Leaders in Washington won’t protect those who protect us | Opinion

The human cost of a shutdown

I write today as both a federal employee and the local president of AFGE TSA Local 1127, representing 47 airports across six states. After 23 years with TSA, I’ve seen shutdowns before — but this one cuts deeper.

Every day, I hear from officers choosing between gas to get to work for a job that isn’t paying them, food for their families or medicine for their children. They’re working required shifts without pay, often being asked — or even forced — to work overtime without pay.

Then they go home and take on side jobs just to afford essentials.

We already have reports of officers being evicted — living in cars. Others fear they’ll be next. Electricity, gas, water — none of it is free.

Shutdowns don’t just hurt paychecks — they crush morale, faith and families. Still, TSA Officers keep showing up, protecting travelers, even as they quietly wonder how they’ll make rent or buy groceries.

So before getting frustrated at long lines or delays, please — look an officer in the eye and say thank you. They’re still protecting you, even when the leaders of this country don’t protect them.

Rebecca Wolf, Nampa

Government in search of brains

Idaho’s got a state government with a collective IQ about the same as your average Irish Setter puppy (not yours, Dear Reader; yours is way above average). Mean, too, and not even saved by being pretty.

But then, Idaho’s not alone. We also have Texas, Florida, and the national, three-headed Trumpian mess.

Somebody needs to start selling Make America Smart Again merch to finance our way out of this dog patch. The voters need to wise-up, too.

Jim Runsvold, Caldwell

Abuses of power must end

Perhaps Sens. Jim Risch and Mike Crapo, and Reps. Mike Simpson and Russ Fulcher, along with Gov. Brad Little, will take note that locally and nationally, this week’s election showed that people are clearly not on board with a party whose leader focuses more on enriching himself than on making things better for ordinary Americans; with having masked men grab citizens off the street without warrants; with children being zip-tied; with trying to divert blame to democrats for allowing food benefits to disappear and health care costs to skyrocket while Trump and his minions go all Great Gatsby at Mar-a-lago.

The people may note, again, the stony silence or downright unapologetic complicity with which every effort to take down our democracy is received by our supposed representatives. Perhaps the aforementioned “representatives” will begin to perceive that we the people like having a Department of Education, that we support our tax dollars going to support the neediest in other countries, that we believe in policy based on facts and research and not ideology, and in a justice system that focuses on, well, justice and not personal vendettas.

Or, perhaps they won’t, and perhaps we will have to let them know in a groundswell next election cycle.

Janet Schlicht, Boise

Fifty years is enough

Sen. Jim Risch has been in public office since the 1970s — longer than many Idahoans have been alive. After half a century in government, he still claims to want “less government.” Maybe it’s time he takes his own advice.

Risch calls himself a fiscal conservative, but his record changes with the president. Under Democrats, he blasts “out-of-control spending.” Under Trump, he supports massive deficits and blames Democrats for shutdowns he helps create.

He says he supports Idaho’s public lands, yet the League of Conservation Voters gave him a 0% rating in 2024. He backed Trump’s rollback of conservation rules while Idahoans fight to preserve open access for recreation and wildlife.

And while working families face real hardship during shutdowns, Risch focuses on guaranteeing gun sales instead of food assistance or childcare. The AFL-CIO gives him a 0% score for standing with workers, and his personal wealth tops $50 million.

After 50 years in office, Risch has lost touch with the people he represents. Idaho deserves leaders who show up, listen, and fight for us — not for political convenience.

Fifty years is enough.

Abigail Taylor, Garden City

Budget cuts are irresponsible

I am very dismayed over Gov. Little and company’s proposed permanent budget cuts to essential services, especially Medicaid and services for the incarcerated. These are a failure both morally and functionally. By extracting $41.6 million from Medicaid, a lifeline for our sickest and poorest citizens, the state betrays the fundamental commitment to human dignity and the preferential option for the poor. A society’s moral leadership is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable, and these cuts inflict harm on those who can least afford it.

Despite these painful reductions, reports project the state will still have a $56.6 million budget deficit. Inflicting suffering through service reductions and pay cuts is pointless if it fails to solve the fiscal problem. This is an indictment of governance that chooses moral injury without achieving fiscal solvency. I urge our elected officials to abandon this failed approach, uphold democratic accountability to all, and find a solution that is both fiscally sound and morally just.

Arthur Galus, Boise

Hunger is not leadership

A government shutdown is not a storm; it is a choice. And this one did not come from fiscal need, but from refusal. Trump walked away rather than negotiate, leaving working families, federal workers and hungry children to carry the cost.

More than 125,000 Idahoans rely on SNAP. Those benefits are delayed while food banks stretch beyond capacity. We are told this sacrifice is “responsible budgeting.” But the numbers don’t lie. The shutdown is expected to cost the U.S. economy $7–14 billion, while Trump’s early budget months already added over $1 trillion to the deficit.

Meanwhile, construction moves ahead on his luxury White House ballroom project, estimated at hundreds of millions, even as assistance stalls. And plans to quadruple Argentine beef imports threaten American ranchers, including those in Idaho, while families here wonder how to afford groceries.

This is not governing. This is indulgence at the expense of the working class, austerity for the hungry, extravagance for the powerful.

End the shutdown. Restore benefits. And remember; power has never been measured by how loudly it refuses to compromise, but by how fiercely it protects the people who count on it.

Devon Van Kleek, Boise