Presentation of Idaho Reports on Idaho Public Television is made possible through the generous support of the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation, committed to fulfilling the Moore and Bettis family legacy of building the great state of Idaho by the Friends of Idaho Public Television, and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Monday's State of the State address kicked off the 2024 legislative session, and there's already plenty to talk about, including a push for a federal balanced budget with big implications for the country.

I'm Melissa Devlin, Idaho Reports starts now.

Hello and welcome to Idaho Reports.

This week, Mick Mulvaney, former chief of staff to President Donald Trump and former U.S.

Senator Larry Craig, joined me to discuss a proposed constitutional amendment that would require Congress to pass a balanced budget.

Then Dr. Jaclyn Kettler of Boise State University School of Public Service gives her take on the first few days of the legislative session.

But first, let's get you caught up on the week.

Late last Friday, the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear a case concerning Idaho's abortion ban and how it applies to emergency room situations.

In 2022, the Department of Justice sued Idaho over the ban shortly after it went into effect, saying the near-total ban violated the Emergency Medical Treatment and Act of Labor Act, as it didn't protect doctors in emergency rooms who ended pregnancies that affected the health of the mother.

The law does allow for abortions that protect the life of the mother.

The Supreme Court also lifted an injunction on the law, meaning the state can fully enforce it even in emergency situations.

The court is scheduled to hear those arguments in April.

Idaho's Democratic lawmakers brought up the topic following Governor Brad Little's State of the State address on Monday.

>>For some reason, that is far beyond me, our GOP leaders said absolutely unacceptable, no matter how bad the medical emergency is, absolutely no way can they have an abortion.

Judge Winmill threw us a lifeline and saved us from a bill that was frankly, crazy.

It was passed at a time when Roe v Wade was still on the books.

Most people never thought it would go into effect.

Nobody saw Roe v Wade being overturned.

Then they were the dog that caught the car.

Roe v Wade was overturned and all of a sudden this kooky, draconian law actually became reality.

>>Governor Little discussed potential tweaks to the existing law in a Monday press conference after his State of the State address.

>>Both the Chairman Crane and even in the last week Speaker Moyle have talked about, you know, looking at, uh, there's, there's a lot of moving parts there because there's court cases that are, have things stayed and and but I, I am empathetic to both the Chairman Crane and Speaker Moyle’s concerns about it, particularly fertility issues.

>>During Monday's State of the State address, Governor Little spent a significant amount of time touting the Idaho Launch program, as well as a proposed significant investment in school facilities.

>>The can we're kicking is getting heavier and we're running out of road.

Let's make this priority number one.

My Idaho Works plan proposes large- the- proposes the largest investment ever in school facility construction and our maintenance match-- two billion dollars.

>>Little's $2 billion proposal amounts to leveraging $200 million annually in sales tax revenue for the next ten years.

He also proposed $200 million for transportation, with another 50 million for the state's transportation bonding program.

>>Well, the two billion is over ten years.

So that's I mean, and, you know, not dissimilar with our bridge issue, we put $200 million a year into bridges last year, 200 this year, we're going to do 200, that, we intend for that to get the locals caught up to where the locals can then... now we'll see how that plays out.

But this is similar.

This is to help the schools get caught back up because they're so far behind on maintenance and, and, facility construction.

>>The school facilities proposal got a rare standing ovation from lawmakers during the speech.

As for the rest of the proposals, House Republicans had a lukewarm response.

>>What he is saying is for his general fund budget is an increase of 2.2%.

That's not the actual budget increase for the governor.

The actual is more along the lines of 7.8.

He's asking us to pass additional legislation that would shift money from one place to another so that his actual budget looks like it's 2.2% but is actually much higher.

>>As of today in this budget cycle.

40% of all sales tax is spoken for.

He goes on autopilot.

That's a concern, right?

Because you get to a point you're not going have any money to take care of, you know, education, health and welfare, public safety.

So as we look at his budget, one of the things he does do is, again, goes into that sales tax revenue and tries to grab those revenues instead of allowing them to go through the process.

He grabs them ahead of time and puts them on autopilot again.

That's dangerous.

>>On Monday afternoon, Democratic lawmakers outlined their priorities with education at the top of the list.

>>Of course, continuing to fund the literacy program.

We know that's working.

We've seen good results.

We've seen jumps in our reading scores.

So we know we're doing a good job there.

And I also think that we need to address the facilities issue.

It's huge.

And though we did a little bit of property tax relief and some money for schools last year with House Bill 292, it really didn't address the need to build new schools.

>>What he's talking about is a billion dollars over ten years.

