WestViews: Opinions from newspapers in Idaho and the West commenting on Western issues | Opinion | Idaho Statesman
LAWMAKERS VALUE HIGHER EDUCATION, FOR THEMSELVES
Lewiston Tribune
Idaho’s Legislature whacks away at funding for higher education because the people serving in it are a bunch of hicks.
So goes the image.
The truth is anything but.
Which makes the latest round of cuts in higher education — not to mention what’s likely to come down the road — all the more disconcerting.
The stereotype of Idaho lawmakers is tied to the natural resource economy of the past. Farmers, loggers and miners didn’t get college degrees. They had time in the winter to commute to Boise for a little politicking.
There’s also the fact that as a group, Idaho’s collection of legislators is the second oldest in the nation. It doesn’t mirror the current work force — and even if it did, you wouldn’t expect Idaho’s legislators to be all that well educated. One in four Idaho workers has a four-year degree. The state has a tough time funneling its high school graduates into college and keeping them there.
Here’s the surprise: The Legislature has more schooling than the people it serves. A lot more.
Relying on official biographies as well as information provided to Project Vote Smart, it turns out at least three-quarters of Idaho’s 35 state senators have a four-year degree or better. Of the 70 House members, at least two-thirds have a four-year degree or more — and Project Vote Smart lacks biographical information about a half dozen members of the freshman class.
So how can people who have witnessed how higher education has enriched their own lives be so willing to decimate this institution?
Nowhere else in Idaho’s budget has the Great Recession inflicted more pain. Since 2008, lawmakers have cut nearly $50 million — almost 20 percent — from state support for the four-year schools of higher learning.
They have their reasons.
Lawmakers know the institutions can backfill with private and government grants — as well as the students’ checkbooks. To make up the difference, students have picked up double-digit tuition and fee increases.
Don’t discount public opinion. Cut the public school budgets — as lawmakers did this year — and parents will growl about it. Slash higher education? They won’t hear so much. Earlier this year, Idaho newspapers conducted a poll on the question and found that 42 percent thought higher ed spending was “about right.” Another 14 percent thought the state was spending too much. No surprise there. This general population has comparatively fewer college graduates.
But you’d expect people in the Legislature to know better.
SHAME ON CRITICS OF IDAHO’S BUDGET
Idaho Press-Tribune, Nampa
This year’s campaigns — locally and statewide — drew cries of protest from Democratic candidates about budget cuts Gov. Butch Otter and the GOP-controlled Legislature made in the past session.
The biggest issue: public schools.
Candidates challenging incumbents made arguments that the governor and lawmakers cut too deeply when they didn’t have to — and that they could have spared public schools if they had not acted so conservatively.
Then, just a couple of weeks after the election, Democratic Sen. Nicole LeFavour of Boise offered these dire words:
“It’s going to be awful,” LeFavour said after a Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee interim meeting Tuesday in Boise. “People’s lives are on the line in a year like this. Literally.”
The fact is that even with cuts made to the state’s budget last year, Idaho faces a possible shortfall of $340 million for next year.
So to those who criticized Otter and legislators who supported last year’s cuts, we have three words:
Shame, shame, shame.
Now that the election is over, the real story becomes clear: Idaho faces another budget crisis because of languishing tax revenue. Gubernatorial candidate Keith Allred argued that hiring more tax collectors would solve the problem. But in these times, it’s obvious that many who owe taxes to the state have lost jobs and simply don’t have money to pay regardless of how many calls they get from the Tax Commission. That’s not going to erase a $300 million shortfall.
Gov. Butch Otter and the legislative majority have acted responsibly all along amid a great deal of criticism to balance the budget as required by the state constitution.
Many of these cuts have affected services, caused people to lose their jobs and forced schools to do more with less. It’s an outcome of the tough times, not a governor or legislator who makes bad decisions.
And anyone who tries to mislead others into thinking it could somehow be avoided — without raising taxes — should be ashamed.