Old men like to tell stories. Some are good at it. Some aren’t. We tell them anyway.
I was in the Idaho legislature the last time and only time public K12 funding was cut. I was in the minority and voted against it. Medicaid got cut. It was a dismal time. I entered the Idaho legislature in 2010. The economic crash of 2008 was just washing over the state’s revenue stream. We were growing in population, but the general economic downturn was severe and money was tight. Reserve funds were depleted, zeroed out. That was the situation I joined.
Idaho trails the national economy. By 2010, when I entered the legislative swamp, I could see the national tide beginning to rise. But Idaho must balance revenue against expenditures, according to our Constitution. We cannot bet on a projection.
So we cut budgets.
I watched my colleagues. Mainly the Republicans, since they held the seats and were in charge. I appreciated that they knew the numbers, the fiscal situation, and our mandate. They voted to cut the budgets because there really wasn’t a lot else our state could do right then.
I was betting on more tax revenue coming in than we thought, as the national economy stabilized. I believed some Republicans low balled the projected revenue to justify the cuts. But I respected most of the Republicans who thought we needed to be conservative with our budgeting. We have to balance the book.
And I was right about the revenue. After cutting Medicaid and schools, we ended with a surplus.
I also watched who just wanted to cut the budget out of spite. There are those ideologues. Some conservatives think we should get the government shrunk down to the size we can drown it in a bathtub. But many of my Republican colleagues felt the pain of these cuts. They regretted our circumstance. They saw the need for the services the state provided and regretted we could not continue all those.
That was back in the day.
But Idaho is in this day. And this day, our Republican Idaho legislature has manufactured this “budget crisis”.
The national economy is not on the skids.
Idaho has a Billion dollars in reserves funds. That’s 20% of our annual budget.
But we have our elected representatives planning to cut funding for schools and health care as our population and economy grows. And after they have voted for a billion in tax cuts for corporations and rich people.
I have no idea who I’m talking to here. I’m an old man telling a story. It’s not going well. The room is silent.
This old man remembers those guys in suits in the Capitol with their name tags. I remember the things that were important to them.
I believed most of them listened to and represented their constituents. But also, I knew, some did not.
Once in the lunchroom, when I sat across from a Representative from North Idaho, I asked him who he talked to.
“Oh,” he said chewing his sandwich. “I meet with my central committee regularly.”
I knew this guy. He would vote for any budget cut. And he didn’t care who it might affect.
We do government to help this be a better place, mainly for our kids. So they can have a place to prosper and thrive.
That’s how this old man sees it. But while I’ve been going on, I’ve come to realize, some in the room don’t like the story I have been telling. So I go silent.
As I sit in my chair and ponder the silence, I come to realize, not everybody thinks like I do.
And as I age and decline, I wonder just what is the purpose of this fight?
Then my granddaughter runs in with her new outfit.
We need to be building this place for them.
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