Of all of the strange moments this Idaho legislative session, Friday might have provided the oddest.
Here were Gov. Butch Otter and state Sen. Dean Cameron — a couple of fiscal conservatives — finding comfort in lower-than-expected tax collections. And here was Otter using the news to step up his fight for a tax increase to fix roads.
Legislative sessions always get a little strange by late March and April. And they get downright weird in May.
The skinny: Otter and key legislators got a early glimpse of the tax numbers for April. The numbers are so preliminary that state officials haven't yet released them.
While the numbers are below the projections set by state economic analyst Mike Ferguson, they suggest the state dodged a bullet in April. One case in point are income tax withholdings — a real-time indicator of the labor market. Cameron was expecting April withholdings to fall $50 million below Ferguson's forecasts. The preliminary numbers suggest withholdings will fall $10 million shy.
Sales tax numbers also fell below projections, Otter said, but not as sharply as feared. Like withholdings, sales taxes offer a read on the current condition of the economy.
On one side of the debate are politicos such as Otter and Cameron who see the April numbers as a sign that the recession is slowing. Which is why Otter still wants the House to sign off on a gas tax increase, a phase-in that would begin in July 2011. I think that makes sense, and the Statesman editorial board has supported the phased-in gas tax increase. (Click here for our Sunday editorial.)
On the other side of the debate are folks such as House GOP leaders, who point out that worse-than-expected tax collections aren't good news — and are a sign of an economy that hasn't yet bottomed out.
The problem, of course, is that there is merit in both arguments. Otter is betting on economic recovery — and by delaying the gas tax increase by 26 months, he's giving the economy a lot of cushion. His opponents will believe economic recovery when they see it. In a debate with some bitter, personal overtones, this is an honest disagreement on issues.
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Starving government
Kevin, there may be merit in both arguments, but there's another possibility here: Hard-core anti-government Republicans in the House won't ever acknowledge the economy is turning around (or at least not getting worse) because continued economic distress justifies their ideological drive to shrink government as small as possible. We've certainly seen that this session in the House GOP's drive to cut school funding and state workers' jobs, despite the availability of rainy-day funds and federal recovery dollars.
Meanwhile, these same folks are often the ones accepting federal subsidies for their farms and ranches, or tax breaks for their "nonpartisan" lobbying efforts.
Cognitive dissonance is their daily mindset.
This is a soap opera, not a disaster and Obamadrama giggles.
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Beethoven was deaf when he wrote his Ninth Symphony. Rush Limbaugh is profoundly hard of hearing.
Millions of people like Beethoven.
No, this is a disaster, it will affect the lives of hundreds of
thousands, and it's just getting started. Visualize this Idaho mess, circa 2015, same basic conflict(s): rural vs urban, religious vs secular, tech-savvy vs atavistic....but long before then the money will have run out.
If you're under 35, educated-talented-ambitious....get out of Idaho, now.
And I thought I was overly dramatic.
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Beethoven was deaf when he wrote his Ninth Symphony. Rush Limbaugh is profoundly hard of hearing.
Millions of people like Beethoven.
We're not hearing the truth about roads!
Otter is all about Otter & contributors, doesn't care about people! Anybody foolish enough to believe Otter cares about people, needs to look at www.nextrevolution.net Otter didn't care if the sixth largest dairy in the country delivered rotten milk to the same people he claims he's so concerned about traveling over Idaho roads. How much does agri corruption contribute & get in return? Otter wasn't about to step on the toes of a giant, a contributor like agri corruption.
Campaign finance is no different than the mussel Idaho legislature is trying to keep out of Idaho waters. Too late for US, or the taxpayer, campaign finance has been infesting & investing in our water, air, & every other aspect of life through our representation for over a half century. The bailout $ AIG, banks, & every other business received after they made trillions, same trillions we're in debt, are proof enough of that. Campaign finance is giving $ to both horses in a two horse race, republicans, & demcorats, & can't lose.
Look at all the attention Obama gets from loobyists every time he tries to get offshore taxes or campaign finance under control. Our representatives hold up any legislation for ever while we the people lose & contributors makeout liek a bandit! They get elected through campaign finance, lobbyists out number politicians 22 to 1 in DC, & the same represnettaives who accept contributions hand out tax cuts & billions, trillions to the same contributors, invest in them, & they hand our tax $ back & forth while making millions on it. They have a bank set up just handing our $ around. They are like a meth dealer using his own product, greed, it's has gotten out of control, & it's killing US!
If Otter & the Senate want $ for roads, it's easy, wean argi corruption from the teat of our tax $. That $300 biillion farm bill is a perpetual stimulus but nobody complains about that $. I would think all the contributors or the money they handed over to representatives in return for the farm bill would be a good place to come up with $270 million without raising our taxes. Without roads to move their product, how will they get it to market? What is $270 million out of billions? Consumers drive 70% of the economy, taxing US more, again isn't going to get the economy going.
