Shame on Otter

Governor Butch Otter's 2010 budget takes aim with his ideology and shoots Idaho in the foot.

• Education Under Attack: Gov. Otter recommended cutting $138 million from the state public school budget, on top of the $68 million trimmed this past year. School districts will yet again be forced to cut budgets. Teachers may lose their jobs, classes and programs will be slashed. Or both.
• State Parks Under Attack: Gov. Otter wants to abolish the State Department of Parks and Recreation and transfer the function to the State Department of Lands whose mission has been resource extraction and land sales. At risk are such gems as Harriman State Park, City of Rocks and Massacre Rocks State Park. Given the number of visitors from around the world these parks attract, and given their importance to our local economies, Otter's proposal is false economy.
• Idaho Public Television Under Attack: IPTV plays an important role in our state by, among other things, allowing citizens to follow their government. IPTV receives $1.6 million from the state. Recent polling showed that citizens overwhelmingly oppose Otter's plan to eliminate all state funding for IPTV.

The state doesn't have a budget problem, it has a political will problem. Instead of slashing school budgets, parks and public television, Otter should first do the following:

• Close Special Interest Loopholes: $1.7 billion of tax dollars goes uncollected each year due to special-interest exemptions. In 2008, a legislative committee recommended that 23 exemptions be reviewed, yet none have been overturned. Many of these are nothing more than handouts to special interests. For example, vending machine owners receive a $2.5 million exemption annually. That alone would pay the state's annual IPTV allocation. Are vending machine owner's interests more important than our children's schools and their teachers, or our parks?
• Collect All That Is Owed: It's a question of fairness. Other states have had great success hiring additional accountants to collect what is due from those who are either not paying their taxes, or not paying their fair share. Idahoans would benefit from a similar action.
• Additionally, Gov. Otter's proposed cuts could be partially staved off if his budget included the estimated $82 million that his chief economist, Mike Ferguson, forecasts will be collected during the course of 2011 as Idaho's economy emerges from the recession. Why isn't Otter including at least some of this projected revenue in the budget?

The bottom line: Governor Otter is pulling the plug on our schools and our parks while protecting special interests!

Now is the time to speak up for our schools and our parks! We encourage you to write a short letter opposing Otter's proposal to:

• The Idaho State Journal: ifennell@journalnet.com

• Governor Otter: rbartlett@gov.idaho.gov