In reply to an article written by Wayne Hoffman Dir. of Idaho Freedom Foundation
If you think that there are two Butch Otters, you are delusional and are missing the fact that our illustrious Governor who was granted a third term by the zombie voters of Idaho has become a dyed in the wool liberal when it comes to big government. He now presides over the largest employee base in the state because it is the State of Idaho who employs more people than any private company. His administration has been one of cronyism and pandering of the corporate elites helping them fill their pockets with the taxpayers hard earned wages. He cares not what happens to the ordinary citizens of Idaho as they are not the ones who have gotten him elected for three terms with their campaign contributions that was accomplished by the corporate cronies and IACI.
Just take a moment and think back to some of the scandals Butch has presided over during his term in office. We have the Corrections Corporation of America which he allowed to take over our prisons because he said it would save the state’s taxpayers money. We don’t have any idea how much the CCA scammed from the taxpayers with phony overtime because there was never an investigation and the governor’s office decided to settle with CCA for $1 million. He appointed Mike Gwartney, his good friend and confidant, to run the Department of Administration. Mike was the one who canceled the Syringa contract for the Idaho Education Network which brought on a law suit which has cost tax payers tens of millions of dollars in the loss of FCC money along with legal fees, and we are still counting, but he was never held accountable for his decision. Butch attempted to allow more nuclear waste into our state and if it weren’t for former governors Andrus and Batt, he would have succeeded all for the sake of $20 million. He said Idaho would never have a State Health Exchange and then pressured the Legislature to institute Your Health Idaho after many campaign contributions from insurers and medical associations. If anyone would take the time to check back on the records, Otter accepted campaign contributions from all of the companies and member companies of IACI who were involved in these scandals.
I would say there is only one Butch Otter, and he did not deserve a third term in office. Not only that, he has treated this third term as an opportunity to gift large pensions to many of his crony pals who were in the legislature for many years doing his bidding. He paid them back by appointing them to high positions in the bureaucracies of our state so they can continue to fleece the taxpayers of their hard earned wages. I think Idaho has had quite enough of Butch Otter, and it’s time for him to ride off into the sunset with the knowledge that he did a great job of building one of the most cronyistic governments in the 50 states. It will be a day of celebration the day that Butch hangs up his spurs as the people of Idaho may be able to elect someone who is not part of the crony machine and clean up all of the trash left behind by this magnanimous western gentleman cowboy. Yes we will all miss Butch the cowboy, wrangler and guitar playing crooner. What we won’t miss is his crony politics.
It will be time for Idaho to move forward in 2018 instead of moving backwards or standing still which is what we have been doing since he took office in 2008. Butch has been a corporate man. By that I mean there is not a corporate campaign contribution he would ever turn down. In my opinion, he should move his office down to the ground floor of the State Capital with the lobbyists. I only hope the people of Idaho will not elect another crony like Butch; although we hear that Brad Little or as we like to refer to him as Butch Lite is ready to throw his hat in the ring to run for Governor.
All I can say is Idaho could not take another 4 years of big government spending and low income jobs for its citizens. We are still 2 years away from the election, and Butch still has plenty of time to use his influence to take care of any cronies he has missed. People of Idaho I ask you are you better off now than you were 10 years ago? If the answer is no then you’re probably not part of the crony establishment and you have a chance to change our state in the next gubernatorial election. I suggest that this time you pick someone with some real business experience who actually cares about Idaho and its citizens and not how much in contributions he can garner from crony corporate lobbyists. Maybe we might even be lucky enough to have someone like Russ Fulcher run again.
