Idaho MAGA warriors are giving off troubling vibes as the state heads into the 2026 legislative session. With all signs indicating a severe shortage of revenue to fulfill the needs of critical state programs, they have been sharpening their knives to cut to the bone. They seem to be blind to the fact that there are two ways of balancing a budget.
When I worked for Senator Len Jordan in the early 1970s, he told me the Republican philosophy for balancing a budget–decide the funding needs of essential programs and then raise sufficient revenue to fulfill those needs. That’s how Jordan operated as Idaho’s Governor in the early 1950s and during his ten years in the U.S. Senate.
Governor Little is now faced with a budget deficit this year, but the words “tax increase” do not seem to be in his vocabulary. He only speaks of spending cuts. The revenue shortfall should not be a surprise. Last year, Little happily signed a bill granting $400 million in tax cuts that favored the wealthy, despite the fact that it was $300 million more than he had proposed. At that time, he expressed concern about future years and the effect of expected federal spending cuts but simply disregarded those concerns.
Little also signed HB 93, a bill that subsidizes private and religious education. The $50 million cost will be visited upon taxpayers who derive no benefit from the program. It provides practically no accountability for the use of the subsidy funds. The $50 million is just what the state had proposed to spend on our chronically underfunded special education programs, but that proposal was recently scrapped because of budget woes.
The projected shortfall of revenue for the current fiscal year, which ends on June 30, is about $40 million. Next year, the deficit could range between $600 million and $1 billion, depending upon whether the state adopts federal tax code changes. The Idaho Center for Fiscal Policy reported that the state reduced revenue by a cumulative total of $4 billion over the past five years to pay for income tax cuts. House Majority Leader Mike Moyle, the chief architect of the tax cutting frenzy, deserves the credit for our budgetary poverty. Here’s hoping he does not try it again this year.
MAGA legislators are hoping to make additional cuts to Idaho’s Medicaid program, including repeal of the Medicaid expansion that 60% of Idaho voters approved in 2018. That would deprive up to 90,000 Idahoans of medical coverage. In combination with the massive Medicaid cuts in Trump’s Big Beautiful Billionaire Bill approved by Idaho’s Congressional delegation last year, it would devastate Idaho’s rural hospitals and threaten access to healthcare for everyone.
The Idaho Freedom Foundation (IFF), which controls the voting of many MAGA legislators, has called for the elimination of Medicaid expansion and cutting K-12 school funding by $166.5 million. The group has no use whatsoever for public education and has done all within its power to sabotage our public schools and dedicated teachers.
Representative Ted Hill of Eagle, who received a 70% rating from IFF last year, typifies the dismissive attitude of MAGA warriors toward public schools. Hill said some school districts, including Boise, ignore laws that the Legislature passes. He is willing to “go to war with the school boards.” He continued, “School boards are the problem. They get in there and they act like little emperors in their little empire and they do whatever they think they can.” Hill appears to believe that being elected to the Legislature makes one all-knowing. Actually, the government closest to the people governs best.
Hill asserts that some public schools are “propaganda indoctrination centers” because they have displayed classroom signs saying everyone is welcome. It was his bill last year that banned such signs. MAGA legislators pass numerous bills placing requirements or limitations on what public school teachers and administrators must or must not say or do. However, the tax subsidy voucher bill does not “permit any government agency to exercise control or supervision over any nonpublic school.”
Hill, like many other legislators, has a child in private school. Legislators are required to publicly disclose a “potential conflict of interest” before voting on a piece of legislation. Intending to take personal advantage of a tax credit that subsidizes the education of a legislator’s children is certainly a conflict. House and Senate rules require disclosed conflicts to be recorded in their respective journals. Neither Hill nor any other legislator is recorded in a journal index as having disclosed a conflict of interest on HB 93.
It would be wise for voters to ask their legislators if they cashed in on the voucher subsidy before this year’s elections.
