Don't get me wrong; I love this place. Last night on my way from a St. Patrick's Day dinner at church, my son and I saw 8 head of deer crossing one of the main thoroughfares in town. Up until some A&&HOLE shot him last year, we had a bull Elk living just off the Greenbelt, where we could take the kids for a walk or a bike ride just to go see "Ernie." My alma mater has one of, if not the, best football teams in the (Bronco)nation.
And then there's our state government (banging head against wall). This morning they are reporting that the state House has passed legislation that will allow care providers to refuse to provide services and medication (including, as I understand it, birth control) based on the provider's moral belief that such services and medications are "wrong."
But that's not half of it.
The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee approved a $1.58 billion total budget for public schools in 2011 on Wednesday, a drop of 7.5 percent or $128.5 million from 2010.
The budget would:
- Freeze the education and experience portions of the teacher salary grid, saving $10.13 million.
- Reduce state money for salaries for teachers and classified staff by 4 percent and reduce money for administrators' salaries by 6.5 percent.
- Reduce the minimum salary for a teacher to $29.655, down from $30,915.
- Combine funding for state test remediation, the math initiative and the reading initiative and reduce it by 20 percent overall to $9 million from $11.8 million.
Read more: http://www.idahostatesman.com/...
And then there's this:
The Idaho Legislature's Democrats say the majority Republican Party is stalling on a package of job-creation bills at the worst-possible time: When the state's unemployment rate has hit a near-record high.
February's unemployment rate rose to 9.5 percent, just shy of the record 9.6 percent of the early 1980s, according to the state Department of Labor.
Idaho has lost over 44,000 jobs over two years, and Democrats say the majority GOP leadership hasn't dedicated enough attention to the Idaho Jobs and Opportunity Blueprint bills that minority lawmakers introduced earlier this session.
Read more: http://www.idahostatesman.com/...
Those are just a couple of indicators of where our State leadership's priorities are. Cutting school and social service budgets, ignoring unemployment. Oh, and suing the federal government over, you guessed it, healthcare reform.
Democrats in Washington, D.C., hope to pass health care reform soon, but Republican state leaders in Idaho are preparing to go to court to fight it.
Gov. Butch Otter signed the Idaho Health Freedom Act on Wednesday in his first public bill signing of the 2010 session.
"If I am (first), I'm glad," said Otter, who was flanked by several Republican lawmakers. (snip)
[Editor's note: According to the article, advocates of the law estimate it will cost $100,000 to hire an additional deputy attorney general and staff to sue; opponents believe it will cost much more.]
Even in the budget crisis, Otter said the Idaho Health Freedom Act is an important piece of legislation.
"I put a high priority on the sovereignty of the state of Idaho," Otter said. "Yes, it is a proper use of our time." (snip)
Otter said the state needs to do more to make health care affordable by getting more providers into the state. "If our only attention is going to be on how we pay the bill and not how we lower the bill, I think we miss aiming at where the real problem is, and it should be to lower that cost," Otter said.
But opponents complained that the law does not do anything to help Idahoans deal with rising health care costs.
"It is bad policy," said Jim Wordelman, state director for AARP. "Families, children and the elderly are facing real health care problems, high costs and no access to needed health care. This bill doesn't address those kitchen-table issues."
Read more: http://www.idahostatesman.com/...
Pity the poor Republican leadership though. It's hard, making these kinds of decisions. Dan Popkey, one of the best political reporters in the state, gets us the inside view:
Otter lives in a nightmare where he's portrayed as relishing cutting public schools, services for the blind and disabled, state parks and public TV. "It's like ... I can't wait to get out there and do it," he said.
Otter spilled his guts Wednesday. His on-the-couch quotes made headlines across the state. The favorite line: "I'd just like - I would like to see some compassion, maybe that's the word I'm looking for, some compassion. This is a tough, tough position to be in. And it's not fun."
Otter's opposition to raising taxes trumps his tender heart, but he doesn't like hurting people. He's shown glimpses of that ever since talking about his distress over cutting services for an autistic 6-year-old last year. (snip)
Otter's learned that cutting a government he's always said was too big is harder than he figured.
"It can be a very difficult and lonely place to be," said his spokesman, Jon Hanian.
Senate Majority Leader Bart Davis, R-Idaho Falls, says Otter's complaint about the press has merit. "There doesn't seem to be a full reflection of the difficult financial problem that the governor and the Legislature are trying to manage their way through," Davis said.
But he stopped there, making it clear Republicans remain resolved to balance the budget with spending cuts, not tax increases. "I don't want you to think that we're not up to the challenge."
Read more: http://www.idahostatesman.com/...
Autistic children, the unemployed, teachers facing pay cuts, and women in rural areas being denied needed care, around the State wept and rent their garments in sympathy for the Governor.
Oy.