We need a billion dollars today for school facilities and not just to repair the ones we've got.

That's not to build new schools for all the influx of new people coming here.

That's not accounting for the things that are going to break next year and the year after the year after, but ten years.

And now we're going to need 6 billion dollars to fix our schools.

So the money that is in there is not adequate, but it's it's critically necessary.

It can't be cut down.

At least the numbers I saw from the governor's budget.

Again, we have hemorrhaged revenue over the last few years.

We have chopped and chopped and chopped so that we are now pretty darn lean.

There is not much money to spare.

>>It's making sure that we are setting budgets that are set based on some of our leanest years, not budgets that are set on huge budget surpluses, which is what I fear we're doing right now.

We've gotten so used to having budget surpluses that we're coming up with all these neat ideas and we want to fund them.

We can't do that.

We've got to do the basics.

And the basics are public education, higher education, transportation, roads and bridges do those things.

And people outside Boise and in Boise are going to be really happy with what the legislature's doing.

>>Late last week, Representative Wendy Horman and Senator Lori Den Hartog unveiled a proposed income tax credit that would cover qualifying costs of private school expenses.

On Monday, we heard more about the potential for school choice legislation this session.

>>I think there's an incentive this year to find a solution, and I think the tax credits got more support than some of the other methods.

And so I think I think this year you'll see that that issue get to the governor's desk.

What he does with it, I don't know.

>>A quote from me is anything significantly that detracts from long term ongoing funding to public school, I'd have concern with that.

That's where I was.

That's where I still am.

>>Meanwhile, Democrats expressed concern about diverting general fund dollars to private education.

We have the full post speech press conferences with Governor Little and Republican and Democratic leadership online.

You can find those at YouTube.com slash Idaho Reports.

While touting his own proposals, Governor Little had some harsh words for the federal government and its $34 trillion debt.

>>The runaway freight train of federal spending has got to stop.

It's not right.

It's not what the founders envisioned for our great country.

U.S. Constitution gives the states the power to proposed a balanced budget amendment.

And in the coming weeks, I will announce the next steps we will take to force Congress to live within the people's means.

>>Concerns about spending and Washington aren't new.

Former U.S.

Senator Larry Craig has been promoting a balanced budget amendment since the Reagan administration.

And on Thursday, Mick Mulvaney came to Boise to meet with legislative leaders to pitch the amendment.

Mulvaney served as both director of the Office of Management and Budget and Chief of Staff under President Donald Trump.

Both Director Mulvaney and Senator Craig joined me Thursday to discuss the proposal.

Thank you so much both for joining us.

For those who aren't familiar, what is the proposal?

>>Well, the proposal is to try and get 33 states together to approve a convention, to pass a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.

That sounds a little sort of convoluted.

The theory is this, is that you need 34 to actually have a convention.

But if you get to 33, Congress might step up and say, you know what, we really don't want the states to go to convention because Congress will want to write its own rules about balancing the budget.

So they will take over then and do it on their own accord.

>>And Senator Craig, you've been talking about this since, I think the eighties.

In fact, I found a clip of you from C-SPAN from 1992 where >>Ronald Reagan drove me to it.

>>You know, when you were on C-SPAN in ‘92 talking about this, Idaho was represented by a conservative Democrat, Richard Stallings, who supported this.

There have been other conservative Democrats who have supported this over the years.

Times have changed.

The you know, the debt has increased by $30 trillion since then.

Why is now the time?

>>Well, now's the time, because it's a generational issue as much as it is a national security issue.

When you deal with the kind of debt structure we now have at $34 trillion with interest on debt, possibly going to $1 trillion annually.

It is literally eating our budget up and leaving very little resource left for the public and the public need.

That's obviously the first step.

The second step is it does damage our national security in every sense of the word.

And then it becomes generational.

It's your children and your children's children that may well experience the instability created by a country that is at or in bankruptcy.

So we have to deal with those in a real sense.

It you can bring it down to the size of the home itself.

The individual home cannot operate in the kind of debt and deficit.

It ultimately destroys itself or goes bankrupt.

And we are on the verge of that in this country.

>>Let's talk a little bit about that, because I hear so much about kitchen table economics.

You know, Idaho families live within their means, but there's no law stopping me from going down and opening up a line of credit that I can't afford for a car that I don't need.

I know that because of financial education, not a law.

So is a constitutional amendment too big a stick to wield to get the budget in order?

>>The difference in the examples you give is that in your case you would be out spending your money, you're incurring the debt and so forth.

In Washington, they're spending somebody else's money.

It's not actually their money.

And of course, that mentality has given rise to where we are right now.