Raisng the tax on over the road trucks isn't going to fix the problem either, it's a scam to get the $, freight rates will go up, food prices will go up, & the same taxpayer who thought they dodged a gas tax will pay at the store. Food prices went up with fuel, didn't come down with fuel, & now that fuel is going up again? Where's all that $, profit no doubt? Breaking independent motor carriers isn't going to help, just like every other business, & job in America, corporate trucking like corporate farming will promote slave labor through campaign finance.
That's why we have illegal immigration which has busted our health care while holding down wages! How many other problems do we have along with illegal immigration? Drug cartels in Mexico with network throughtout the US, & swine flu just a couple. The first four pictures on Nextrev are of what I assumed were illegal immigats, they couldn't speak a word of English!
Every problem we have in America is the direct result of our mis-representation in the pocket & bed with campaign contributors! We have trillions to prove it & if that isn't the best argument to get the $ from contributrs, I don't know what is.
The roads Otter is all about don't have anything to do with the safety of the people, roads are in the best interest of Otter himself & the contributor Otter is looking out for.
Let me sum para 6 for readers: Blame it on the brown people...
umm-k...
Indians, Pakistanis, Mexicans or really tan Polynesians?
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Beethoven was deaf when he wrote his Ninth Symphony. Rush Limbaugh is profoundly hard of hearing.
Millions of people like Beethoven.
No, mis-representation having promoted illegal
immigration in return for campaign $! A poet that thinks reading too much or can't comprehend, reads racism into an attack on mis-representation, needs to get a new name. I would think a poet would enjoy reading & understand what they read.
I don't blame anybody for trying to make better life for themself, except millionaire politicans who take advantage fo the working class they claim to represent while accepting pay, retirement, health care they cheat US out or everyday. I don't care what color people are, & I would do the same if in their position. I admit I grew up in an all white small town, middle of America in the sixties & seventies with four older brothers, never even met a colored person until I was a teenager, somethings are picked up & stick with you for life. I might call a poet a name I picked up when I was young, no different than I would a brown person. Is it racism? I've been called a few names myself by brown & black people who didn't even know me. We're they racist?
My sister in-law is a brown person & three nephews are brown people. I get along great with all kinds of people of many different colors & nationalities, who themselves admit to being more racist then I am. I was a night shift supervisor in a factory & worked with Russians, Vietnamses, Mexicans, & the only people I had problems with were Americans & now poets. Illegal immigration to me isn't about color so much as the politics & campaign finance that promotes while taking advantage of illegal immigrants & US, have for years. If not mistaken we drove the brown people out of America about the same time we stole America from the native Americans one of which I used to date.
If you've ever really understood anything I've written on this blog, I think you would realize I'm always kicking campaign finance, contributors, & mis-representatives. I may point out the damage done through illegal immigration but it would be hard to not realize, unless you were totally unware of what has happened in the last half century. Like banking, I have bank records from two NE banks & know more about the financial crisis than I care too, nobody wants to listen or know the truth. Our representatives have been in the pocket & bed with crooked banking for a half century.
If you want to bash somebody for readers, make them out to be racist, man up, just come out, & say what you mean. If you hate me so much, just say so, you don't have to try to turn everybody else against me because you are afraid to call me racist.
umm-k....
So far I haven't seen any of these problems in Pay/Ada/Can...
I'd love to know what counties Greyghost and WildBill or any of our Road Warriors live in.
95 has had a LOT of work in the last ten years and Interstate 84 has been worked on from way into Oregon to the Nevada line, ALL OF WHICH I HAVE DRIVEN. Highway 95 is in better shape than the backroad to Walla Walla from Pendleton.
What is your real complaint if you actually live HERE?
Having lived here, having been born in Nampa, having driven a lot of Idaho, Oregon AND Washington State roads and having driven through a lot of construction projects...all the way to Aberdeen, Washington for that matter...
Where's the beef? Have you driven here since the nineties?
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Beethoven was deaf when he wrote his Ninth Symphony. Rush Limbaugh is profoundly hard of hearing.
Millions of people like Beethoven.
Wow FO, you can actually make sense when you...
...want to. So all your other ding-bat posts are really (gasp!)... just about getting attention.
As Larry Craig would say, "FO, you've been a naughty, naughty boy".
40 percent of my posts lately have dealt with some 'Net spanking
There's no way this website can function if people go below MY standards!
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Beethoven was deaf when he wrote his Ninth Symphony. Rush Limbaugh is profoundly hard of hearing.
Millions of people like Beethoven.
I am totally serious.
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Beethoven was deaf when he wrote his Ninth Symphony. Rush Limbaugh is profoundly hard of hearing.
Millions of people like Beethoven.
