The Christmas Grinch by Darrell Kerby

Idaho Alert …. The Christmas Grinch is after our schools and our County and Hospital budgets … The Idaho Freedom Foundation’s latest proposal to slash nearly $1.9 billion from the state budget is not a plan for fiscal responsibility — it’s a calculated assault on the public institutions that hold Idaho together.

Behind its polished rhetoric and cherry-picked numbers lies a darker truth: the IFF is not a grassroots policy group. It is a secretive, ideologically extreme operation, funded by dark money and driven by out-of-state interests with no accountability to the people of Idaho.

At a recent press conference, IFF President Ron Nate claimed, “Idaho does not have a budget problem — we have a budgeting problem.” That’s not insight. It’s sleight of hand. The state’s projected deficit — between $600 million and $1 billion — is the direct result of years of aggressive tax cuts and one-time rebates that have drained $4 billion from public coffers.

To now demand brutal cuts to health care, education, and opportunity — while refusing to even discuss the revenue side of the equation — is not fiscal prudence. It’s ideological sabotage.

The IFF’s proposal to eliminate Medicaid expansion would rip health care away from more than 85,000 Idahoans, many of them working adults in rural communities. Cutting health care funding doesn’t stop people from becoming ill — it just ensures they end up in the most expensive place to treat them: hospital emergency rooms. And when that happens, the costs don’t disappear.

They slam into rural hospitals and county budgets, drastically increasing indigent care expenses and threatening the financial stability of local health systems. This isn’t just cruel — it’s fiscally reckless.

Even more galling is the IFF’s demand to slash $166 million from Idaho’s already underfunded public schools — while leaving untouched a $50 million private school tax credit. That’s not shared sacrifice. That’s a rigged game.

Public schools serve every child, in every community. Private school subsidies serve a narrow few. The IFF’s priorities are clear: weaken the public square, reward private interests, and call it “freedom.” Let’s be honest about what the IFF really is: a backroom operation that wields outsized influence through secretive funding, ideological scorecards, and pressure campaigns designed to intimidate lawmakers and silence dissent. It does not speak for Idahoans.

It speaks for a narrow band of special interests who view public goods — schools, health care, infrastructure — not as shared responsibilities, but as obstacles to be dismantled. Idahoans deserve better. We deserve leaders who govern in the light of day, who listen to their communities, and who understand that fiscal stewardship is not about destruction — it’s about balance, compassion, and the long-term health of our state.

The IFF has had its say. Now it’s time for the people of Idaho to say no — to the secrecy, the extremism, and the cynical politics of division.