From the office of Rep. Bill Sali

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. House of Representatives today approved Congressman Bill Sali’s efforts to protect firefighters who put their lives on the line for communities at risk of wildfires.

The House unanimously approved Sali’s amendment to promote firefighter safety. The amendment will improve firefighter safety by allowing the administrator of United States Fire Administration to develop and distribute information on the importance of clearing biomass from federal lands. Sali’s amendment to H.R. 4847 would facilitate the exchange of information and training between the federal agencies regarding the importance of clearing hazardous fuels from forests. The bill passed the House unanimously.

“We are fast approaching what many predict to be another deadly and costly fire season. In fact, nearly one quarter of firefighter deaths in 2006 occurred when fighting brush, grass or wildland fires. The tools provided by my amendment are vital and we must provide our federal employees all they need to keep our communities- and themselves- safe from catastrophic wildfires.

“Idaho is all too familiar with wildfire. In 2007, nearly two million acres of land burned in Idaho due to forest fires,” Sali told the House. “The way land managers apply the fuel reduction program will have the greatest impact on the safety of wildland firefighters in Idaho’s communities.”

Sali is actively working on other legislation to protect Idaho communities from wildfires. Sali introduced H.R 4245 last year, a bill that would speed up projects to reduce hazardous fuels and reduce risks from wildfire, insect damage, and disease. Such projects help protect communities and private lands adjoining federal forest lands by reducing the risks on those lands.

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By Congressman Bill Sali

As you sit down to beat the April 15th deadline for filing your tax returns, consider this: In 1900, most Americans only had to work until January 22nd to fully meet all of their tax obligations to the federal, state and local governments. At that time the tax burden – the percentage of your income needed to pay your taxes – was just 6 percent. Imagine how much easier your life would be today if you were done working for the government by the end of January. Imagine how much more robust our economy would be. Today most family budgets are stretched too thin and moms and dads are working overtime - or a second job - just to put food on the table. Imagine how much our quality of life would improve if government taxed us less and we had more time and money to spend on our families.

But, alas, today ““Tax Freedom Day” for most Americans doesn’t come until April 23. Think about that! The deadline to fill out your tax forms comes and goes, yet you’re still working for the government, not for yourself, your business or your family. Fully a third of your income goes to pay the taxes you owe the government. (Burdensome government regulations actually take it up to one half, but that’s another discussion).

Government has demonstrated an insatiable appetite and propensity to grow. Almost every week in Congress, I am asked to vote to create new programs and expand existing ones. I normally vote “no”.

Just to pay for existing programs is obligating us, our children and grandchildren into oblivion. Americans just can’t afford any more. And besides, Congress is not being careful enough with your hard-earned tax dollars. There has been a lack of will to stop the abuse of earmarks.

The majority in Congress appears to think that no matter how hard you are working today, you need to work harder. The Democrat budget blueprint for this year is a clear plan to raise taxes on just about everything and everyone imaginable. In fact, for almost every problem, the Democrats’ answer is a tax increase. And, it’s not just a few small increases.

The Democrats’ plan - passed just last month - would raise taxes by $683 billion in the next five years. That’s the biggest tax increase in American history. It includes higher taxes on married couples and small businesses. Their plan also includes no permanent fix for the Alternative Minimum Tax that threatens unsuspecting middle income Americans to the tune of $70 billion in new taxes.

And on the horizon are even more tax increases if Congress fails to act. Higher income tax rates and higher capital gains taxes will hit virtually everyone. Higher dividend taxes will hit every investor. The death tax will be back, as will the marriage tax penalty. The tax credit for every child will be cut in half. All of these tax increases will have a very negative impact on our economy and on our families and businesses.

Congress must recognize that Americans are taxed too much. Rather than focus the attention on creating new government programs and dreaming up new ways to spend your money, Congress should set about eliminating programs and stop doing things that the federal government was never intended to do - and at which it rarely does a good job. Congress must make a priority of finding ways to lower the tax burden on Americans instead of increasing it. If we don’t, Tax Freedom Day will soon be delayed until May or June, and we’ll reminisce about the “good old days” when our tax debts were paid in full by April. Let’s hope and pray that never happens.

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By Ed Cook

The two newest County Commissioners, Ghan and Whitworth, are being exposed as politicians first and public servants last. By voting themselves and their friends raises and increasing their budget by ten million dollars they are heaping huge burdens on our (the taxpayers’) backs during a recession. In so doing they have obviously placed their political and personal needs and wants above every citizen in Bannock County. How much longer will AMI remain in Pocatello? Do the Commissioners not know of the long perceived layoffs at AMI? Is there any fore-thought about our economic realities and the challenges we face as our elected leaders pile more burdens on citizens during a deepening recession?

