Politicians love to ask whether you’re better off than you were four years ago. But with Donald Trump, we don’t need four years. We only need one. Look around. In twelve months, this administration has managed to raise the price of gas, groceries, and health insurance all at the same time, while cutting the programs that were helping families afford all three.
Start with the gas pump. Just over month ago, regular gas in Colorado averaged under $3. Today it’s pushing past $4 statewide, and in mountain towns it’s already well above that (AAA via Stacker, 3/20/26). That’s a 35 percent jump in four weeks, driven almost entirely by the President’s decision to go to war in Iran. Diesel is even higher. When asked about it, the President shrugged. “If they rise, they rise.” That’s easy to say when you’re not the one putting food on the table.
Speaking of food on the table, let’s talk about groceries. The Joint Economic Committee found that a typical family paid $310 more for groceries in 2025 than in 2024 (JEC, 1/26), thanks in large part to the President’s tariffs. Coffee is up 20 percent since Trump took office. Ground beef is up over 17 percent (CBS News, 2/26). The Supreme Court struck those tariffs down as illegal in February, but not before Colorado businesses paid $767 million in tariff costs (Axios Denver, 2/20/26).
Now add health insurance. When Congress let the enhanced ACA subsidies expire at the end of 2025, premiums for people who buy their own coverage more than doubled on average (KFF, 3/26). One in ten people who had marketplace plans last year dropped coverage entirely. In Colorado, plan cancellations spiked 83 percent and new enrollment fell 24 percent (Connect for Health Colorado, 1/23/26).
Now add energy bills. Republicans gutted the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy tax credits in their budget bill, a move projected to raise electricity costs for the average Colorado household by $300 a year (Energy Innovation, 2025). Those credits had helped tens of thousands of Colorado families lower their monthly bills and brought $1.7 billion in clean energy investment to this state, including manufacturing jobs in Pueblo and Brighton.
Stack it up. Gas, groceries, health insurance, electricity. Every one of these costs is higher today than it was a year ago, and in every single case, you can trace the increase back to a decision this President or his allies in Congress made. The war in Iran. The tariffs the Supreme Court called illegal. The refusal to extend health insurance subsidies. The gutting of clean energy investments. These aren’t acts of God. They’re policy choices. And Coloradans are paying for them.
Lately I find myself more and more thankful that Colorado has John Hickenlooper in Washington. When our state’s Republican representatives, Lauren Boebert, Jeff Crank, and Gabe Evans, voted against extending the health insurance subsidies that were keeping coverage affordable for hundreds of thousands of Coloradans, Hickenlooper was right there fighting for a three-year renewal. When the President’s tariffs were crushing Colorado small businesses, Hickenlooper was in breweries and machine shops and coffee roasters across this state, hearing directly from the owners getting squeezed, and then he went back to D.C. and introduced legislation to pay them back. When Republicans moved to gut the clean energy tax credits that were lowering electric bills and creating good jobs in places like Pueblo, Hickenlooper led the amendment to save them. When the Supreme Court struck the tariffs down, Hickenlooper was the one demanding that the administration refund every dollar Colorado businesses had been forced to pay.
There’s a difference between a senator who shows up and fights for the people getting hit the hardest and one who votes the party line and hopes nobody notices. Right now, Coloradans need someone in D.C. who understands that a dollar more per gallon, a hundred dollars more per month on insurance, and $300 more a year on the electric bill aren’t small prices. They’re the whole budget for a lot of families. Hickenlooper gets that. And he’s been proving it.
Arapahoe County Commissioner Rhonda Fields represents District 5, which includes parts of Aurora. She served 14 years in the Colorado Legislature, representing both the Senate and the House of Representatives.