I was reading recently that, you know, 77% of the debt that we have today is as the result of bipartisan legislation.

So people always ask, oh, you know, why isn't there more bipartisanship in Washington?

The problem is we do have bipartisanship in Washington.

It's just on one thing, and that's spending more money.

If you're a Republican and I'm a Democrat, the one thing we can agree on, it seems, is to spend more money on what you want and in exchange will spend more money on what I want.

And that's sort of the grease that makes Washington go.

And that's how you get $34 trillion in debt.

It’s not one party that does it to you, this is a bipartisan debt.

>>I wanted to get your take on that, too.

Senator Craig.

You know, these are these are popular programs, a lot of them that Republicans and Democrats both vote to spend on.

How do you get Americans on board when there may be and will likely be cuts to popular programs like veterans benefits?

>>Well, let's go back to the home analogy.

Our debt was costing us not as much, and we could borrow as the at the rate that the Congress borrowed and the feds borrowed over the last number of years because zero interest rates all of a sudden they move the interest rate to quell inflation and the cost went astronomical.

The average house in Boise today, if you bought it five years ago, would cost you in interest alone a thousand or 1200 dollars less than if you bought it today.

There's the very real difference.

It is a reality of being able to afford.

And I have never seen a program that couldn't be cut or downsized or reshaped or eliminated altogether.

The reason we have all of these programs today is because we can spend somebody else's money to do it.

>>That's right.

People always say, oh, what are you going to cut this?

And you're going to cut a very popular program.

It's hard to describe to you how many programs are in Washington, D.C. that you've never heard of.

There's folks that want to spend more money on things like veterans benefits.

And we could if we could figure out a way to not spend a bunch of money on programs that no one cares about anymore, we waste a tremendous amount of money.

One of the reasons the primary reason we've done that is that there's been no fiscal discipline.

When you own the printing press, you don't have to have any fiscal discipline that one of my least favorite lines in Washington, D.C. is whenever somebody floats a new idea.

And I said, well, we can't afford it.

They always said, well, we can't afford not to.

We've been using that language for far too long.

If you actually forced Congress to live within the means, they do exactly what you have to talk about, which is prioritize the stuff that really people want and need, and that helps folks and get rid of all the stuff that is simply wasteful.

>>Sure.

And yet there are still some people, though, who are concerned about it being in the Constitution as opposed to getting there through another means, whether it's education, whether it's voting in people who share that philosophy and would do it, you know, organically through their votes.

Might a measure like this drown out conversations about responsible spending and getting there another way?

>>No, I actually think this drives conversations about responsible spending.

>>Prioritizing.

>>And the state legislature is the same way, I was in the state legislature, is that the conversations we don't have now is, okay, we've got this much money.

As a group now, what are our priorities?

We have cost benefit analysis.

Okay, we'll spend it here because this helps the most people.

We won't spend it here because this doesn't help enough people.

Those conversations don't take place.

Those are rational conversations that you really wish lawmakers were making and they would make it if they had limited if they didn't have unlimited money.

Those are the conversations that people have in the state legislatures, but they don't have them in Washington, D.C.. >>Let me also say that when our state legislature just convened and there isn't a senator, Democrat or Republican, House member, Democrat or Republican, that doesn't come with the mindset that they're going to borrow a lot of money and spend.

They all come knowing they will balance the budget with the current revenue available.

Or if we were in a dramatic situation and we've done it in the past, we might raise taxes for a time for that purpose if it was so important.

But not one of them come with the attitude that they're just going to spend or they're going to add a new program or somebody suggested something new and different and can I get the appropriation to do that?

So what I suggest to you is that a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget progressively changes the mindset in Washington that Mick is talking about.

That transforms us back into a responsible posture of spending and keep based on priority.

>>49 states have this sort of language and they function properly.

So there's nothing to be said to or no argument.

I don't think, it's as if you put it in the Constitution, the federal government couldn't function.

We know that we can because the states do it already.

>>The states do it.

But our budget is significantly smaller than the federal government's.

Of course, you know, when you're talking about some of the cuts we had to make the Great Recession at the time, our general revenue was about $2 billion only.

And those cuts hurt, to be sure.

But we're talking about much more money.

And as you mentioned, far more programs on the federal government side.

How much does that complicate?

>>It doesn't.

It's just a question of scale.

My guess is and I don't know the numbers in Idaho, but if we took a look at the numbers and in a regular state, what you look at, not in terms of numbers, don't look at it from dollars.

Look in terms of the percentage of your state's GDP, okay.

It's probably fairly significant.