Did we not just lose Ballard, which added to the losses of Astaris and numerous other companies? These politicians, who are so willing to spend, are not experienced businessmen and are unwilling to give the economic engine a chance to start pulling its own weight. Their focus is money and they believe that only more money will solve the problems. There are no boundaries to what politicians first are willing to heap on us and grind our hopes. As long as they and their friends prosper the community is fine.

Do they really need $60,000 a year instead of $55,000? Isn’t the average household income in this area still below $25,000? Many individuals are working 3 jobs in retail stores just to survive while sacrificing quality time with their own children. When our leaders know the situation, how do they justify telling us, “We cannot live on $55,000 a year and must have an 8% raise even if others struggle?

Was the recent state property tax relief a license for local leaders to neutralize a major victory for property owners? In spite of touted economic improvements, our community has never recovered from major blows where higher salaried employers have been removed as industry pulls out. New companies, which are mainly retail, cannot take up that slack. Surely these two commissioners know these things but are choosing to make a grab for money while they still can.

Richard Larsen (also here) has clearly identified what the Commissioners have done and that these things are legal. Legal, or not, their entire modus operandi has never been for the best interests of this community and never will be. The course they are taking us on is going to destroy every hope of future prosperity. Have they so quickly forgotten that this community just rejected a $20 million BOND for the Holt that was going to be on our taxes for 20 years? Our glorious Commissioners have just added $10 million to their budget, and guess who is paying for it?

Election time rolls around in a couple of years and we are expected to forget all the shenanigans these two have pulled with the hospital and, in the same vein, their unwise tax liberties will fade away. People forgetting by the time the election arrives is a calculated part of their plan. Steve Hadley has consistently voted against these Hospital shenanigans and unwarranted tax increases. Perhaps people will not forget that point during the next re-election cycle.

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By Representative Tom Loertscher

It seems for some reason we usually want to leave the heavy lifting in a legislative session until the very last. We lived up to that reputation as we dealt with most of the appropriations bills in the House this week. Two of the transportation budgets were among them.

The main transportation spending plan, which is funded entirely from non general fund sources, was approved without much discussion. The other measure was the GARVEE (more debt for roads) bill that borrows an additional 134 million dollars for construction. The Best debate of the day went to Rep. Leon Smith of Twin Falls who gave the best reasons why all of this borrowing is not a good idea. His best point was that after this new amount is borrowed, we will be the most heavily leveraged state that uses the GARVEE road funding mechanism.

After getting warmed up on GARVEE about the next bill out of the chute was a resolution to authorize borrowing seventy million dollars to build a new secure mental health facility. There have been some cash reserves set aside for this project but we seem to be in the borrowing mood these days. Even more troubling is the design of the facility that will in allow mentally ill persons who have not committed a crime but have violent behaviors to be in “prison.” Still more troubling is the possibility of mixing the aforementioned individuals with those who have committed and been convicted of crimes.

The public school budgets all passed the House easily as well. The ISTARS proposal did not get passed, so the result was to put the available resources into the budget for teacher salary increases and benefit costs. Several of our school districts were concerned about the discretionary funds portions of the budget. I was told that there has been a relaxing of the restrictions on those moneys.

After all of the discussion about election consolidation that has been taking place for the entire session, the sponsors asked for the bill to be held in the State Affairs Committee. There were too many problems to iron out before the end of this session. It was obvious to the committee however, that not enough homework had been done by the sponsors with the affected parties — counties, cities, taxing districts and the Secretary of State.

The Minority party proposed a two cent sales tax on gas and diesel for Transportation. What does that mean for fuel costs? That’s six cents plus per gallon of Gas and eight cents per gallon of diesel at current prices. Their idea for registration fees was to double them in most cases. That includes farm trucks, semis and cars. This may be popular somewhere, but I’ve been unable to find out where.

“The boxes are in the hall,” (we’re all issued boxes to take our files, etc.) is the cry around the chambers which is the strongest signal that this will soon be at an end for another year. Did I mention that the Governor line item vetoed an appropriation bill? It was one of his budgets. Strange you may say, strange indeed.

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By Representative Tom Loertscher

As we are coming down what might be called the home stretch for this
session, I was visiting with a fellow House member about the number of
bills we were going through each day. He commented that he hoped we
would not get going so fast that we would make a lot of mistakes. My
response was that is why we have so much clean –up legislation the
next year.

