Less Regulation, But More Spending? – We should cut both.
By Brian Almon
Last week, Idaho Twitter was aflutter over Elon Musk noticing our state’s success in cutting government regulations over the past six years. Nearly 30 million people saw Musk’s tweet enthusing over the reduction of pages in Idaho’s administrative code.
Gov. Brad Little was quick to jump on the story, showing off his chainsaw and tagging Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and their new DOGE — the Department of Government Efficiency.
The governor deserves kudos for his work in reducing regulations. This has been his signature endeavor since his inauguration in 2019. However, it does not tell the entire story.
Sen. Brian Lenney responded to the governor’s tweet asking if we could “chainsaw” the state budget:
Lenney also linked to a website with a very long and in-depth article that explains why Idaho might not actually be the “least regulated state” in the nation.
Nevertheless, the elephant in the room is the state budget. Cutting and simplifying regulations is great, but the unchecked increase in spending means an unchecked increase in the size and scope of government.
Gov. Little went on to post a graph comparing the reduction in regulation to the growth of GDP in our state:
I struggle to see the correlation between the two that he claimed. As Idaho Freedom Foundation president Ron Nate put it in a comment on the governor’s Facebook post, “…this graph shows near zero correlation between those things. Looks like Gov needs to get an economist who knows what the hell he’s talking about.”
GDP does appear to correlate to population growth, but government spending is still outpacing both. Gov. Little has been able to sign tax cuts while drastically increasing spending due to increased revenue as well as federal money, which currently makes up 40% of our state budget. This means he has been lucky enough to have his cake and eat it too, boasting of tax cuts and slashing regulation while not having to do the much harder work of cutting the size and scope of government.
Last week I made some suggestions for how Idaho could make meaningful cuts in government. The Legislature must proactively reduce or eliminate state agencies and programs, while the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee (JFAC) must trim the remaining budgets.
Cutting regulations is a good thing. Cutting government spending would be even better.
