January 23, 2025
 Smoke at Eugene/Linda Watkins |
Smoke from the wildfires in central Oregon jumped west a couple of days ago, leading to smokey skies across the Willamette Valley.
Some of that has cleared up in the northern valley, but to the south - such as Eugene, here - the smoke persists. The bridge span in this picture ordinarily appears red; the smoke today caused it to be grayed out.
Former Idaho state economist Mike Ferguson probably was best known, among Idaho news junkies at least, for his state revenue estimates - a task which was part of the job, and which also brought him into bumping heads with Governor C.L. "Butch" Otter. He retired 11 months ago and has maintained a low profile since.
That will change shortly. Ferguson is becoming the head of the new Idaho Center for Fiscal Policy (web site coming in the fall), an entity set up at the at the Mountain States Group in Boise, which has worked till now on health, refugee, and welfare-related issues. Ferguson will not be working (much at leat) on reveue projections, but rather on other parts of what used to be his job - tax policy, how budgets are set, and more.
The Center's main purpose, Ferguson said, "is to provide fact-based information with clarity, that can help people make more informed decisions about appropriate public policy." He said he'll focus on the revenue side initially, at "basic principles" - a tax system that is efficient, adequate and stable.
That's actually a way of looking at taxes and budgets quite different from how most legislators do. The usual approach and focus (and Idaho is part of the norm in this) is: Estimate the amount current state taxes will bring in for the next fiscal year; apportion that money among the usual recipients; and maybe, on rare occasions, consider increasing the income if trouble seems to loom otherwise.
Three problems with that method.
One is that it bypasses a key point, that the exact amount of tax money coming in a little arbitrary, and logically depends on how much is needed - how much needs to be spent to pay for whatever the legislature decides (and constitution requires) the state should do. That may be less than the current level of tax revenue, or it may be more, but the revenue-first approach takes things backward.
Another is, "one of the thigns that happens during the legislative session when the greatest focus on budget occurs is an enormous amount of attention given to the general fund, as if the general fund were the budget." The general fund, which is the part funded by state taxes, in fact makes up only about half of the money the state spends. Federal funds, fees and other sources provide a big chunk of the income. (more…)
 Chris Carlson Carlson Chronicles |
In sports, as it is in the equally brutal world of politics, it is all about relationships. And in the long journeys involved in comebacks, sometimes the relationships one never knows about are crucial to the outcome.
Today, under weather forecasters predict to be almost perfect for fall football — clear skies, a cool breeze and glaring sunlight - a less than capacity crowd in Martin Stadium, will see Idaho State University begin the long march back to football respectability under the watchful eye of Mike Kramer, one of the best football coaches ever produced by the Big Sky Conference.
There will be a bittersweet undertone to the contest for both Kramer and Washington State coach Paul Wulff have been friends for years, having helped each other at critical times over the years.
Kramer, knowing much more about the vastly improved Cougars than Wulff knows about the largely unknown Bengals, may be able to engineer a respectable showing for his undermanned squad. After all, he has been a very observant assistant to Wulff the last two years at WSU. ISU, a 27 point underdog, is expected to not provide much competition for the PAC-12 team, but Kramer engineered Montana State’s stunning upset of the new PAC-12 Colorado football team a few years back, something Wulff is sure to remind his Cougar squad about. (more…)