Derek Schmidt's deciding vote on May 22, 2025 moved a tax-and-spending bill out of the House that, as enacted, hands the richest tenth of households about $13,600 a year, as the Congressional Budget Office reckons it, leaves the poorest worse off, and pulls $3.351 billion in federal Medicaid funding out of Kansas over ten years.
Weeks earlier, Schmidt's April 2025 vote on the budget blueprint, which he alone could have defeated, cleared the tax committee to borrow up to $4.5 trillion for tax cuts; he voted for the final law on July 3. Nine months later, on April 16, 2026, Schmidt voted for H.Res. 1156, whose boast that lower earners got a 15 percent tax cut leaves the law's Medicaid and SNAP cuts out of the math.
Derek Schmidt's Votes on the Tax Law, the Budget Plan and the Deficit
- Households at the Bottom Come Out $1,200 Behind as the Top Tenth Pockets $13,600 From the Law Schmidt Voted For, After His Vote Sent It Through the House. The House version cleared the chamber on May 22, 2025 by 215 votes to 214, one member answering present, and a no from Derek Schmidt would have sunk it. He voted for the Senate-amended final law on July 3, 2025, when it passed 218 to 214. As Thomson Reuters Checkpoint summarized the Congressional Budget Office's estimate, "the top decile will receive a windfall of $13,600 every year," while "the lowest-income earners will lose an average $1,200 in overall household resources," a loss driven mostly by the Medicaid and SNAP cuts.
- The July 2025 Law's Higher Interest Rates Add $405 Billion in Interest Costs, After Schmidt's April 2025 Budget Vote Opened the Door. Schmidt was in the 216-member majority that adopted the Senate's budget blueprint, H.Con.Res. 14, on April 10, 2025, 216 votes to 214; had Derek Schmidt voted no, the count would have deadlocked and the blueprint would have died. Under it, Ways and Means could draft tax changes that "increase the deficit by not more than $4,500,000,000,000" over the decade. The Yale Budget Lab found that the Senate bill the blueprint allowed, which became the law Schmidt voted for on July 3, 2025, costs more over a decade than the version the House first passed, and in its dynamic score of the law the Congressional Budget Office projected it would "boost interest rates and thus increase interest costs by $405 billion," in the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget's account of that estimate.
- The Poorest Fifth Get a Small Tax Increase, Not the 15 Percent Cut Schmidt Voted to Proclaim in April 2026. Derek Schmidt was a yes on April 16, 2026 when the House adopted H.Res. 1156 219 to 207, a resolution that dubs the law the "Working Families Tax Cuts" and declares it "will result in a 15 percent tax cut for Americans whose income is in the bottom 40 percent." That number tallies tax changes only and sets aside what the law took from Medicaid and SNAP. By the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy's reckoning, "For the poorest fifth of Americans, the average tax change from OBBBA is a small tax increase" in 2026, before counting the benefits the law cut.
What Derek Schmidt's Tax and Budget Votes Cost Kansas
- Kansas gives up $3.35 billion in federal Medicaid money to help pay for the tax cuts. Split state by state, the Congressional Budget Office's Medicaid estimate leaves Kansas with a ten-year loss of $3.351 billion in federal Medicaid funding, 9% of the state's expected federal share, by KFF's math. That is money for hospital stays, nursing-home care and children's checkups, in a state where the law also adds 26,000 people to the uninsured by 2034.
- The law will cost Kansas's own budget at least $150 million. Gov. Laura Kelly said the law's health care cuts will cost the state at least $150 million as they phase in, the Kansas Reflector reported. The law also makes states pay part of SNAP benefits for the first time, a new bill Kansas could have to cover from its own budget, depending on its error rate.
- Kansas households could pay about $380 more a year for energy by 2035. CNBC, reporting Energy Innovation's projection, put the added cost of the law's energy provisions for a typical Kansas household at about $380 a year by 2035.
Frequently Asked Questions About Derek Schmidt on Taxes and the deficit
What is Derek Schmidt's record on taxes and the deficit under Trump?
Derek Schmidt's votes decided both the budget blueprint that allowed $4.5 trillion in borrowed tax cuts and House passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act; he then voted for the final law, which steers its biggest gains to the highest earners. He also voted for H.Res. 1156, the April 2026 tribute to the law. Over ten years, Kansas forfeits $3.351 billion in federal Medicaid dollars.
Did Derek Schmidt vote for tax cuts for the rich?
Derek Schmidt voted for a law that gives the richest 1 percent an average 2026 tax cut above $70,000, by ITEP's count, while the bottom fifth sees a slight tax increase on average. Counting its spending cuts too, the Congressional Budget Office found the top tenth comes out $13,600 a year ahead.
Did Derek Schmidt's votes add to the national debt?
Yes. Derek Schmidt voted for the blueprint that let the tax changes add as much as $4.5 trillion to deficits over ten years, and in its dynamic score the Congressional Budget Office estimated that higher interest rates from the law tack on $405 billion in interest costs, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget reported.
Last updated: 2026-10-27