REPORT: How One Billion Dollars Can Help Nevadans Instead of Funding Donald Trump’s Ballroom

After cutting funding for health care and SNAP for Nevadans who needed them the most, Washington Republicans have unveiled a plan to use the same hyper-partisan approach to spend $1 billion in taxpayer dollars on Donald Trump’s ballroom. Let’s be absolutely clear: this is a vanity project that did not need to happen, and now Nevadans’ hard-earned money will be wasted at a time when they’re being squeezed by the spike in prices at the pump, grocery, and doctor’s office.

My office released an estimate of how this funding could be used to help Nevadans instead of funding Donald Trump’s ballroom:

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Health Care:

• $1 billion could pay for Medicaid coverage for a full year for the Nevadans who lost it due to Trump and Washington Republicans’ cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill.

  • 167,714 fewer Nevadans were enrolled in Medicaid as of January 2026 when compared to 2023.

  • $5,052 is the average annual spending on Medicaid per enrollee in Nevada.

• $1 billion could have extended the Affordable Care Act’s enhanced premium tax credit for nearly two years for every Nevadan who relied on it last year.

  • In 2025, 95,000 Nevadans relied on these tax credits to help them afford health insurance and saved an average of $465 a month per enrollee.

Food:

• $1 billion could restore SNAP benefits for nearly a decade for every Nevadan who was kicked off this food assistance program due to Trump and Washington Republicans’ cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill.

  • 54,979 Nevadans were kicked off the program between July 2025 and January 2026.

  • Average yearly SNAP benefit per person is $1,992.

• $1 billion could fund Women, Infant, and Children (WIC) benefits for all Nevadans in the program for nearly 20 years.

  • According to state data, 52,677 Nevadans rely on WIC.

  • WIC provided an average of $978.12 per participant per year.

• $1 billion could cover groceries for 96,246 Nevada families for a full year.

  • According to most recent data, the average household in Nevada spends on average $10,390 dollars on groceries per year.

Housing:

• $1 billion could pay for a year of rent for about 62,096 Nevada households.

  • The average rent in Nevada is approximately $1,342.

Child Care:

• $1 billion could cover the average cost of child care for 78,995 Nevada infants for a full year.

  • The average cost of child care in Nevada for a year per infant is $12,659.

Other:

• Congressional Republicans want to let Trump spend $1 billion of taxpayer money on his new ballroom, which is the same amount Nevada received in federal funding for our Transportation, Education, and Agriculture departments combined last year.

While Americans struggle to put food on the table, health care and housing become more unattainable, and gas prices are soaring, Washington Republicans are focused on pleasing Donald Trump by funding his vanity project instead of helping out hardworking families being hurt by their policies – and that is unfair to the American people. We need to focus on solving the real problems Americans are facing.

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