It’s Christmas Eve. Do you have beautifully wrapped gifts under your tree, a turkey roasting in the oven with all the fixings and pie, and a parlor game or two in mind? Or are you wondering how you’re going to pay for the few gifts under your tree, thankful for your meal that came from the Community Food Basket and worried about being evicted because you just couldn’t cover rent again?
The gap in income between the haves and the have nots is growing faster in Idaho than in all but four other states. In Bonneville County, the Community Food Basket fed 2,300 families a month this fall — double from a year ago. Even before the pandemic hit, 1 in 10 children in Bonneville County was food insecure, defined by the United States Department of Agriculture as not having enough food for an “active, healthy life … without resorting to emergency food supplies, scavenging, stealing, or other coping strategies.” According to the United Way’s 2020 Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed Report, 40% of working Idahoans still can’t afford basic necessities. If it weren’t for Medicaid expansion being passed by Idaho voters in 2018, 90,000 Idahoans, who now have access to health care, would be forced to receive health care from hospital emergency rooms already overloaded because of the pandemic.
The Idaho Legislature meagerly rations our schools less money per pupil than any other state in the nation. Funding is still 11% below what it was for K-12 in 2008 and 18% below that year for higher education. Our teachers lost nearly 7% of pay from 2000 to 2017, and they still make less than they did in 2008 with income adjusted for inflation. Only 25% of low-income Idaho families and only 32% of all Idaho families can afford pre-school for their children. Hardships all around, right? Not quite.
Idaho is sitting on the largest budget surplus in our state’s history. Projections from the governor’s office include a $630 million budget surplus, another $600 million in the rainy day fund, $100 million in sequestered Internet sales tax collections and the Coronavirus Financial Advisory Committee has released $150 million funding from the $1.25 billion Idaho received from federal coronavirus relief for a total of an unprecedented $1.48 billion in unallocated funds.
Seemingly blind to the needs of ordinary Idahoans, Gov. Little is planning to fast-track a tax cut. Historically, tax cuts go disproportionately to those not needing financial help: the wealthy and corporations. Why not use what is likely a once-in-a-lifetime budget surplus to help all Idahoans instead of only the wealthy?
In the interest of putting Idaho values, business acumen and decency into practice in Idaho government instead of being only talk, unallocated funding should be used as an urgent priority to help overwhelmed hospitals, invest in Idaho public education starving for funding and put emergency help in the hands of desperate Idahoans. It won’t come in time for the holidays but will give Idahoans the priceless gift of support when and where it is needed most.
Pat Tucker is the Bonneville County Democratic Party chairwoman.