Reprinted with permission of Idaho Freedom Foundation
Contrary to what you may have heard from the legacy leftist media, neither the Idaho Freedom Foundation nor Idaho Freedom Action has endorsed Ammon Bundy for governor.
The Idaho Freedom Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. The Idaho Freedom Foundation does not endorse candidates for elected public office, and while Idaho Freedom Action, a 501(c)(4), can endorse candidates, it typically does not do so.
Idaho Freedom PAC, an organization that shares IFF’s values and vision for the future of our beloved state, did endorse Bundy. But IFF/IFA and IFP are not the same. They have different leadership and different donors. It’s irresponsible of the press to report misinformation connecting IFF or IFA to the Bundy endorsement.
However, IFF and IFA can and do comment on the candidates for governor and other races, and I’ll do so now, because it’s important.
I expect that when the votes are counted on election night, Brad Little will still be governor of Idaho. The problem is that Little will have won through a campaign of dishonesty and misdirection. He likes to travel the state and claim that he never shut down the state’s economy during the Covid pandemic or that any of his policies resulted in the permanent closure of businesses or the arrest of people for not wearing masks, congregating at church, or going to a city park with kids. He’s lying.
Equally important, Little, when faced with a $2 billion budget surplus, called for a fraction of the money to be returned to taxpayers and proceeded to surrender to the socialists at Reclaim Idaho by dumping more than $400 million into Idaho’s failing government schools. He did so by putting lawmakers in a box by giving them just one take-it-or-leave-it bill to consider in the September special legislative session.
These are facts worthy of debate, yet Little has refused to commit to a debate on his record, either in the primary or the general election. That’s terrible for voters.
Bundy raises important objections to the status quo in state government — such as the continued existence of property and income taxes. And recently he began an ad campaign suggesting that as governor, he’d help welfare recipients who don’t want to work leave the state. Whether his plan is executable is not of huge concern. But the fact is, Bundy raises an important issue that has never been properly addressed: Too many Idahoans are dependent on government programs and payouts. This is not sustainable, as we’ve mentioned many times before. Moreover, government dependency is not healthy in society. These government programs disconnect people from communities, charities, and churches in a way that destabilizes society. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a candidate for governor talk about this issue, and so Bundy is saying something refreshing.
Bundy isn’t perfect either. His support for Black Lives Matter a couple of years ago is cringy, as was the scene of the Idaho State Police wheeling him out of the Statehouse zip tied to a chair. That, too, is worthy of discussion.
Most importantly, today we have two very different candidates for Idaho governor with two very different visions for the future. The role of the Idaho Freedom Foundation is to research public policy matters and communicate our findings to the public. The role of Idaho Freedom Action is, as suggested by the name, to put our ideas into action by engaging with the public. Endorsement of candidates is not what either organization does.
Political opportunists and the media attack IFF and IFA because they’d rather not talk about the real issues facing real Idahoans. That’s why they’ve used a tenuous connection between Idaho Freedom PAC to attack IFF/IFA. This is all a distraction so that you focus on the issues they think are important and discount our ideas as “extremist.” In fact, we believe our ideas are the ones that will save our state and save America.
There’s nothing extreme about ensuring Idaho doesn’t go the way of California, Colorado, or Oregon. And no amount of whining by washed up leftists will stop us from bringing about the conservative change we all believe in.
Send a message to these hacks today. Join Idaho Freedom with a donation of as little as $25 to show that you will not stop and you will not let them silence you.
Together, we will preserve our state for generations to come.
