LEGISLATURE: A monument to waste

A very interesting article in Tuesday’s paper about millions of dollars spent by Idaho taxpayers on outside counsel. This report is actually one of many report cards on the effectiveness of our Idaho Legislature. These folks consistently waste our dollars on politics and at the same time ignore the real needs of our citizens.

Attorney General Wasden laments, “That’s just part of the ball game I find myself in,” as he explains that again and again legislators ask his office for an opinion on proposed legislation and they then ignore that opinion. Then his office must try to defend unconstitutional legislation and ultimately pay for opposing attorney fees when the state loses the case. Idaho also does not attempt to recover federal matching funds when possible as that would be too much like “big government.”

Our Legislature wastes so much time and money pandering to a select segment of our population so they can be re-elected.

The proposed legislation allowing every citizen to “carry” which would do away with concealed carry permits is an example of their ridiculous non-thinking. Issues they ignore such as eliminating the highly regressive grocery tax, expanding Medicaid and continually passing unconstitutional legislation show us they do not really care about putting more dollars in middle to low income taxpayers’ pockets. They also do not listen to hospitals and law enforcement on attention grabbing legislation such as firearms and Medicaid expansion.

After all, it is not their money they are wasting. It is our money they carelessly spend to get re-elected.

RICK HARLOW

Cataldo