When our Governor speaks about the reddest of the red states he must be talking about Wyoming because with the legislators we currently have in office there is no way you could consider Idaho a Red State. According to the Idaho Freedom Foundation’s Freedom Index, we aren’t even close to being a red state. The index in the Senate is a testament to their voting records; we have 24 moderate to liberal senators and 11 conservative. In the House of Representatives we have 42 moderate to liberal representatives and 28 conservative. Click here to see the index.
Governor Otter has formed a political PAC called the Otter PAC to raise money, supposedly to help candidates who he and Lorie like that have done what he has asked for the past 8 years. This is Otter’s final punch at the conservatives who tried to throw him out of office in the 2014 primary, when he was challenged by Senator Russ Fulcher. (The question is, will he be successful in getting the results he wants with all that money he will undoubtedly raise from his cronies and corporate donors? After all he has taken care of them for the past 9 years he has been the King of Idaho.)
It is only lately that the Mainstream Media has picked up on Otter’s bait and switch by announcing this new PAC. It is only now that they are bringing up the $19,000 donation made by the Correction Corporation of America. You remember the one that charged for all of that overtime and was never investigated by the state. They are also bringing up Otters former Dept. of Administration Director, Mike Gwartney, who steered the $60 million Idaho Education Network contract away from the successful bidder, Syringa Network LLC and over to Quest which is now known as Century Link. This is the same Quest (Century Link) that contributed $35,000 to Otter’s campaigns. Does anyone get that the corruption and cronyism in this state is unparalleled anywhere in this country except maybe in the city of Chicago when Mayor Daily was running the city.
We have a failing education system and a Governor and legislature who are only paying attention to those who finance their election campaigns. People do you understand that the Governor and his lackeys in the legislature don’t give two bits about the people who pay their salaries, only about where the next donation is coming from for their elections. With the state budget as their piggy bank, they can take care of anyone and everyone who is willing to participate in the shenanigans of cronyism. It is time that “We the People” took charge of our state and vote out every one of those liberal and moderate legislators who have basically said screw the working class, all 78,000 low income workers. We have the second highest number of minimum wage jobs in the country, 7.1% of the working population. Median household income for Idaho in 2014 was $47,861 compared to median U.S. household income which is $5,796 higher.
Every time the Dept. of Commerce finds a new way to bring business to Idaho it always entails more taxpayer money. When was the last time you saw the state help the small business community in Idaho, the ones who are paying for all of these subsidies. Take a look at the tax breaks that have been given to large corporations to build factories in Idaho. We are talking millions upon millions to bring corporations here that eventually wind up paying low wages and costing the counties they build in more in infrastructure cost than they pay in taxable income.
Figures don’t lie, but liars figure and what this adds up to is that Idahoans have been suffering long enough under this administration and the cronies that support it. You will have an opportunity to change the system and tell the Governor and his cronies that we have had enough, and it is time for change. There will be challenges in the Republican primaries in May of 2016. This is an opportunity to voice your opinion that you are not happy with what is happening in our state. Take a minute and go to the Idaho Freedom Foundation website and check out how your current legislators have been voting and if they have an opponent, vote for their opponent. It’s time for the voters of Idaho to get off their couches and change this state by voting out every incumbent that has a bad voting record.
