The IVA Tax Conundrum

Bryan Fischer of the Idaho Values Alliance was a guest on "Zeb at the Ranch" this week discussing his thoughts on Idaho's upcoming legislative session.  With budget cuts already in place and more looming, and news of impending state employee layoffs, as is most everyone, Fischer was concerned about the state budget.

Here's a bit of what he had to say:

Bryan Fischer:  Well, I think as we look ahead to the legislature which convenes next week, I think finances are gonna be on everybody's mind—balancing the state budget.  I think the governor is continuing to press for an increase, either in vehicle registration or fuel taxes, to try to provide more funding for roads and I think that's an issue that's worth consideration.

You know, the governor's already directed state agencies to do some holdbacks because tax revenues are not where they were anticipated to be and seems to me that when the governor's done that, he's admitted that government spending can be cut when it's necessary and so the concern I've got with increased funding for roads—I think most people recognize we need to have a good road system for all kinds of reasons—but the question is:  why are we not talking about where we can cut government spending in some other area of the state budget to free up the money we need for roads, rather than just throwing another tax increase "brick" in the backpack of Idaho taxpayers?

So I think that whole issue of the state budget is gonna probably dominate the session this year.

So Fischer, whose organization pays no taxes as a non-profit corporation, appears to be concerned with putting "bricks" in taxpayers' backpacks and he's suggesting that the budget cuts already in place could or should have been put in place sooner and the money used to pay for the estimated $240 million shortfall in road funding, as if there were some magic, state government waste repository just lying around waiting for some sharp-eyed wizard with an "abracadabra."

Maybe if he had spoken to any of the more than 500 state employees forced to take days off without pay this past holiday season or the woman, and countless others like her, whose autistic son's services were cut at the Department of Health and Welfare (where services are already hard to come by), he would have known that there is no magic wand, that emergency across-the-board budget cuts in an already lean state budget affect real people's lives, many who can ill afford it.

Maybe if he had, he wouldn't have so cavalierly suggested that these, for many, painful emergency measures should have been inflicted sooner.  Fischer's lack of empathy for Idahoans enduring the effects of these budget cuts is inexcusable.  No doubt these are tough times and many are and will be making sacrifices, but it is inconceivable to suggest that since an individual can survive an emergency amputation that this individual should have then had the limb amputated sooner.

In another bit of the tax related conundrum, we get this from the IVA website where Fischer threw a minor conniption over Boise's taxpayer-funded detox and mental health facility opening in 2010, supposing that the Treasure Valley would see an increase in substance abuse as a result [emphasis mine]:

If we truly care about the population who suffer from addictions, as we do and should, it would be far more productive to send the $2.7 million it will cost to build and the $1.8 million a year it will cost to operate this facility to faith-based organizations who have a proven record of liberating people from the nightmare of drug addiction.

Apparently, as long as churches are allowed to gorge at the taxpayer buffet, the restraints come off and it's all you can eat.  Sort of odd for a non-taxpaying entity to rail against taxes on the one hand and lobby for their disbursements on the other, don't you think?

Comments

[thepoliticalgame]

Though he calls his little organization the "Idaho Values Alliance" it is clear that Bryan Fischer is completely disconnected from the actual values of Idahoans! Families aren't any more capable of the additional cost of raising children with disabilities now than they were when Health & Welfare benefits weren't cut. The amount of money available has changes, the amount of services needed has not. And what the hell does Bryan Fischer think he and the IVA can do for addicts who are addicts because they chose or were forced to self-medicate mental disorders, disease, etc. in their desperation to "feel better"? For crying out loud, these people are in situations that no faith-based anything can help--if it were about faith alone they'd be on their knees every minute of every day. But it is so much bigger than that. The physiological aspects of mental health and addiction require actual facilities with medically trained staff and sometimes the only way to treat addiction is with the hard discipline of being locked up away from the temptation and source.

Whew! Sorry, 'bout that MG, bit of a diatribe!

[Binkyboy]

Bryan only wants funding to public schools slashed. He just said it without saying it.

[Wordsmith]

What Tara said but with some f-bombs thrown in for, ya know, 'emphasis' = spice.

For the sake of my computer and my head, neither of which I want to cause or have damage (e.g., explosions, slapping, banging, etc.), I'm quite thankful that you lucky gems read and/or listen to their crap so I don't.

Quite the supporter of family or basic values to go on the show of such a bigot.

[thepoliticalgame]

Oh believe me, Wordsmith, I was saying 'em! ;)

[Freedom]

I think we are looking at this from our carefully manufactured perspectives. We have become so dependent on the state that we cannot see past our own self-intrests. We are looking for the state to free us and yet it only adds to our burden in the form of more taxes (now 50% of our national gross income and counting)and reduced rights. That is not freedom, it is servitude. We should see this as an opportunity to free ourselves from the state and rely on each other as neighbors. The state seeks to increase control under the guise of compassion. However, it should be our compassion for each other that frees us from the state. Who knows better how to come along side you - a politician or a friend? The state is not the solution, it is part of the problem, as is our own selfish motivations and overindulgences. We need to stop beckoning the government to be our savior by digging deeper into our pockets; rather we should work to relieve ourselves of this self-inflicted burden so that one day we may truly get a test of freedom...

[thepoliticalgame]

You can't exactly climb out of a hole without a ladder and you can't climb out with that ladder if you've never been taught to use it.

[Tom von Alten]

Dear Freedom:

You speak nonsense, in an oily manner. Are you a friend of Mr. Fischer's perhaps? Or just a fellow traveller, content to spout from a similar ideological stump?

None of my friends have ever offered to build me a highway, but perhaps yours are more generous than mine.

[thepoliticalgame]

Thanks, Tom. I had the same question...

[Binkyboy]

"Freedom" appears only to be of the free market ilk, one who retroactively rewrites recent history in order to continue his or her belief that somehow, somewhere, the free market solutions touted by Buckley and others does work.

Reality, however, shows a much different result of deregulation and free market solutions. It shows depravity, degredation of public works, low artistic appreciation, and a disdain for higher education.

Go read more Ayn Rand, Freedom. Maybe you'll find some more of the answers you seek, because the real answers will never be within your understanding.

[Binkyboy]

Oh, by the way, MG, you seem to have irritated the moronic right blogger. No, not that one, the other little one.

And what is his solution? Blame liberals.

[thepoliticalgame]

Yes because it is the responsibility of liberals to be compassionate, the conservatives apparently get a pass. Plus, what is it he said? We have all the money? Right...