Idaho’s Spending Problem-The Wants and the Wishes

From Idaho State Representative Heather Scott

If you haven’t made the connection to your high tax bills, let me break the news.  Idaho has a spending problem!  In the last four years, Idaho’s spending has increase 53% from $9 billion to $13.8 billion.   Budgets in Idaho are bloated with federal money, and just like the omnibus spending bills in Washington D.C., they are packed full of many “extra” line items.

This year, the conservative members on the budget committee have agreed that enough is enough of the massive spending of your hard-earned money!  They have decided to expose the waste in the budget and the governor’s deceptive shell game by breaking each agencies’ budget into 2 budgets.

1. The first budget-just enough money to do business as usual with no new spending.

2. The second budget (an extra $1.5 billion total), all the extra wants and wishes of the agencies.

This approach will show who truly supports smaller government. It will also help show the governor’s real growth of government that has been hidden.  The governor has been claiming this year’s spending increase is 2%, while it is really a whopping 16%!

Get ready for intense debates on spending limits in the Idaho House and Senate.  Eliminating wasteful expenditures is our first step to controlling the growth of government and it is the only way we can reduce our taxes.

But there is trouble on the horizon.  Democrats are furious and teaming with anyone that will join them to keep the budgets in omnibus form and keep the extra spending hidden.

What will your legislator do?

Rep. Heather Scott

Heather Scott <heather@heatherscott.org>