Governor Otter continues to advocate trimming government spending which not only costs the jobs of state employees, but also costs services to other Idahoans who are in desperate need of those services. Families are going hungry at an alarming rate, and yet the current administration and most of our Idaho legislators still refuse to look at raising taxes on the wealthy or even cutting sales tax exemptions for large corporations. There are many ways the state could raise the revenue side of the budget equation without raising taxes on low and middle income Idahoans, but for some reason, the powers that be simply refuse to even consider taking these actions.
But what is even more frustrating is Governor Otter's unwillingness to look at his own contributions to wasteful spending. "Big spending amid cuts" in the Statesman is an article about how ITD used almost $70,000 of taxpayers money on groundbreaking or dedication ceremonies since last June. The article said "Otter's office wanted [these ceremonies] to be the 'governor's signature events.'" In this time of recession and state employee lay offs, this doesn't seem like a good use of my tax money. The article is interesting (and long), but the most interesting part of the story to me is that no one seems to be responsible. At least no one is claiming responsibility. I'd like to see whose name is on the contract and who approved the signing of the contract. And I'd like a Governor who is responsible enough to question whether this expense was justified, rather than just claiming he didn't know how much the ceremonies cost or which budget was paying for it. Certainly he's smart enough to know someone was paying for the events, and he should be responsible enough to make the call to cancel this type of event at least until we've climbed out of this recession hole.
We have to give kudos to Representative JoAn Wood (R), Rigby. She seems to be the only one who is outraged by this expense. "I am appalled. I am appalled," she told the Statesman. So are we, Representative Wood. So are we. To spend almost $70,000 of our taxpayer money to give the Governor a nice photo op is unacceptable in this economy. Here's the link to the whole story: http://www.
