Otter goes after press again
Gov. Butch Otter is again criticizing newspaper coverage, this time going after editorial writers at the Lewiston Tribune and Idaho Falls Post Register in a guest opinion co-authored with Senate President Pro-Tem Bob Geddes and House Speaker Lawerence Denney. In the opinion, the three write of March 3 editorials in the two papers, "The gist of those columns was that the Governor has only himself to blame for how difficult it is to balance the State budget since he is ignoring the great ideas of editorialists. For your readers’ sake, that demands another attempt to separate fact from fiction." Click below to read the full op-ed piece.
OPINION
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
March 5, 2010
GOVERNOR, LEGISLATIVE LEADERS
SEPARATE FACT FROM FICTION
By Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter,
Senate President Pro Tem Robert Geddes
and House Speaker Lawerence Denney
Since they often share points of view, we thought we should similarly respond together to editorials published March 3 in the Lewiston Tribune by Marty Trillhaase and in the Post Register by Marty’s refill there, Corey Taule.
The gist of those columns was that the Governor has only himself to blame for how difficult it is to balance the State budget since he is ignoring the great ideas of editorialists. For your readers’ sake, that demands another attempt to separate fact from fiction:
FICTION: We aren’t going after millions of dollars in uncollected taxes.
FACT: The Tax Commission received $1.5 million last fall to add temporary compliance staff for collection of unpaid State taxes. By the end of January, $308,000 had been used and the Tax Commission had collected $8.1 million. It should collect $12 million by the end of the budget year that ends June 30. We are working together on a longer-term plan to expand that measured, incremental “proving up” process for additional compliance to close the estimated $67 million annual “tax gap” between what’s due and what’s paid.
FICTION: We could easily balance the budget by eliminating some of the estimated $1.7 billion a year in sales tax exemptions.
FACT: While we welcome the debate, those exemptions each were adopted for good reason. Eliminating them would hurt every Idahoan. Among other things, it would mean adding more than $357 million a year to our healthcare costs; $152 million to the cost of everything produced by Idaho farms, factories, processing plants, mines and mills; $150 million to the cost of Idahoans’ motor fuels; $90 million to the cost of such services as legal counsel, accounting and even haircuts; and almost $51 million to the cost of homes and other construction projects. Even the cost of your newspaper might go up.
FICTION: We are ignoring our own State economist’s estimates and playing “lowball” with revenue projections to justify spending cuts.
FACT: Tax collections in December, January and February totaled $41 million, or 7.5 percent lower than the State economist predicted and about 10 percent lower than a year earlier. That trend aligns with the legislative revenue target. We all hope that the economy turns around. However, the recovery is showing signs of being a slow climb. It is far better to restore budgets with unexpected revenue than to cut them again because we overestimated.
FICTION: Since three-quarters of State prison inmates are nonviolent, we should consider the feasibility of releasing 1,000 of them to save money.
FACT: A significant portion of those “nonviolent” offenders are drug dealers. It is not our impression that the people of Idaho want them back on the street, peddling poison to our children and contributing to a very violent and dangerous culture in our communities.
FICTION: Only irrigators benefit from the State paying for administration of water rights claims.
FACT: Water rights have an impact on Idaho’s entire economy and every community. It is the one natural resource most at risk from misappropriation or misuse, and the one which we can’t do without. State taxpayers financed adjudication of water rights throughout eastern and southern Idaho. Now that the process is starting in northern Idaho, it would be manifestly unfair to impose a “user fee” on claimants there.
FICTION: We could free up needed General Fund revenue to help education down the road by reversing the 2006 decision to move all public school maintenance and operations costs from local property taxes to the State sales tax.
FACT: The vast majority of Idahoans supported that change, and with good reason. Now with property values down along with the economy, reversing it would shortchange schools and impose a crushing burden on local property taxpayers who already are struggling at a time that we’re trying to revive – not suffocate – Idaho’s economy. That is to say nothing of the fact that we have used $318 million from reserve and federal stimulus funding to help buffer public schools from the downturn while we were reducing spending elsewhere in the State government by $499 million. If we had taken the advice of some columnists, we would have bled our reserve accounts dry long ago and this year’s cuts would be much, much worse.
The bottom line is that we can’t spend money we don’t have. We’re confident Marty and Corey will continue their campaign for doing something – anything – other than forcing State government to live within the people’s means. That’s their prerogative. We just hope they will start using the facts.
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