In one way or the other we have been working on the naturopath
licensing dilemma for most of the time we have been here. First it was
the rules that were rejected and in the last few weeks it has been a
bill to change so much in the law that it totally would change the
original intent of the legislation that was enacted in 2005. It took
forty years to get the three main groups together enough to pass
legislation and now they are more fractured than ever. We thought we had
a deal worked out. In fact I was kidding one of the parties that we must
have the perfect bill because no one seems to like it. The whole thing
fell apart on Friday and the bill is back in Health and Welfare. So much
for compromise.

A lot of your money has been spent this week as the budgets continue to
go through the process. The largest one so far has been the Medicaid
portion of Health and Welfare coming in at just under one and one half
billion dollars. The bad news is that it is such a large amount and if
there is good news, at least it is not a double digit percentage
increase over last year’s budget. About one third of that is from the
State general fund and the remainder from the Feds. But it is still all
the taxpayers’ money.

Members of the Transportation Committee in the House have been working
on a plan to inject more revenue (that’s a polite way to say increase
taxes and/or fees) into the Department to cover what has been dubbed a
“shortfall” in funding for construction and maintenance this next
year. Under one of the ideas older car fees would double while newer
vehicles would go up forty percent. It is sinking in more and more that
if GARVEE (borrow to build roads) had not been started we would not find
ourselves in this magnitude of a situation. A friend at home asked me
how we could even think of these unfair increases when it is clearly the
time for some belt tightening.

The ninety three page election consolidation bill was introduced in the
State Affairs Committee this week. What the legislation seeks to do is
to have all elections except irrigation districts run by the counties on
four fixed dates each year. This is the most comprehensive election bill
ever and will have a hearing in House State Affairs this next week.
Voting would take place for all elections at the same polling places and
the sponsors argue that it would remove the confusion that has
surrounded some of the taxing district elections in the past. Four and
one half million dollars with an inflator for inflation would be made
available to the counties on an ongoing basis to pay for the process.

As I sat here writing this evening, I received a call from home telling
me of the passing of a good friend and former House member, Ray Infanger
from Salmon. I had the privilege of sitting next to him for four years
on the House floor. Great wisdom came from him every time he spoke.
Poetry from the great writers would come from his lips from memory and
with ease. His love for and ability to quote from the Constitution is
legendary. He was one of the great ones.

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By Rep. Tom Loertscher, R-Bone

A lot of the stuff we do in the legislature is not very earth shaking
but on Thursday morning it definitely was. I was in a conference call
with a couple of my colleagues talking over a speaker phone and I felt
the floor move. After finding out later about the quake in Wells, Nevada
and hearing that others had felt the movement, I decided that earth
shaking things do happen in this place.

One that seemed to shake things in another way was a marathon meeting
of the Health and Welfare Committee. The hearing on the Midwifery
licensing bill was on Wednesday and went on for about five hours. Even
after that amount of time had lapsed only about half of those desiring
to testify were able to do so.

It was an emotionally charged affair with both sides passionately
expressing their point of view. Whenever I get in a meeting like this I
am impressed with the manner in which Idahoans conduct themselves, with
conviction and civility. A chairman has a gavel for a reason however,
and on this occasion it was only necessary to use it once.

The other thing that always interests me is that at the outset of
discussions like these, members of the committee seem to come from a
particular direction. As this hearing wore on into the evening it became
apparent that members of the committee were shifting their positions
some. The hearing will be finished this coming week with more testimony
and a vote being taken. At this point I will be supporting amendments,
because there are some things that need fixing.

Outfitters and Guides came up with legislation this year to
dramatically increase fines and jail time for anyone who would take
others hunting or on river trips without a license. As if that were not
enough, anyone who used the services of someone who was not licensed
would be subject to fines and jail as well. I voted no, for several
reasons. It looked to me like the equivalent of swatting a mosquito with
a railroad tie.

This was the week of “Clearing the Board,” that being running floor
sessions AM and PM for a while to vote on the bills that have been
waiting their turn on the calendar. In addition to getting through the
bills we had the annual memorial for former House members that had
passed away during the interim. One that was honored this year was one
that I served with, Claude Judd from North Idaho. He was principled and
I gained great respect for him.

We were tangled up on a bill to designate some rivers as wild and
scenic, and it was one of those bills that failed by one vote. It also
contained a moratorium on building any more dams on those same rivers.
He was approached by a young lady during the lunch break in an effort to
get him to call for the bill to be reconsidered. He listened patiently
and when she finally gave him a chance to speak, he called her by name
and said, “Young lady you are too young to remember Idaho without
dams. I am not, and because of that I will not change my mind.”

As I mentioned, a lot of what we did here this week may not have moved
the earth much, and I am sure there are those who knew Representative
Claude Judd that would have thought he was not one to cause much of a
stir. But in his own way he was a steadying influence on the process.

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