-minute amendment last week to the Republican budget package that would sell off nearly 450,000 acres of public lands in Nevada, some of it in Clark County.
Income generated from the sale of Nevada's public lands in the amendment would not fund projects in Nevada, as portions of federal land sales income have in the past. Instead it would be siphoned to the U.S. Treasury to help cover the Trump administration's proposed tax cuts, according to the amendment.
'Obviously, I take offense to my colleague from the north offering an amendment in the dead of the night that had no advance notice, no consultation with me or my office,' Horsford said Monday. 'He doesn't represent one square inch of Clark County. I do, and my constituents should always have a say when it comes to the land legislation dealing with Southern Nevada.'
A third bill introduced by Horsford, the Housing Market Transparency Act, would require states and the federal government to maintain data on properties that receive Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC).
'We need transparency for landlords who are still receiving tax credits because they have a requirement to keep those units affordable for the term of the tax credit,' he said, adding there's currently no effort to ensure that's happening.
Horsford and fellow Nevada Democratic Rep. Susie Lee were among 35 Democrats who joined Republicans early this month in voting to eliminate an Environmental Protection Agency waiver that allowed California to set its own emission standards, including a mandate that all passenger cars sold by 2035 be emission-free.
'The vote I took opposes the California Clean Car waiver, because it puts too much pressure on the industry to actually meet the requirements, because of all of the uncertainty that's coming from Donald Trump and the tariffs,' Horsford said. 'Literally, they don't have the ability to stay on track. My commitment to electric vehicles and to renewables remains sound, but I support giving additional flexibility.'
Horsford said he was unaware of a Government Accounting Office directive that Congress did not have the authority to repeal the waiver.