It's not a lot of money because it's a relatively small state.

That's how you look at it in Washington Yes, the numbers are really, really big.

But on a percentage basis, we're spending about 22% of our national income and we're taking in in taxes about 18% of our national income.

That that 4% is sort of the difference between those things.

That translates at every different state level.

So you can just take your state, take 18 and 22 and see where you are.

So, yes, the federal government is bigger, There's a lot more programs, but they're also drawing on a much larger economy for their tax base.

So it's just a question of scale, not a question of sort of the concept.

>>I agree.

>>I'm also curious, too, about how this might affect emergency funding.

And in terms of natural disasters, you know, you're from South Carolina.

Hurricanes come to mind.

For you in Idaho, it's wildfires and the occasional flood or sometimes snow.

One of the reasons we're able to balance our budget is because in times of emergency, the federal government provides dollars.

You know, whether or not you agree with that, philosophically, that's what happens.

How would a measure like this affect emergency spending when we do have a disastrous wildfire season?

>>Well, now we're talking about how you manage the public lands and how you manage the Forest Service and the BLM.

>>It all plays in together.

>>Of course it does.

62% of our state is federally owned.

And if you go back just 20 years to the way it was managed, then we didn't have wildfires, not of the kind we have today.

And if we did, they were put out very, very quickly because you didn't decide to let something just burn.

You moved in quickly and put it out.

State of Idaho manages about 20% of timber land.

They don't have wildfires.

They put them out.

>>Proactively reduce the fuel load too.

>>And you budget accordingly.

The Forest Service is broke today because we quit green sales cutting.

And so it has to be dramatically subsidized by the general fund to put out the wildfires of mismanagement.

>>We can talk about what happened 25, 30 years ago.

But the reality is this is where we are today.

>>I don't disagree with that.

>> Are we too far down that road for this specific measure without radically affecting emergency funding> >>No, I don't think so, because then we go back to Mick’s point of prioritization.

>>And you also go back to the specific language.

Keep in mind.

This is a general initiative to start a debate about a balanced budget amendment.

There's all sorts of specific language you could look at when you get to that point.

And one of the proposals I've heard is that, okay, if we ever have to say go to war or we have emergency spending, and most of our disaster relief we did with hurricanes mostly where I’m from where I live in the country, that's emergency spending.

It's sort of off budget and you could, say have a proposal that says, all right, for emergency spending, we'll do it.

But it takes two thirds of a vote of Congress or three quarters of a vote of Congress, because everybody knows it's that important and it is an emergency.

And we're going to go ahead and spend it.

Maybe that's the rule for incurring debt when you're dealing with situations like COVID or the Great Recession.

So it's not saying that 100% of the time you're not going to go into debt.

It's going to say, look, maybe that from time to time, if we need that emergency spending, we'll have a higher threshold.

Again, that's a debate you have once you get a little further down the road on the specific language.

>>We have much more of that conversation online.

You can find it at IdahoReports.org or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Joining me to discuss the proposal and the first week of the legislative session is Dr. Jaclyn Kettler of Boise State University's School of Public Service.

Dr. Kettler, this is not a new proposal.

What are your thoughts on it?

It would have massive changes for the country.

Is that something that you can get people on board for?

>>Well, I think it is.

You know, the budget deficit and the amount of federal government spending is something that many people report being concerned about.

And so I think this is an issue that, you know, people care about and are paying attention to.

But it's not an easy task to try to get a constitutional amendment and especially trying to go about it through the Article V convention route has a some complications, some questions.

For example, can you actually limit such a convention to only consider for, in this case, a balanced budget amendment?

Or once you get there, could you have a runaway convention?

Could other issues come up?

And there's a lot of questions here.

We don't actually know know what?

But we don't because it's not been done before.

We don't actually really know how it could operate.

>>Well, and that stood out to me.

They said that one of their goals is that they can get Congress's attention so that they can avoid an Article V convention of the states in the first place, get Congress to do it instead of getting the states and risking a runaway convention.

You said that there are even questions about whether you can limit the scope of an Article V convention.

But do you think before we get there, if it's even realistic to get Congress on board in the first place?

>>I think that's a great question.

And we've seen Congress do a similar sort of approach, get pushed into doing the proposing what ended up being the 17th Amendment with the direct election of U.S. senators after states started signing on for an Article V convention on that topic.

>>17th Amendment.

>>The 17th Amendment.

Yes.

And so it's we have seen that kind of successfully happen before.

But, I mean, and that was, you know, that did affect members of Congress themselves.

But here, would Congress?

Are members of Congress willing to actually, you know, push forward a balanced budget amendment is one question.

