There’s no sugarcoating it: Idaho is in a deep fiscal hole. Halfway through the fiscal year, we’re now $85 million below revenue projections and face a $555 million shortfall for even the barebones budget to keep agencies afloat next year. This has forced profound reductions to basic services, already causing real problems that are about to get much worse.
Sheriffs have warned of threats to public safety because of dangerous cutbacks to mental health services for those with severe mental illness. Nursing agencies warn of imminent closures because the state has cut payments to the point where they cannot operate. Funding for infrastructure will likely evaporate. Kids with disabilities are being left without caregiving services. Firefighting, law enforcement, and prisons are all suffering cuts from already inadequate budgets, jeopardizing our security. Every critical service is facing cutbacks, and it’ll get worse when the legislature returns in January. We hear plans to end Medicaid expansion, a crucial lifeline for nearly 100,000 Idahoans, and to terminate the LAUNCH job training program that has multiplied earnings for thousands of Idaho high school graduates. But even these painful cuts will not be enough to cover a shortfall of this magnitude.
We don’t have a spending problem — our budgets are lean to a fault, with only essential personnel on the payroll. Idaho actually had a 19 percent turnover rate among state employees last year because state salaries are so low. What we have is a revenue problem, created entirely by GOP legislators who gutted our treasury with voucher schemes and tax cuts for the wealthy, leaving us unable to fund basic needs. Last session alone, Republican politicians cut $450 million in annual revenue, despite warnings galore that we couldn’t afford it. This came on the heels of almost $4 billion in revenue cuts since 2020. We now cannot spare one more dime of lost revenue if we want to keep the lights on, and if anything, we need to recoup some income to get out of this predicament.
The First Law of Holes is: when you’re in one, stop digging. The politicians who created this mess probably won’t admit their mistakes and reverse course, but at least they could stop actively making it worse. Yet all indications are that the GOP supermajority plans to keep digging the hole deeper at full tilt. Republican lawmakers are pushing to conform Idaho’s tax code to Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which would strip an additional $300 million from our annual revenue, with some estimates closer to $500 million. On top of the existing $555 million budget shortfall, this would put us around $1 billion in the hole, ending any hope of adequately funding education, public safety, infrastructure, and healthcare needs. Plus, there are other proposals floating to cut Idaho’s income tax further and to put more public dollars toward private school subsidies.
Most Idahoans consider themselves fiscally conservative and think they’re getting conservative governance from our supermajority GOP legislature. Think again. “Conservative” is defined as “careful, cautious, inclined to preserve traditional structures and institutions” — it does not mean reckless revenue cuts that empty our coffers and leave us unable to fund basic, necessary services. Please reach out to your elected leaders and ask them to be truly conservative by preserving what little state revenue we have left in the 2026 session — to safeguard vital state functions rather than doubling down on policies that will financially destabilize Idaho for years to come. We Democrats will be pressing for genuine fiscal responsibility, but we need help from our colleagues across the aisle to get out of this budget hole.
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And Wendy Horman, one of the architects of this mess, is bailing out of the state. The rats are starting to leave the sinking ship. https://www.idahostatejournal.com/news/local/state-rep-wendy-horman-co-chair-of-budget-committee-to-resign-from-idaho-legislature/article_63381f41-396e-4dac-ba3b-80abdb736c7a.html
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