OPINION: Governmental dysfunction at its finest in Idaho’s State Capitol Building
Idaho elected leaders bought into the national tax scheme devised by the MAGA crowd in Washington, D.C., to the severe detriment of programs critical to Idaho. It’s as if the governor and Legislature are unaware that the economic health of the Gem State is highly reliant on proper management of its natural resources or that they must provide for the essential needs of all Idahoans. We don’t fit the national cookie-cutter of the Big Beautiful Billionaire Bill (BBBB), which would increase the national debt to an unsustainable $40 trillion. Idaho can’t deficit-finance like the federal government, and our so-called leaders refuse to raise sufficient revenue to fund important programs.
Rather than carefully considering how to finance essential needs, our state officials have chosen to reduce state revenues by $330 million — $155 million for the current fiscal year and $175 million for the next. It could come in closer to $400 million for the next fiscal year. That’s on top of $4 billion in tax cuts over the last five years.
It is a scandal that Idaho officials left water and fire management hanging. Perhaps they need to leave Boise to learn that Idaho is facing a serious drought. With scanty snowpack in the mountains and a bleak outlook for improvement, there will likely be renewed fighting over the available supply. Yet, legislative budget writers have cut essential funding for the Idaho Department of Water Resources. The water director warned that, “with the stream gaging in particular, you can’t administer a resource if you can’t measure and monitor that resource.” Unless substantial moisture materializes in the next few weeks, the administration of available water resources will be seriously hampered, and Idaho’s water warfare will be rekindled.
With little snowpack and dangerously dry conditions in the mountains, fire danger will significantly increase in Idaho. Which makes one wonder why legislators chose to cut funding to fight Idaho wildfires, especially where funding already falls far short, and the fire threat continues to grow. The lands director said the funding cuts "will cause us to have to cut back the number of acres treated and increase the fire risk across the landscape.” Not only will fire danger increase, but fire insurance premiums for Idahoans, even in urban areas, will continue to climb.
Funding cuts to programs for mental health services, suicide prevention and child welfare will have devastating effects for vulnerable people. The Health and Welfare director warned: “We have already cut through muscle, and we are down to bone.” Suicide is on the rise in Idaho, and the state’s suicide rate is usually among the top 10 in the nation. Cuts in mental health services have already caused two deaths in Idaho.
The $330+ million in tax cuts that the governor and Legislature granted to some Idahoans by conforming Idaho’s tax code to the BBBB might have been fine in a year when the state could afford them, but we are not there. Cutting so many important programs essential to Idaho's future and the well-being of all its people makes absolutely no sense. Idahoans should demand a reversal of the nonsensical cuts to vital programs or the replacement of the elected officials who engineered them.
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Jim Jones is a Vietnam combat veteran who served eight years as Idaho Attorney General (1983-1991) and 12 years as a Justice on the Idaho Supreme Court (2005-2017). He also publishes at substack.com/@jjcommontater.