By Tom Loertscher

The House Health and Welfare committee meets in the afternoons and at
this stage of every session it seems that we get started late because of
the volume of bills that we have to cover on the floor of the House. I
was commenting to a freshman House member that some of the debate in
those after lunch sessions can make the eyelids a little heavy.
“Duller than dirt,” was her response. Like it or not there are
some things that are classified around here as “housekeeping” that
just change a word or two here and there to correct mistakes we made
last year or other years for that matter. Maybe reading the bills as the
constitution requires is not such a bad idea after all.

One of those little house cleaners is an annual bill that is called the
“codifier” bill that makes corrections throughout the code for
little drafting errors, numbering mistakes and so on. One member of the
State Affairs Committee asked the person presenting the bill how these
things are discovered. The answer was a long explanation about how the
law books are gone over by the Code Commission ( yes, we have one of
those ) and during compilation they run across these errors. During that
discussion I could visualize this group of attorneys sitting around
reading the Idaho State code books. Necessary as it may be, I seriously
doubt that it reads very much like “The Hunt For Red October.”

Taxes have been on our agenda again this week with the biggest issue
being the phase out of the personal property tax on businesses. That
debate was not dull at all. After those in opposition expressed their
opinion of the unfairness of it all, Rep. Lake from Blackfoot put the
whole thing in perspective. He gave a history lesson about the personal
property that dates back a hundred years. For example, pots and pans in
every household at one time were taxed as personal property. Over the
years several types of personal property have been exempted. Another
interesting item is that if you take a picture or other personal items
from home to your office in town, under current law it becomes taxable
as personal property, and if you are not reporting it you are breaking
the law.

I was talking to some Senators about the increase in the grocery tax
credit that was passed by the House quite some time ago. They had
decided to send the bill to the amending order to make changes. The
Senators said that even though there were a number of amendments
proposed there were not enough votes in the Senate to pass any of them.
That turned out to be the case and the bill still sits over there
waiting for amendments. Rumor, from a reliable source, has it that
Governor Otter is not very pleased about the bill in the first place,
mostly because it was not his proposal, I suppose. His advise reportedly
was not to try to pretty it up too much because it was not going to make
any difference.

We have not seen any of the large appropriations bills yet, just some
of the minor ones. That will change abruptly in the days ahead and we
will begin spending your money in earnest. The word is that the revenue
figures for February are in and we are behind the forecast by an
additional seventeen million dollars. That will make a total of twenty
eight million below projection for this fiscal year. Caution is a good
word and we really should practice it and not spend every projected
dollar.

You might expect that there will not be many dull moments ahead
considering that there are some issues like Parental Consent and some
water bills to debate. “Never a dull moment,” or “Time flies when
you’re having fun,” may not be the best descriptions of what is
about to occur, but we will be very busy. Now if we could just keep from
making some of those mistakes.

And speaking of mistakes, just whose bright idea was this early move to
daylight savings time anyway? I was listening to a news program on the
way back to Boise and the past two weeks increase in the price of fuel
was linked to daylight savings time that will be causing folks to drive
more and use more fuel. What? I thought this scheme was supposed to save
energy. When I first looked at the clock this morning and realized that
it was really four AM, I decided that the day ahead probably won’t be
dull at all but it might seem very long.