Labrador looks to come home

COEUR d’ALENE — Rep. Raúl Labrador came to town Thursday to make his case for why he should be Idaho’s next governor.

The Coeur d’Alene Chamber of Commerce Public Policy Committee has hosted the three major Republican candidates for governor leading up to the May 15 Republican primary election.

Labrador pointed to his roots in Puerto Rico and Las Vegas, his Mormon faith, his work attaining fluency in English, and the sacrifices his single mother made to raise him as foundational to his politics.

As congressman, Labrador said service to constituents has been one of his proudest successes. Since 2010, Labrador said his office has helped more than 8,000 Idahoans get $8 million in benefits that the federal government owed them.

While the congressman was elected on the Tea Party wave in 2010 and has not shied away from conservative stands on contentious issues, he laughed as he told the audience about the many times constituents have written thank you notes after receiving help from his office — even though they didn’t vote for him.

“Some people think conservatives want no government. That’s not true,” he said. Government should be limited and should serve the people of Idaho, he said.

Labrador said he wants low taxes and limited government while delivering government services well. “I’m willing to fight the ultimate fight on every issue but I also believe that we have a responsibility to ensure that people get the benefits they deserve, with dignity,” Labrador said.

On health care at the state level, Labrador supported using clinics more often to mitigate ballooning Medicaid and Medicare costs.

“I think we need to provide the lowest-cost service for the community,” he said. There are lots of retired doctors in Idaho who want to provide free or reduced services for the indigent, but don’t, he said, because it’s so expensive for them to buy malpractice insurance.

“Think of it: it’s unaffordable to provide free services.” Labrador proposed lowering the financial barrier to those doctors caring for the poor. He also proposed requiring insurance providers to cover out-of-network treatments if the costs would be lower than an in-network treatment. Knee surgery is much more expensive in a hospital than a clinic, he said, for example. If we require them to accept the clinic in network, people can save a lot of money in out-of-pocket costs, said the candidate.

When asked about how to pay for roads, Labrador bluntly declared, “I am not for raising the gas tax.”

Labrador said he would look to other sources of revenue, primarily the general fund. “We need to think seriously about taking sales tax from tires and auto parts and putting it in the roads,” he said.

He wanted to do an audit also, and allow a local registration option.

“I want a specific targeted source of revenue for the roads that would give the local community the ability to raise their own registration fees” to pay for local road improvements, Labrador said.

Citing a conservative mantra, he advocated for more local control in education, but tried to distinguish himself from other Republicans by declaiming not only federal mandates but also state mandates on local school districts.

He said the number of mid-level administrators should shrink and the savings sent down to the school districts. To have fewer administrators, there must be fewer regulations from the state, he explained.

Labrador said he would do an audit of the regulations not helping students succeed.

One example is about semiannual teacher evaluations, which run many pages long and take hours to complete.

An annual, one-page evaluation would save money and time, he said. Labrador said he wants higher standards for Idaho students in part because he credits his own success to the fact that his mother held him to high standards.

Labrador said his five kids have gone through Idaho public schools.

The candidate’s biggest focus Thursday was his 555 tax plan to lower state individual income taxes, corporate taxes, and sales taxes to rates of 5 percent each. During a Labrador administration, that tax plan will create a more robust economy to pay for Idaho’s already-fast growth and propel the state toward the top tier of states for wages and per capita income, Labrador said.

Utah implemented a similar plan 25 years ago, said Labrador, and made a mistake by giving tax breaks to companies who moved into the state. Years later, Utah doesn’t have the money to pay for its growth, and is resorting to raising fees on people, said Labrador. Revenue should be put into the roads, schools, and give more money back to taxpayers instead of incentivizing companies to move to the state, he said. We should reward longtime companies for investing and paying taxes in Idaho, said Labrador. “I don’t think we should ever have special exemptions for one company.”

He explained that by eliminating such loopholes, the people attracted to Idaho would come to join and preserve an already-rich culture, instead of chasing Idaho taxpayers’ dollars while seeking to transform the state’s culture.

Labrador said he wanted to run for governor because he’s been away from his family for eight years.

“We love Idaho so we didn’t want to move the family to Washington, D.C.” He missed a lot of his kids’ adolescent years, and missed some votes while flying back to Idaho to tend to them.

He also wanted to come home because Washington, D.C., is broken.

“I always feel like I’m hitting my head against a wall,” he said. Most federal representatives are not willing to make the changes necessary to save the nation, said Labrador. Hard decisions to cut spending are not being made.

“If we are going to save this nation we are going to do it here at the state level,” Labrador said.

Labrador said Idaho doesn’t need a fundamental change, but does need better leadership.

The race to get the Republican nomination is looking really well, said Labrador. “It was pretty obvious that I’m the frontrunner because everyone’s attacking me,” he said. His rivals, Lt. Gov. Brad Little and Tommy Ahlquist, have spent $4 million in ads attacking him, he said. His lead is getting wider again after a Labrador advertising counteroffensive, but the race is still too close for comfort, he said.