Idaho Freedom Foundation vs Jim Jones and the Good Old Boys

Many of you have been reading about the battle that has been raging between Jim Jones, a former Idaho AG, and the Idaho Freedom Foundation. Historically, it appears that Jones likes a good fight as his battle with Idaho Power and their supporters was epic when he led a landmark settlement with Idaho Power that shaped the use of the state’s water resources for decades to come.

Jones went on a crusade to unseat any lawmaker who supported Idaho Power. His message was if you support the power company, we’re coming after you. The message then is not dissimilar to his message now but today it is aimed at the Idaho Freedom Foundation which has been and still is a driver to put more true conservatives into our legislature. So if Jim Jones professes to be such a conservative, why is he continuing this vendetta against the IFF whose only goal is to promote conservatism in our state?

Jim and a group of cronies have formed an organization called “Take Back Idaho”. This is the group who are spearheading the attack on the Idaho Freedom Foundation. If you go to their website you will find a listing of what we call the “Good Old Boys” who have run our state for decades both from political office and behind the scenes with their power and influence. We were not surprised to find the likes of Bruce Newcomb a former speaker of the house and head of government affairs at BSU amongst this pack of aged liberal thinking hyenas. I will never forget the day there was a discussion going on in the Lincoln Auditorium and Bruce stood up and said in a rather loud voice the constitution is a living document, literally turning every head in the room around to see who spouted out that liberal garbage comment.

You don’t have to do much homework to figure out that Jim and his group are nothing more than a new division of Governor Little’s cadre of crony politicians who have run this state for way too long. The IFF is the only organization that actually fights for the people of Idaho and is not afraid to take on the rancid republican establishment that have taken over our government. If not for IFF and representatives like Dorothy Moon, we may never have known how bad a $6 million federal early childhood education grant was with all the strings that were attached to it. This grant was not for one year but 3 years and was laden with critical race theory (CRT) curriculum for kids from infancy to pre-k.

How soon we forget about how the federal government gets its claws into the curriculum and our education system least we forget “No Child Left Behind” and all the strings that it came with. Political groups like Take Back Idaho are infamous for encouraging our legislators to hold their hands out and take every nickel that Uncle Sam offers them along with all the strings that go with the money. It is our opinion that if you really want to take back Idaho all you have to do is get rid of the good old boys and rhinos who have run our state for way too long. Idaho has struggled for years to improve education in our state and much of the effort has been wasted on bad government programs like Common Core and School Net.

Idaho still ranks in the bottom 25% of the states in education with an overall ranking of 40^th and are near the bottom in per student spending. While Idaho increases their education budget just about every year which is the second largest expenditure we have. Idahoans should think, where does all of the money go and why don’t we have significant improvement in education? The only thing the Idaho Freedom Foundation has done is to point out that there is definitely something wrong with our education system and how we spend our money. Maybe it is time we looked at giving parents a choice of how and where they would like to educate their children.

Jones and his cronies have also accused the IFF of “preventing folks of modest means from getting medical care.” If it is the issue of Medicaid Expansion that Jones is talking about than he is really off base as we already know that there are well over 100,000 Idahoans who are on Medicaid that do not qualify and no one seems to want to do anything about it. We warned years ago that if Medicaid Expansion were allowed in Idaho it would be the beginning of a huge expansion in our Medicaid budget. Every state that has expanded Medicaid has been plagued with costs that in many cases have been in surmountable and have some states on the brink of bankruptcy.

Medicaid is nothing more than a socialist system which for all of its good intentions has caused more problems than it has solved. The big question is when will the Fed’s cut the percentage of funds they contribute to the state for this program. As of November 2021, Idaho has enrolled 404,709 individuals in Medicaid and CHIP that means over 21% of Idaho’s population is enrolled in these programs. So while Jimmy Jones and the boys complain about the IFF hurting Idahoans of modest means their cronies in the Little administration allow the budgets to expand to the point that future taxes will have to increase to cover these costs. At the same time these portrayers of patriotism continue to boycott any movement to eliminate the regressive grocery tax that hurts so many low income Idahoans.

Jim Jones and his friends are nothing but a bunch of old pots calling the Kettle Black. They and the people they support in the legislature are responsible for expanding state budgets and federal aid in education and healthcare to take care of their buddies at IACI. There is nothing for Jim and his friends to take back as they have already taken the taxpayers of Idaho to the cleaners. It is organizations like theirs that have changed our state color from Red to bright purple. If we don’t have a big change over in the legislature in November and get rid of Governor Little and his lackeys we can say goodbye to conservative Idaho forever. The Rhino Republicans are putting on a full court press to keep their cronies in power in this year’s election.

We only hope that the citizens of Idaho look back at the past 2 years and see how badly our governor has handled this covid crisis. With Little and his friends their only concern is taking more federal money and reelecting the good old boys to office so they can raise taxes and continue to expand government every place possible. If you want 4 more years of higher taxes and big government with a progressive education in our schools than vote for Governor Doolittle. We can assure you that you will have more voter’s remorse than you currently have if you voted for Joe Biden. If you want conservative government and someone who will stop Idaho’s dependence on federal money and the progressive strings they attach to it than vote for Janice McGeachin on May 17^th and we might just have a chance of keeping our state Red.