The problem we are having with governance in our State deals primarily and fundamentally with the “process of governance” which for too long has been controlled by the corporatist lobbying interests in our State, who not only control the process of legislating, but they also control the regulatory administrative bureaucracy that has for 30 years […]
I have been an observer of local and Idaho State politics for years. I have never been a lobbyist or a corporate insider. My four years on the Your Health Idaho Health Insurance Exchange Board allowed me access to both the Department of Insurance and The Department of Health and Welfare. I learned that many […]
In a Feb. 6th Newsweek report by Martha McHardy cited below, the progress made in the 11 States that are initiating DOGE-like programs to cut waste and State government inefficiencies, is reviewed. Since January I have been making a siren call for such a program in Idaho. The problems with the LUMA accounting and reconciling […]
In February 2016, Pope Francis said that “a person who thinks only of building walls, wherever it may be, and not of building bridges, is not Christian.” I was reminded of those words as I was watching President Trump’s speech before Congress last week. The theme of “WALLS AND BRIDGES” has been applied most often […]
Adam Ferguson was an eighteenth-century political scientist and economist. He was a Scottish contemporary of Adam Smith. His work is reviewed in a recent Hoover Institute paper by Niall Ferguson entitled FERGUSON’S LAW DEBT, SERVICE, MILITARY SPENDING, AND THE LIMITS OF POWER. In his 1766 paper Adam Ferguson identified what today is being called the […]
Recently I listened to very compelling testimony before The Senate Health and Welfare Committee on Senate Bill 1036 that calls for a 10 year pause on vaccines or “any therapy” that uses messenger RNA (MRNA) technology which is currently being used in two Covid vaccines. The Bill is sponsored by Brandon Shippy, R- New Plymouth […]
There is certainly a big difference between an argument in logic verses the creation of a story that supports a political narrative. For several generations, the critical thinking skills that are supposed to be incorporated into a curriculum taught by teachers and professors to our students, has been replaced by programs designed to indoctrinate. Instead […]
The weaponization of our legal system has led only to an increasing distrust of the American People of our Department of Justice (DOJ) and our Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). More importantly the American People’s trust in the “process of justice” has made the jobs of thousands of people at all levels of government who […]
After the last legislative session, a special task force was convened to explore how to save money in the Idaho Medicaid program. There are only three ways to save money in the Medicaid program: reduce the number of people on Medicaid, provide people with fewer services, and reduce payments to providers. After the 2024 session […]
Political transactions and economic transactions are very different. In most of our daily economic transactions we give up something we want in the form of a tangible asset or our own valuable time. Since the days of the barter a tangible representation of the value of the asset or our time is needed to facilitate […]
Last week I went to a meeting at the State House Sponsored by the Idaho Majority Club. The meeting was informative and featured presentations by the co-chairs of the Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee (JFAC), Senator Scot Grow and Representative Wendy Horman. Full disclosure, I have a professional relationship with Mr. Grow’s Accounting firm. We […]
Smart people understand that there are many components to intelligence. Cognition, judgement, a virtuous morality upon which to base our thoughts are what connect intelligence and knowledge to WISDOM. It has been my experience that when in the presence of great intelligence, the smartest person in the room doesn’t need to tell everybody in the […]