I live in Boise, drove truck, all over, ID, OR, WY, CO, WA,
MT, CA, NV, NE, UT, KS, & do I need to go on? Doing a lot of work to the same roads & never doing the right work, building the roads needed, building infrastructure, electrical, or the work when the money was there, is the reason we're faced with Otter demanding a tax increase when we can't afford it. I don't know that we need road repair now any more than we have for years, we've been trillions behind for years while contributors get tax cuts & billions of $?
Every government agency is failing, every US policy, & roads are the big issue? Otter doesn't care about food safety, why roads? The Post offcie is all screwed up, it took a week for a letter to get to me here, from Salt Lake City. How many people are paying late fees do to a postal service billin sin the red? Name one goevrnment agency that is running within a budget & getting the job done. Otter's flunky told me the USA & FDA do inspections when I reported food safety issues. All we read about is food pisoning, E. Coli, crap from China, dry wall tp dog food. Otter is worried about roads? I don't think so.
Besides, it doesn't matter where you live, every city, county, every, & the country are all being scammed by our mis-representatives! How much $ is California or New York getting compared to Idaho? Your tax $?
I just posted the American Society of Civil Engineers report card the other day, $1.6 trillion for the last ten years? Why now is Otter all the sudden so wound up about roads yet doesn't care about $ wasted by contributors? There is something more going on with Otter & roads. He stands to make $ somewhere in the mix, kickbacks or something.
Farm bill is $300 billion, perpetual stimulus & nobody says a word? How many years is this going to go on & no money fro roads to get their product tomarket? Get $270 million from the farm bill. Get on www,ewg.org & see who gets the money. Corporate farmers who have all the best, live in a big house, nice cars every year, new pickup, & new equipment to farm 2,000 or 3,000 acres while the family famer who doesn't get your tax $, goes broke on a half section?
The problem isn't the roads at all, the roads are bad because our representatives let infrastructure get years & trillions behind while accepting campaign contributions, handing out billions of our tax $, investing millions, making millions, handing our tax $ back & forth like floating notes or kiting checks. In return for campaign fiannce they have been promoting illegal immigration & all the problems that comes with it, busted our hrealth care, war, free trade that is anything but free, a list perpetual. They gave the money away in return for personal gain! Otter didn't turn down $4,500 a month to live in his own house, turns it down now, & expects everybody to believe he's doing his part? He tried to cut it by $500 first & hasn't offered to pay the rest back so I have to believe I would be a fool to pay more gas taxes when he's banked thousands.
The problem is we are a country claiming to be a government of, for, by the people, & we are anything but. Terrorist know the damage being done through campaign finance & are killing US with it along with their allies, our representatives in DC. If the American people would recognize we're being taken in the greatest scam the world has ever seen, representation, while led to believe it's roads, insurance, prisons, & all the rest costing US so much, neglected by the very government we claim is US, & do something about it, we would have roads in place!
bin Laden knows we're being taken, is using this two party joke controlled through campaign finance to kill US, & the fact we have a problem with roads, taxes, health care, illegal immigrants, prisons, banks, AIG, stimulus, or anything else. We are trying to leave Iraq, it'll be a mess for ever, going back to Afghanistan, won't change anything there, & terrorist are already in Pakistan knowing all they have to do is keep US spending $ till we break. Our representatives will walk away in great shape & leave US with, bad roads & taxes?
My real complaint is that like the rest of America, I'm being taken in the greatest scam the world has ever seen by the crooks who claim to represent me! I'm paying corporate un-America & agri corruption's taxes & everything else while the country is going under! Madoff is an honest man compared to Otter &the rest of the crooks we call representatives!
It's hopeless! It's hopeless!
Time to get in the truck and keep driving until you find hope.
Sometimes you really can't see the forest from the trees.
Lot lizards might offer some hope and faith yet they need the
"CHARITY"
We'll leave the cab light on for ya...
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Beethoven was deaf when he wrote his Ninth Symphony. Rush Limbaugh is profoundly hard of hearing.
Millions of people like Beethoven.
Gee, Ghost: all you have to say is we elect stupid folks/V versa
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Beethoven was deaf when he wrote his Ninth Symphony. Rush Limbaugh is profoundly hard of hearing.
Millions of people like Beethoven.
I would say that but it's only half true.
Representatives are very smart, we aren't.
They are all like Madoff, pulling off a scam We the People don't want to believe or admit is happening while being taken for trillions because our system suggest we're a great & wonderful nation.
Sorry, truth bites. You're right, millions are deaf & limpbaugh has the ear of those who hear only wonderful lies.
How do representatives get to be so smart?
Many, if not most of them are just "dumb hicks like us" who got fed up with whatever.
Within a term or two they are automatically "the enemy".
You elected them. Did you not get all you deserved?
The biggest problem with politics is that PEOPLE are involved.
Well, even that sweeps the problem under the convenience store welcome mat.
Another whatever day for me...surprised?
----------
Beethoven was deaf when he wrote his Ninth Symphony. Rush Limbaugh is profoundly hard of hearing.
Millions of people like Beethoven.