“Where was the Legislative Approval for this Shutdown?”
It’s difficult to fathom how fast Idaho’s thriving economy could become a thing of the past in such a short time but it has happened. Governor Little a former sheep rancher turned politician for the RINO party has single-handedly crushed Idaho’s economy with the help of his bureaucratic advisors in the medical community. In a matter of only weeks, we are seeing the dreams of many Idahoans laid to waste by a government that has overstepped its bounds issuing an emergency declaration to close all non-essential businesses in our state.
We have now seen what happens when the wrong person is chosen by the people to head our state government. We picked a sheep rancher instead of Tommy Ahlquist a doctor and developer or Raul Labrador an attorney and a proven conservative congressman. Who knows if things would have been different if either of the alternatives had won the primary but one thing we know for sure now that the man who served for 9 years as Lt. Governor was a bad choice for Idaho.
Little claims that he followed the path marked by President Trump but that is not true. He took the road most traveled by those who are unable to shoulder the responsibility of making difficult rational decisions. He did not act in the best interest of the people he was elected to serve. Instead, he allowed a group of unelected advisors to make critical decisions without the approval of the legislature. He chose the route mapped out by the lobbyists and medical bureaucrats who have been steering him in the wrong direction since he chose to declare this state of emergency. His worst mistake was to disrespect the people of Idaho by not recalling the legislature back to session for consultation on this crisis.
The President has said many times that each state would be different but Little didn’t want to take responsibility for anyone dying so he painted the whole state the color of “FEAR. He shut down 70% of Idaho’s small businesses even though 20 of our counties had less than 10 confirmed cases and 10 more had no cases of the virus and no deaths. Instead of following President Trump’s advice of opening counties that were not at lower risk Little closed everything he and his advisors decided were non-essential.
Why was he able to do close our State essentially creating more fear in the populace? Because of a bad law on the books. He made sure he did this immediately after the legislative session and avoided a clash with legislative leaders over this shutdown. The problem with Idaho law is once the legislature is closed it cannot reopen itself. The Governor must call it back into session and of course, the governor never gave that Idea a second thought. This was a total and complete power grab by Governor Little and the powers that pull his strings, it needs to be addressed in the next legislative session. This cannot be permitted to happen again. By not calling the legislature into session the Governor along with his advisors has taken on the total responsibility for any and all repercussions that take place from this draconian shutdown. I only hope the people of Idaho hold him accountable.
While no one could have possibly been prepared to deal with this supposed pandemic and the fear that the Who, CDC, NIH, and liberal media instilled in the people it could have certainly been handled in a much less damaging manner than what the Governor has done. The most offensive part of his shutdown was deciding what businesses were essential and which ones weren’t. Who is he to say what businesses are essential and which are not? What this was is discrimination against certain types of business that he and his advisors made an arbitrary decision to close without consultation of the people through legislative approval. I’m just wondering if there may not be a class action lawsuit awaiting the Governor and his cronies for these shutdowns and if the owners of those businesses that were closed would have the right to compensation from the state. This, of course, would be a matter for the courts to decide but there needs to be some recourse for those arbitrary decisions made that cost small business owners untold losses.
Idaho has gone from a thriving economy with 3% unemployment to having 125,000 Idahoans applying for unemployment insurance in a matter of six short weeks. This is what happens when the leader of a state does not understand good risk management. Leaders like this are dangerous to the people they are supposed to serve and should be held responsible for their inability to assess a problem and make decisions in consultation with our elected legislative representatives.
Idahoans boarded the “Train of Fear” promoted by our governor and the media. For the life of me, I can’t understand why no one did any investigating before handing their lives over with little or no resistance to a bunch of politicians and their bureaucratic advisors. The people of Idaho are better than this and need to ask themselves when this is over why they acquiesced to the fear mongers and allowed them to take our constitutional freedoms from us in one fell swoop. We permitted these fear terrorists to steal our lively hoods, close our schools, and cancel events without recourse and without a fight. This is the scary part of this crisis. The fact that it only took a virus no worse than the annual flu in numbers of dead or hospitalized to destroy a 72 billion dollar economy in one fell swoop.
Dr. Livingston said it best “No Risk is the Greatest Risk”. I would not want this Governor watching over Idaho’s flock for another four years. It is time to clean house and rid ourselves of the bureaucratic deep state that has been growing for too many years. You have an opportunity to change our state starting with this primary election but even more so in the next election of 2022. Get rid of the crony incumbents and bring in some fresh conservatives who will serve the people and not themselves.
“We Get the Government We Deserve”
3 replies on “Sheep Rancher Fleeces Idaho’s Economy”
Please! Tommy Ahlquist ran to split the vote and guarantee his buddy Little got in office. He spoke too much about his true intentions during and after his campaign to folks personally, people talk. They’re lock step together on the matter now. And we didn’t even elect him.
Crony incumbents, you’re right. People need to dig deep on whom are running, follow the $$$.
Back on April 27th, these were the statistics for Idaho:
Idaho population: 1,780,000 roughly.
Idaho shut down on March 17th after the first death March 13th.
Diagnosed with Covid-19: 1,887 or 0.118% (one tenth of 1% of the total population.
Covid-19 deaths: 56 or 2.967% (3%) of total diagnosed or .003% of total population.
The large majority of diagnosis were in three counties: Blaine, Canyon, Ada.
Ada: 482,000 population; 27% state population. 612 diagnosed = 0.13% county population. 12 deaths = 2% of diagnosed.
Canyon: 230,000 population; 13% state population. 202 diagnosed = 0.88% county population.6 deaths = 3% of diagnosed.
Blaine: 23,000 population; 1.5% state population. 473 diagnosed – 2% county population, 5 deaths = 1% of diagnosed.
There are 44 counties in Idaho. These three have 735,000 population – 41%. They have 1,287 diagnosed – 68%. They have 23 deaths – 41%
SIGNIFICANCE: The remaining 41 counties have 1,045,000 population – 59% – 1.4% per county. They have 600 diagnosed – 32% – 0.7% per county. They have 33 deaths – 59% – 1.4% per county..
PERSPECTIVE: According to statistics from the Center of Disease Control and Prevention, 15 people in Idaho have died from the flu this season, including three children. Last winter between October and May, the official flue season 58 people died in Idaho. The winter before, 101 people died from flu.
Yes, FDR said the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, but nobody remembers his next phrase in which he defined fear itself as “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralysis needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
Since the shutdown was solely about hospital ICU and hospital beds needing to be available for Covid-19 patients and “models” were already proven wrong, with the above data available and known to be true, how could all 41 counties not be opened by May 1, 2020 and elective surgeries allowed to proceed so the health segment of our economy could start to recover?
Everyone should remember the timidity of Idaho’s governor who failed to act (lead) on behalf of us citizens for the greater good in this time.
I have noticed that too often Little needs to be backed up by a police force. When he first announced killing off our businesses, he went down to the air force base and had a general in battle fatigues stand next to him. That day, several times, news reporters asked him if he would use force on our population to make us comply, he did not answer. He only mumbled something about social pressure hopefully working. Too often, he shows zero courage and has a sheriff or other law enforcement next to him. During an interview a few days ago, he again would not clearly answer the question of his using force to get his way.
He regularly channels Washington state’s far, far left governor, Inslee.