Column: Idaho Politics, U.S. Senate Race

LaRocco Got it Right – Risch’s Tax Claims Are Wrong

By Jill Kuraitis, 5-23-08

	LaRocco, Risch. Photos from candidate websites.

When the state’s biggest newspaper hollers out “Hold on a Sec, Mr. Risch” in very big type in the proverbial front-page-above-the-fold position, its editors are feeling serious indeed about the story.

Current Lt. Gov. and Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Jim Risch has finally been called out on his false claim that he “made the biggest tax cut in Idaho history when he was the temporary governor for 7 months in 2006: $200 million.” That’s a direct quote from his television ad.

Risch’s claim doesn’t square with his own 2006 press release, which said, “The net result of my proposal is a $50 million dollar tax cut that will take affect this year and every year.”

Risch is not just inconsistent, he’s wrong. A sales tax increase of $200 million funded the so-called “property tax cut.” Statesman reporter Heath Druzin explains in his front-page article. 

Risch Democratic opponent, former Congressman Larry LaRocco, told the Statesman on May 23 that Risch’s plan benefited a few big businesses but few regular Idahoans."It’s Robin Hood in reverse,” he said. “What he’s done is taken money from working families.”

LaRocco had it right when he told New West Risch’s claim is a lie.  “It was residential homeowners who needed the property tax relief – their taxes had escalated at a far higher rate than the property taxes of the largest corporations.”

“To fund the so-called cut, the 2006 special session of the legislature, led by Risch, went to a regressive tax that particularly hurt senior citizens, working families, and renters.”

LaRocco said that Democrats in the legislature had a proposal ready for the special session that would have allowed tax cuts for all property owners “except out-of-state property owners and real estate speculators would not have gotten any relief under the Democrats’ plan.”

“Risch wouldn’t even consider the proposal.”

In 2006, when LaRocco challenged Risch for the lieutenant governor’s seat, Betsy Russell of the Spokane Spokesman-Review wrote, “LaRocco opposed Risch’s tax reform plan, instead issuing his own four-point plan that called for increasing the homeowner’s exemption to $100,000, reducing sales taxes on food, using a state budget surplus to help fund school construction, and drawing on development impact fees to pay for schools. He’s been pushing for stronger statewide efforts against methamphetamine, called for raising the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $6.15, and backed voluntary state-funded preschool.”

Risch should realize that the days of aggressive spin-control are over before he approves his media consultant’s TV scripts.

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