Even if a number of quite a few states, even if we're getting close to qualifying for an Article V convention.

>>And it sounded like they really did not just need Idaho, but saw Idaho as one of the next states that was realistic for them.

And we know that lawmakers are concerned about federal spending.

>>Right.

And I think ideologically, partisan wise, Idaho aligns well.

Like in general, again, like there's bipartisan support for trying to reduce the deficit in one way or another.

But Republicans tend to be more supportive than Democrats.

And so a unified Republican controlled state seems more like, you know, probably a good target compared to some other states perhaps.

And so I think that's why we can see Idaho perhaps being targeted and that it aligns ideologically, philosophically, with many what many believe about government in Idaho.

>>One last thing that stood out to me when we talked about concerns about emergency spending, national defense, benefits like for veterans or Social Security, they said that you can draft the amendment to address that.

There's no guarantee, though, that whether it's Congress or the states that get together and do this, that that's what the final amendment would look like.

>>That's right.

Like we can propose have proposed wording, but that might change.

And also, can you account for everything?

Are there still going to be loopholes or ways around?

So how effective can such an amendment or such were particular wording be?

And additionally, even if we get to a convention, it still would need to be ratified by three fourths of the states, which would be a higher threshold than calling the convention.

So we still would have that additional step down the line.

>>You know, it was also the first week of the legislative session and we saw a handful of new bills being proposed.

No guarantee that those will even get public hearings at this point.

If they do, we will certainly cover them in depth.

But among the issues that came up, another library bill that would hold libraries accountable if they didn't remove certain materials from children's sections.

A bill that would change the word fetus to pre-born children in Idaho code.

Are you surprised that those were among the first issues that Republican lawmakers proposed this year?

>>No, it aligns very closely to some of the kind of big issues or big topics from the previous session, particularly the library bill, which the previous iteration had been had passed the legislature and was vetoed by Governor Little.

And so not surprising that that is something that is at top of legislators minds.

And we continue to see that be an issue in local library board elections.

Other discussions.

So it's definitely a topic that hasn't been far from legislators’ policymakers’ or citizens’ minds.

>>And also those who are on school boards and library boards.

This is very much at the forefront of their conversations and their concerns that, you know, not just their constituents’ concerns, but also what the legislature might come up with this year.

>>Right.

And the possible effects.

I mean, this proposal has been revised from last year to try to address some of the concerns, particularly Governor Little had mentioned in his veto of the bill.

But some of that we're already hearing from some of the library boards or library officials, like no this is still really problematic in how it would actually operate and the effect it would have on libraries.

>>And we do have details of those proposed bills online at IdahoReports.org.

The State of the State address on Monday.

What was your initial reaction to that speech?

>>It was an interesting speech, especially with a good chunk of it being prerecorded, kind of summarizing some of the key what Governor Little and his administration view as some of the big achievements, but a big proposal for trying to fund school infrastructure.

And there's been a lot of media attention, not just locally but nationally, too, on some of the problems and school buildings in the state.

And so thought that was interesting, that that was kind of one big focus that we saw that the governor wants to dedicate funding to.

>>You mentioned the prerecorded segment.

It lasted about 12 minutes.

I thought that was so interesting because to me, that said, Governor Little's audience wasn't just in the House chambers.

It was the people of Idaho.

Those were the people that he really wanted to get that information to.

>>I think that's right.

And also explaining some of the different policies that they've been doing, like interviewing a lot of students who have applied or will receive the Launch grants and what they want to do with it, really helping bring home the effect that this is having and why Governor Little and his administration think funding the Launch program is so important.

Like, look, here are actual people, you know, students and what they want to do and seem really excited about how it's going to help them.

>>We have less than a minute left.

Was there anything that you were listening for that you didn't hear in the speech?

>>I mean, there's some ongoing issues that we have in Idaho that didn't get a lot of attention, one being child care.

A lot of you know, we've seen daycares close, as some of that federal funding has left.

Maternal health has been a big factor here.

And particularly like the the ending of the Maternal Death Review Board, maternal mortality Review Board, all those type things, doctors leaving the state, some of these issues.

>>And we are expecting the legislature to address at least some of those concerns this session.

Dr. Jaclyn Kettler, thank you so much for joining us.

For more throughout the week, you can go to IdahoReoirts.org.

We'll see you back here next week.

Thanks for watching.

>>Presentation of Idaho reports on Idaho Public Television is made possible through the generous support of the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation, committed to fulfilling the Moore and Bettis family legacy of building the great state of Idaho.

By the Friends of Idaho Public Television and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.