WE have now had a week to think about the proceedings of the Idaho Legislature over the past 14 weeks. Going into the session, many of us had high expectations that a new “order of the day” would prevail, and that issues that were important to WE THE PEOPLE would be able to be debated openly and that the old time tactics that are used by whatever party is in power—in Idaho or Washington DC would be put aside, and the real business of the Idaho people could move forward.
THAT CERTAINLY DID NOT HAPPEN THIS SESSION IN IDAHO
two very different things. There are many legislators in both parties and within both factions in our own Republican Party who feel the same way that I do. Several key members in leadership positions came out swinging the first week, only to retreat to “their neutral corners” succumbing to the lobbyist corporate factions ruling the court and calling the shots from the executive- bureaucratic executive branch deep state.
My hope at the beginning of the session was for three areas to be addressed:
- An outside financial and operational audit—like DOGE is undergoing at the National level, needs to be done regarding the still defunct LUMA operating accounting and auditing platform. STILL NO OUTSIDE AUDIT
- Finally, an audit of The Idaho Health Data Exchange—$150 million allocated and very little accounting to inform citizens where the money went. STILL NO OUTSIDE AUDIT
In any organization—from a small business like a farm or ranch, a plumbing company, a school system, a football team or The Pentagon Defense Mess, there are three areas of competence that must be addressed if the business is to be successful:
- Is the technical knowledge within the person or the organization present to proceed with the venture?
- Is there “street knowledge”—local information that would help to design the product or the service in a way that would help the organization to compete in the most efficacious fashion?
- Is there organizational skill within the individual or organization that is willing to blend thetalents and allocate capital in a way that is efficient and will allow the organization to compete?
In our State where we are blessed to have citizen legislators. The answer to all those questions for the most part is yes. If our legislators, or even our Governor ran their businesses in the same way that they run our government, if they handled the peoples’ money—tax revenues, as carefully as they do with their own families and businesses, the above issues would have been answered this legislative session. THEY WEREN’T EVEN ADDRESSED for the most part. WHY?
Because the process of stewardship and accountability is very different than what is required to get reelected. The process of governance is tainted by selfish interest. Those who court political favor—Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry (IACI), The Idaho Hospital-Medical Association (IMA-IHA), The Idaho Education Association (IEA), exert an influence over both the process of governance and the process of election, that is much greater than WE THE PEOPLE can ever muster.
The specific issues that were promised to be readdressed were as follows:
Property tax relief, Grocery tax relief, Outside Audits of (DHW) and LUMA
Promises—Promises. NO—NO—and NO!
We have the technical expertise to address these issues. We have the “street knowledge to understand the issues facing everyday people. The problems are that the organization of governance in our State is broken—and those currently in power—in leadership, in the executive branch and bureaucratic agencies like it just the way it is. As long as they can keep getting free tickets to the Governor’s Cup, and a free lunch at The Arid Club, WE THE PEOPLE will keep paying an extra 8% for our hamburger and eggs. We will keep seeing our health insurance go up 8-10%/ year to help “cost shift” for healthy adults on Medicaid Expansion. And we may never know where all “the money went”.
I hope there is somebody in the Republican Party who is willing to come out swinging and take the fight to the corporate—lobbyist mercantilist classes. Raul Labrador. Russ Fulcher, the real Mike Moyle could individually win a Republican Primary for Governor. We also have a deep-deep bench of young candidates that if they don’t dilute themselves by devouring each other in a primary, could also win.
MAKE IDAHO GREAT AGAIN
