Question about passing maintenance budgets as a matter of policy. Is it correct that next year's "maintenance" budget will include everything passed this year -- maintenance budget + enhancement budget -- year after year? If this assumption is correct, government will keep on growing far beyond the need to keep the lights on.
If we were really serious about DOGE, we would first carefully define "proper role of government," a fuzzy term that seems to mean different things to different people. Then:
1. Dissolve all departments and functions within those remaining that do not fit within proper role of government.
2. Cut maintenance budgets to the bone for all departments that remain, keeping only those functions absolutely necessary.
3. Approve expansion budgets only to the extent they are needed to handle inflation or to fund NECESSARY proper-role-of-government functions required by legislature.
4. Take NO federal money to keep Idaho afloat.
5. Stop passing bills that increase staffing and spending. Repeal those already passed.
The gang of eight has done a good job of holding the line as best they can. But they need to convince voters and other legislators that fiscal responsibility is a virtue, not a curse.
Voters must wake up too. They demand too many unnecessary services from government. They've become far too complacent, assuming an "R" after a candidate's name will do the job. As the voting boards you showed prove, plenty of "Rs" are big spenders who make the Idaho Association of Commerce & Industry (IACI) organization happy, while leaving everyday citizens behind.
NOTE: To find out a legislator's IACI score, start here: https://scorecard.iaci.org/#/ . If you like spending and corporatism, you'll like the highly rated legislators. If you don't like such things, you can interpolate the "conservative" score by subtracting the IACI score from 100.
You can sort the IACI list in various ways and see what bills contributed to their scores by clicking a legislator's Voting Record link (each bill listing shows IACI's Support, Oppose, or Neutral ranking for the bill).
Some examples -- names, party, IACI score, interpolated "conservative' score -- from the alphabetical list on IACI's scoreboard:
We shared your substack article here: https://tinyurl.com/2s4zxksb
Thanks so much for writing this!
Thank you for this report and thank you to all the gang of eight for supporting good and opposing bad bills.
Totally agree with Sen. Kohl on H0078; we wrote about it here: https://substack.com/profile/68304299-big-e/note/c-90063381
Question about passing maintenance budgets as a matter of policy. Is it correct that next year's "maintenance" budget will include everything passed this year -- maintenance budget + enhancement budget -- year after year? If this assumption is correct, government will keep on growing far beyond the need to keep the lights on.
If we were really serious about DOGE, we would first carefully define "proper role of government," a fuzzy term that seems to mean different things to different people. Then:
1. Dissolve all departments and functions within those remaining that do not fit within proper role of government.
2. Cut maintenance budgets to the bone for all departments that remain, keeping only those functions absolutely necessary.
3. Approve expansion budgets only to the extent they are needed to handle inflation or to fund NECESSARY proper-role-of-government functions required by legislature.
4. Take NO federal money to keep Idaho afloat.
5. Stop passing bills that increase staffing and spending. Repeal those already passed.
The gang of eight has done a good job of holding the line as best they can. But they need to convince voters and other legislators that fiscal responsibility is a virtue, not a curse.
Voters must wake up too. They demand too many unnecessary services from government. They've become far too complacent, assuming an "R" after a candidate's name will do the job. As the voting boards you showed prove, plenty of "Rs" are big spenders who make the Idaho Association of Commerce & Industry (IACI) organization happy, while leaving everyday citizens behind.
NOTE: To find out a legislator's IACI score, start here: https://scorecard.iaci.org/#/ . If you like spending and corporatism, you'll like the highly rated legislators. If you don't like such things, you can interpolate the "conservative" score by subtracting the IACI score from 100.
You can sort the IACI list in various ways and see what bills contributed to their scores by clicking a legislator's Voting Record link (each bill listing shows IACI's Support, Oppose, or Neutral ranking for the bill).
Some examples -- names, party, IACI score, interpolated "conservative' score -- from the alphabetical list on IACI's scoreboard:
Todd Achilles (D) = IACI 89 | "conservative" 100-89 = 11
Ben Adams (R) = IACI 92 | "conservative" 100-92 = 8
Joe Alfieri (D) = IACI 44 | "conservative" 100-44 = 56
Steve Berch (D) = IACI 72 | "conservative" 100-72 = 28
Treg Bernt (R) = IACI 100 | "conservative" 100-100 = 0
I'm not in Idaho anymore but I commend you all for having the guts and determination to take a stand and operate with integrity.