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idaho legislature

It says something about the state of Idaho’s economy that Steve Ahrens, former director of the Idaho Association for Commerce and Industry business lobbying group, is advocating for new taxes.

Legislators and Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter should look into imposing an Internet sales tax—not surprising, as the lack of such sales taxes hurts local businesses as well as depriving the state of tax revenue—as well as removing exemptions to the sales tax, including taxing services, said Ahrens. He was appearing for the first time as a member of the annual City Club Legislative Pundits forum (which, again, inexplicably excluded New West) by virtue of his column in the Idaho Business Review. “We need a tax that fairly applies to the service sector that will take such a prominent place in the new economy,” he said.

report: idaho legislature

After they picked out their seats using a sort of musical-chairs-by-seniority, in the fine meeting room gloriously restored to when it was the Idaho Supreme Court, and after everyone figured out who the pages were and where to plug in their laptops, members of the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee (JFAC) worked to put the sea of numbers, projections, shortfalls, and recissions into more concrete terms.

“We would be in the hole by $480 million without using the reserves,” said JFAC co-chair Senator Dean Cameron (R-Rupert). “Once you use those reserves, even if you used every drop, we’re still in the hole $220 million.” As a rule of thumb, every 1 percent of the budget is around $23 or $24 million, so the budget would still need to be reduced by 8 to 10 percent even if all the reserves were used, he said.

Report: Idaho Gov. Otter's State of the State speech

Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter proposed a budget for fiscal year 2011 with a reduction of more than 10 percent from the general fund, including the elimination of the Department of Parks and Recreation, as well as a phaseout over four years of the Human Rights Commission, the State Independent Living Council, the Developmental Disabilities Council, the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Commission, the Hispanic Commission, and Idaho Public Television.

“These changes are meant to be permanent – based on a philosophy of government that recognizes our responsibility to individual Idahoans rather than to government itself,” Otter said about the budget, which also eliminates 430 state jobs, 375 of which he said are already vacant.

idaho legislature

Experts who spoke to the Idaho Legislature’s Economic Outlook and Revenue Assessment Committee (EORAC) this week said, cautiously, that maybe, possibly, the worst of the recession might be over.

The committee has one of the hardest jobs in the Legislature: trying to figure out what state revenue will be as as 16 months in the future. 

Opinion: Idaho Legislature

With this year’s legislative session shaping up to be the worst bloodbath in years, it’s interesting that so many people seem to be looking forward to it. It’s like the way we can’t resist looking at an accident on the highway. Now that Christmas and New Year’s are over—and even before the Fiesta Bowl—people are already running articles and making Facebook posts talking about how much they’re anticipating the session.

Perhaps it’s the move back to the newly renovated Statehouse that’s causing the added excitement. It’s not just turning to look at an accident—it’s like seeing an accident with a Rolls-Royce.

It’s no news that Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter and the legislators are getting out their knives.

The thing is, it doesn’t have to be that way. But it will.

computer industry

Amidst the news that Micron Technologies Inc. has made a $204 million profit this quarter—the biggest one in eight years, according to Idaho governor and Micron champion C.L. “Butch” Otter—Hewlett-Packard Co. is insisting prospects are improved for its printer division as well.

Moreover, the company—which is not known for its marketing acumen; as the old joke goes, if HP were selling sushi, they’d market it as “cold, dead fish”—seems to be showing increased savvy in developing and leveraging new markets.

Opinion|Politics

I haven’t written much about Republican operative Wayne Hoffman’s road-to-Damascus conversion to nonpartisan gadfly with his Idaho Freedom Foundation columns. Actually, I thought he often had an interesting kernel of an idea in them, even if I didn’t always agree with how he got there or what he proposed to do about it.

Last week, however, was different.

idaho education network

Syringa Networks, which almost a year ago was awarded a portion of the contract for developing the statewide broadband Idaho Education Network, has filed suit against the state of Idaho and Director of Administration Mike Gwartney, among others, claiming not only that its superior bid was rejected but that it is being shut out even of the portion of the contract it was awarded—including other contracts it had separately with other parts of Idaho state government.

public transit

Public transit, such as Boise’s proposed streetcar, is bad for the economy and bad for the environment. Just ask Randal O’Toole, who works on urban growth, public land, and transportation issues at the Cato Institute, and who spoke in Boise today about public transit, particularly in Portland.

By the way, O’Toole also believes that urban planners caused the recession, that they’re using social engineering to try to turn the U.S. Communist, and that all roads should be privately owned.

internet technology

In addition to funding broadband projects in the states, particularly in rural areas, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the stimulus package, includes funds for collection of state-level broadband data, as well as state-wide broadband mapping and planning.

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