Are Idaho’s senators fiscally conservative? Budget bill will tell | Opinion

At the top of the homepage for U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, a U.S. National Debt meter spins and spins, racking up $1 million of new debt just about every 27 seconds.

It’s rapidly approaching $36 trillion.

Crapo and fellow Republican Sen. Jim Risch have long been critics of the federal budget deficit (although usually more vocally during Democratic presidential terms but silent when their guy is in the White House).

Crapo was part of the “Gang of Six” bipartisan deficit reduction committee in 2011, when the national debt was a quaint $14 trillion.

It would be hard to imagine, then, that they would support President Donald Trump’s so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill,” the reconciliation budget bill that sets federal spending and taxes.

The bill reduces spending by $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years compared with the current baseline spending, but because of new spending added on and tax cuts, the bill is projected to add $3.1 trillion to the national debt, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis of the bill.

U.S. Reps Mike Simpson and Russ Fulcher, both R-Idaho, voted for it.

The bill barely passed the U.S. House of Representatives, 215-214-1, mostly along party lines, so Simpson and Fulcher’s votes were vital to ensure passage.

The bill now heads to the Senate, where Crapo and Risch will have to make a difficult political calculation: Kowtow to Trump and pass his bill or risk his wrath by doing the right thing for Idahoans and voting against it.

The bill essentially takes from the poor and gives to the rich — and it does it while still adding trillions to the national debt.

The bill extends the 2017 GOP tax cuts, which disproportionately benefited the wealthiest and ran up the federal budget deficit. Those cuts failed to deliver the promised supercharged economic growth that was needed to make up for the hole they blasted in the federal budget, which only worsened the national debt.

The bill does make some efforts at increasing revenue, but at the expense of green energy tax credits by reducing incentives for things like buying an electric vehicle or making your home more energy efficient. Foolish and short-sighted.

To make matters worse, everyday working Idahoans are going to bear the brunt of the cuts, which include cuts to Medicaid and food assistance.

An estimated 44,000 Idaho residents will lose health insurance coverage because of cuts to Medicaid, and 33,000 Idahoans will be at risk of losing some or all Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, according to the Center for American Progress.

An estimated 1,371 jobs in Idaho will be at risk of elimination because of the proposed cuts to clean energy incentives.

Meanwhile, millionaires and billionaires make out like bandits.

The top 5% of taxpayers would see about $1.5 trillion in tax breaks, according to an analysis by the Center for American Progress.

It’s Robin Hood in reverse.

We join others in urging Congress to get its financial house in order. Congress (where, by the way, Crapo, Risch and Simpson have worked for decades) has run up trillion-dollar deficits every year for years, and our national debt, approaching $36 trillion, is unsustainable and poses a national security threat.

But making cuts on the backs of the poor and working class, while extending tax benefits to the wealthy, adding new spending and adding to the national debt is not going to cut it.

Shame on Fulcher and Simpson for going along with this ridiculous scheme.

It’s up to the Senate to make this right.

If Crapo and Risch want to lay any sort of claim to being truly fiscally conservative, they’ll recognize this bill for what it really should be called: “The Big Ugly Budget-Busting Bill.”

Voters should keep their lawmakers’ votes in mind next year, when Risch, Simpson and Fulcher all come up for reelection.

This story was originally published June 4, 2025 at 4:00 AM.