New Year’s resolution 2021: Expose Idaho’s socialists and the programs they make you pay for

By Wayne Hoffman

How much support do you give to radical leftist organizations? I posed this question to a conservative friend the other day. He furrowed his brow and looked at me like I was crazy. He’d never willingly lend his support to socialists, he assured me.

The key word in his answer is “willingly.” You might substitute “knowingly.” Because he “unknowingly” lends his support to socialist causes and organizations all the time.

He has no choice, and neither do you.

Idaho laws are written such that you’re an unwilling and unknowing participant in efforts to expand government-run health care, promote class warfare, advance environmental extremism, and use minorities as pawns in social justice experiments. Some of these initiatives are well-known to state legislators.  Others are not.

Even I, having worked for more than 25 years in the state’s public policy arena, continue to uncover the novel ways in which legislators and governors of the past have managed to covertly divert money from unsuspecting Idahoans to the pockets of special interest groups, which then use that money against us. Such clever schemes are so hardwired into the system, they’ve been operating at almost undetectable levels over many years and decades.

It’s everywhere in Idaho.

Taxpayer-funded accounting and human resources offices, copying machines, computers, and email programs on K-12 school campuses help supplement the work of the labor unions. In public schools, firehouses, and police stations across Idaho, union leaders are often given time off, at taxpayer expense, to conduct union business.

City, county, and school association lobbyists participate in the state’s taxpayer-backed retirement program. And those lobbyists can most often be found at the Statehouse using taxpayer money to lobby against taxpayers.

Radical environmental groups in Idaho get to promote radical causes by dipping into a pool of cash supplied by Idaho utility customers like you and me.

Leftist organizations that promote the expansion of government-run health care receive funding from state agencies so that they can further promote their agendas.

Your taxes are used to keep radio and television stations on the air, which then use that funding to pick apart conservatism and libertarianism so as to sound anti-American. Newspapers rake in millions of dollars from taxes, which are then used to support even higher taxes and more government control.

Taxes and tuition paid by Idaho college students and their parents flow directly to extremist organizations which then use that money to promote socialism and racism.

As my mentor, Ralph Smeed, used to say: We’re pushing the tide back with a teaspoon.

My New Year’s resolution is all about the way in which socialism–and the means to attract even more socialism — has become embedded in our state and local governments. I’m resolving to expose and take on the many ways that socialism is allowed to sustain itself, grow, and thrive — even in our own backyard.

Socialism has friends in Idaho’s elective offices, in government agencies, and in our hometown media. They’re perfectly content using your money to destroy our country. You should know who these people are and all about the ways they’re insisting you pay for it. And I promise you, you will.

Wayne Hoffman is President of Idaho Freedom Foundation.

From idahofreedom.org