Recently, Idaho Gov. Brad Little told agency chiefs to prepare for holdbacks in Fiscal Year 2026 if revenue doesn’t meet expectations.
Democrats, never letting a crisis go to waste, jumped on the announcement and urged the governor and the GOP-led Legislature to defund the state’s newly minted $50 million education choice program.
It’s an incredibly dishonest ploy for two reasons.
First, the state has plenty of money, as Idaho Freedom Foundation’s Fred Birnbaum explains in this article.
Here’s his – pun intended – money line:
In fact, the ending balance in the General Fund is now expected to be “only” $278 million, which is $141 million less than the $420 million projected at the end of the legislative session. To be clear, this revenue estimate “shortfall” is not a deficit at all. It is just a missed forecast for tax collections against a General Fund estimate of nearly $6 billion.
In short, lawmakers projected to have $420 million left over – money that carries forward into the next budget year. Instead, they have $278 million. Additionally, as Fred notes, actual revenue is up $145.3 million from last year at the same time.
Lawmakers aren’t fortune-tellers, and they – do – get things wrong as they set revenue forecasts.
The second point is less detailed, but just as important: government is, in part, the allocation of scarce resources provided by taxpayers. A government cannot have everything it wants, no matter how hard it tries.
That’s why the Democrats’ call to strip education choice funding is a dud. They said absolutely nothing about the $100 million in free college handouts lawmakers continue to give, only to scream about $50 million for more effective education programs.
If keeping government schools whole is the Democrats’ top concern, then it would make more sense to defund the $100 million college handout program, right?
Plus, the Idaho Constitution mandates education. It says nothing about college – and certainly nothing about redistributing wealth to pay for others’ college.
Democrats are manufacturing a crisis to stop education choice funding. They know their grip on education – largely to serve their union masters – is slipping. And they will do whatever they must to stop it from happening.
Ignore them.
One reply on “Democrats are manufacturing a crisis to kill ed choice ”
The fact that the $50 million for the ed choice came out of the general fund was the one black mark on the bill. Since any kids going that route are NOT taking up seats in public schools, it should come out of the education funding. There is plenty of waste in our Dept of Education budget that can be cut–the nearly doubling of administrative pay vs dollars for students, teachers, etc., and the biased DEI, CRT, SEL, etc. programs that could be completely cut, for starters.