Tell Idaho legislators to keep their hands off public education | Opinion

Public education

The future of our great state is in the hands of elected officials more interested in burning the state to the ground than protecting the best interests of their constituents. The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee leadership showed their turncoat tendencies as their eyes settled on public education. Promises of maintaining funding for the hundreds of thousands of children relying on the consistency and professionalism public education offers were wasted. Many of these children live outside the Treasure Valley and rely on the expertise of teachers in rural communities.

It seems JFAC leadership (both representing Eagle) are comfortable ignoring rural districts and have no interest in Idaho’s future. Forget innovation in Idaho’s tech or agriculture sectors; these legislators are sucking the life force out of Idaho’s economic future. However, there is a glimmer of hope, and that depends on the voice of the people. Don’t let elitist legislators forget YOU and the needs of your community. Write to your legislator today and demand they keep fully funding Idaho’s public schools. It doesn’t hurt to remind them this is an election year.

John Ahrens, Boise

Tax cuts

Over the past five years, the Idaho State Legislature’s attempt to tax-cut our way to prosperity has produced budget shortfalls, not broad-based relief. These decisions forced 3% across-the-board holdbacks in 2025 and searching for more cuts to comply with the 2025 federal Reconciliation Bill.

We are living in a split-screen moment. While the stock market reaches record highs, working Idahoans are struggling. The Idaho Public Policy Survey shows that 20% of respondents struggle to get by, and another 43% say they are just getting by. Repeated income tax cuts have failed to address affordability because they overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest households.

Instead of helping working families, leaders continue cutting essential services. Healthcare cuts—including the failure to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies and ongoing Medicaid reductions—will raise premiums, push families out of coverage, and shift costs to individuals and hospitals, increasing reliance on expensive emergency care.

Education, long a pathway to opportunity, is also at risk. Cuts to public education weaken workforce readiness and deepen long-term insecurity.

Lawmakers should stop doubling down on tax cuts and address the real drivers of Idaho’s affordability crisis: low wages and rising housing, healthcare, and childcare costs. Idahoans deserve a fair chance to prosper.

Carol Sevier, Boise

Disagreeing

Last weekend there was a demonstration in Caldwell. A couple hundred gathered in support of immigrant rights and in opposition to the ethnic cleansing tactics of ICE. We held signs, heard speakers and marched around the square. Some people passing by shouted Trump’s name or “Go ICE!” I wanted to go after those dissenters and urge them to join me in conversation, giving ourselves a chance to know each other better. One reason America is great and always has been is that we’re free to disagree and to let others disagree. But if we let our disagreements define us, the hostility of conflicting beliefs is all we have. What we need is tolerance, forbearance, and the admission that we’re all in this together, whether we agree or not, and we need to be together, disagreements and all. As someone said, united we stand. Divided we fall.

Charles Yates, Caldwell

Fascism

A popular online narrative claims the Trump regime is “panicking” or “collapsing.” That is a dangerous misread. In fact, the opposite is happening. Enforcement powers are expanding, emergency authorities are being normalized, and core legal, financial, and operational systems are being fortified with almost no Congressional scrutiny.

Public noise — lawsuits, speeches, protests — creates the illusion of instability and unrest. But democracy is not winning. It is bleeding out. People need to understand the authoritarian pattern and playbook.

When unrelated actions all move in the same direction — restricting visibility, accelerating enforcement, centralizing data, shrinking procedural safeguards, and labeling lawful Americans in Minnesota as “domestic threats” — that is not panic. That is consolidation.

Governmental actions such as deleting Epstein records that have already circulated, intervening in election infrastructure in Georgia, redefining peaceful protests as national emergencies, closing Congress just as leverage begins to form, expanding domestic operations, arresting journalists, and demanding state voter data…every move signals power being pulled inward and consolidated, not power being relinquished.

This is the “consolidation of power” phase. It is the stage whereby systems tighten, dissent narrows, and the groundwork for authoritarianism is laid.

Fascism doesn’t arrive with chaos. It arrives with order.

Peggy Fahy, Star

Fulcher

Last summer, Idahoans spoke up in defense of our public lands when politicians thought they could be sold off to their campaign donors and other special interests. To their credit, Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch, along with longtime supporter of public lands Rep. Mike Simpson, came to their defense.

A glaringly absent name was Rep. Russ Fulcher. The lone member of the Idaho congressional delegation not to come out in support of protecting public lands and Idahoans’ way of life. Fulcher stated he wants to transfer management of federal lands to the state, alleging the state can manage these lands better. Unfortunately, Fulcher failed to identify what land management issues concerned him. You would think after seven years in Congress he used his time in Congress to fix these supposed issues. He hasn’t! Fulcher is in a unique position to do something about these alleged mismanagement issues. Instead, he complains about it without offering solutions.

Idahoans from all walks of life, political parties and different outdoor user groups all support protecting our public lands, not quitting and giving them away like Fulcher. His time in Congress would be better served listening to his constituents and solving problems for the people, not special interest groups.

Greg Obray, Lewiston