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| published Wednesday, April 02, 2008 |
2015 Views
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Last
Monday, it looked like the legislature might complete its work by
Friday if the majority leaders in both the House and Senate put petty
differences aside, worked across party lines and worked with governor
to resolve the final issues. But that was too much to ask. Senate and
House majority leaders had a lot more turf battles to fight.
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| published Sunday, March 23, 2008 |
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The Senate hightailed it out
of town on Thursday. Ostensibly, they were frustrated with the House
for holding up legislation they wanted. Some said they did not want to
be in town when the final list of who is challenging them for election
came out on Friday.
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| published Monday, March 17, 2008 |
2058 Views
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Rapid growth has consequences: congestion, pollution and – as we saw tragically again this week – traffic deaths. In the Treasure Valley, community organizations, local governments and many civic leaders have worked long and hard to come up with solutions. In the 1970s, when resort communities asked for the option to invest in community assets using sources other than property taxes, the legislature granted them local option taxing authority.
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| published Sunday, March 09, 2008 |
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Last week, Republican legislators cut short a public hearing on the public's business and boarded a private plane owned by a wealthy corporate executive to attend a fundraiser on the other side of the state. He made sure they made it back to Boise in time to vote for the bill he was lobbying for. When a reporter pressed legislators to explain what they were thinking, they all gave different answers.
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| published Saturday, March 01, 2008 |
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On Thursday, if you
walked by the House Revenue & Taxation Committee you would have
seen a pack of legislators fawning over their latest corporate friend:
a French corporation called Areva, Inc. A majority of lawmakers on the
committee said a giddy “Oui! Oui!” to two bills that give away a big
chunk of Idaho’s tax base to entice the company to build a facility in
Idaho.
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| published Monday, February 18, 2008 |
2578 Views
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This week, before legislators could start setting Idaho’s budget, they
had to decide whether and how to adjust state employees’ compensation.
Even in years of economic expansion, the legislature has told the
thousands of people who work for us that Idaho does not have enough
resources to invest in them on par with their peers in the private
sector. “Someday, there’ll be roses,” they kept promising.
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| published Monday, February 18, 2008 |
2629 Views
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Two
huge events overshadowed virtually every political story in Idaho this
past week: the massive public response to Sen. Barack Obama’s visit to
Boise on Saturday morning (over 14,000 people were in the arena and
over a thousand listened outside) and the unprecedented turn out for
the Democratic caucuses on Tuesday evening (over 21,000 people,
breaking the record by more than four times). The fact that Idaho was
hit by three more snow storms during that time did not dampen the sense
that Idaho political history was being made. Yes, the legislature still
met this week but according to several Democratic legislators their
Republican colleagues were a bit jealous they couldn’t participate in
the fun.
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| published Sunday, February 03, 2008 |
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Historically, many legislators were
family farmers and they stayed in Boise throughout the session. Lots of
snow simply reminded them that they should be in no hurry to adjourn
and go home to plant their crops. Big conglomerates now own much of
Idaho’s farmland and most legislators have other vocations. Today, a
majority of legislators who live in north and eastern Idaho travel home
each weekend. More than a dozen of them may have questioned the wisdom
of that last week as they struggled with snow storms to get back to
Boise. Yes, it is a record snow year and on Wednesday the Boise school
district cancelled classes for the first time since 1991. Early
predictions of a short session now seem naively optimistic.
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| published Wednesday, August 15, 2007 |
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With the total cost of the Iraq war and occupation now approaching half a trillion dollars ($456 billion and counting), Idaho taxpayers’ share of that cost is now more than $1.2 billion and rising. This report reveals what the $1.2 billion in our state could provide for families and communities if that money were invested instead in priorities in Idaho that have long been neglected.
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| published Tuesday, July 31, 2007 |
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Paul Krugman's column in the New York Times on July 30, 2007 notes that "When a child is enrolled in the State Children's Health Insurance Program (Schip), the positive results can be dramatic. But President Bush has declared that he'll veto any Schip expansion on "philosophical" grounds.
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