The state of Idaho is facing a significant budget crunch this year. There will be painful budget cuts across the board. Well, not quite across the board. The extremely unpopular school voucher scheme, which garnered over 30,000 calls to the governor to ask him to veto, remains fully funded. Every other agency will see cuts, including Medicaid.
The sole reason for this mayhem? The regressive tax plan that was enacted in this year’s legislative session. To be fair, who could have ever thought that a $450 million cut to revenue could ever lead to a budget shortfall? The governor, for one. Governor Little was very vocal about the state’s inability to afford this tax cut. He signed it anyway.
I guess that should be some consolation to the tens of thousands of people who asked him to veto the voucher scheme. I mean, he did not even listen to himself, so why would he listen to anyone else?
He won’t. They won’t. Their goal is not to make things better, but rather to break the government. They desperately want to show that government is a bad thing and that it is ineffective at solving the problems faced by Idahoans. One should note, though, that Idaho has been under a Republican super-majority for nearly four decades. Every failure, every shortfall, and every horrible law was put into place by the party in power.
These cuts are going to have long-lasting effects. We made national news because our Medicaid reimbursement rates were already very low, and they are being slashed again due to these budget cuts. Some providers are publicly saying that they will have no choice but to stop serving Medicaid patients. This will put even more strain on a system that was already struggling to operate below the necessary funding. Fewer providers means less access and ultimately leads to more missed work for patients, compounding already tight family budgets. Fewer providers means fewer mental health resources. Rural areas will take a huge hit, and we are likely to see fewer options for all in those areas, including those with private insurance.
We should not be surprised. It is just another example of the Republican Party breaking things in order to have an argument to privatize them.
And while all of this should be a concern, I think that the biggest concern is that once again, the Governor knew this was going to happen. He saw this coming, and he was very vocal that the legislature should not pass this tax cut. The legislature ignored his warnings, and well, so did he.
Half of our state is just barely getting by. We need to be looking at ways to improve the lives of Idahoans, not pulling the rug out from under them in favor of tax cuts for the wealthy. It is long past time for new leadership.
David Roth is a precinct captain and Idaho’s Democratic National Committeeman.