Families across Idaho know something isn’t adding up. They’re working hard, but the bills keep getting heavier. Groceries cost more. Rents and home prices are skyrocketing. Child care eats a bigger share of every paycheck. Schools need levies to maintain the basics, and rural hospitals are stretched to their limits. People feel squeezed, and the Republican supermajority keeps making things worse.
Over the past decade, GOP lawmakers have rewritten our tax code for the wealthy, leaving working families with a higher tax burden and higher costs. Rather than eliminating the sales tax on food or raising homeowners’ property tax exemption when home values rise, they flattened the income tax, a move that delivers big gains to the wealthiest people and out-of-state corporate shareholders. Idaho now has one of the most regressive tax structures in the region, meaning the less you earn, the larger the share of your income you pay.
This has only accelerated in recent years. Since 2021, these choices have cost Idahoans more than $4 billion. Beginning this year, the state loses another $1.3 billion annually, nearly a quarter of what Idaho once invested in schools, health care, and infrastructure. And the rewards are tilted sharply upward. The top 1% get an average kickback of $20,407, while a typical Idaho family sees $453.
Families feel the consequences every day. When school funding falls short, property taxes rise, and parents cover more classroom expenses. When Idaho fails to invest in workforce housing, it costs more to put a roof over your head, and workers drive farther to reach the jobs that need them. When child care support erodes, families pay more or leave the workforce entirely. When Medicaid, mental health services, and rural health care are strained, premiums climb, and hospitals and clinics face closure.
Idaho families have already paid an extra $864 this year to cover the same basic costs since Trump returned to office.
The pain does not stop there. The state is running a growing budget deficit, even after deep holdbacks, including gutting mental health services by up to 15%. Instead of restoring even a portion of the revenue they’ve taken off the table, Republican legislators are preparing to push Idaho off a financial cliff. If our state adopts the federal tax changes, Idaho could forfeit at least $435 million each year.
Some of that cost comes from corporations using new write-offs to deduct investments made outside Idaho. That would force our state to subsidize business activity elsewhere while our own budget falls further behind. Republican leaders should reject this.
Affordability for working families and small businesses should be the goal of every budget choice. Idaho deserves leadership that governs with that simple truth in mind.
Onward,
Lauren Necochea
Idaho Democratic Party Chair