Idaho Gang of Eight: Idaho Doesn’t Have a Revenue Problem — It Has a Spending Problem

December 11, 2025

Idaho Doesn’t Have a Revenue Problem — It Has a Spending Problem
Inflated maintenance budgets, expanding agencies, and a decade of unchecked growth put Idaho exactly where we warned it would end up

By: Idaho Gang of Eight

Government officials love to act shocked when the consequences of their own decisions show up. Idaho is no exception. Agencies are bracing for reductions, revenue forecasts are tightening, and the latest projections make one thing clear: Idaho cannot sustain the budgets the legislature approved.

None of this should surprise anyone.

It didn’t happen because of a mysterious economic event. It happened because those in charge spent far beyond what Idaho’s economy or taxpayers could sustain.

Over the last six years, Idaho’s state spending has increased by 60%. When spending grows that fast, a budget crisis isn’t a surprise. It’s the outcome.

Throughout the 2025 session, the Gang of Eight repeatedly raised this concern. We warned that the rate of government expansion — new employees, expanded programs, and reliance on volatile federal dollars — was outpacing anything Idaho families could sustain long term. We urged the Legislature to adopt a disciplined, transparent approach to budgeting through the Budget Pledge, which focused on four simple principles:

• Fully fund essential “maintenance” budgets.
• No new government employees.
• Limit spending growth to 1.2 percent, which would have saved nearly $1 billion.
• Reject federal funds that bring regulatory strings and long-term state obligations.

These limits would have kept Idaho’s budget predictable and sustainable.

Maintenance Budgets Became a Back Door for Expansion

One important clarification: “Fully fund maintenance budgets” only works when maintenance budgets actually reflect essential, ongoing operations. In Idaho’s system, they don’t. Agencies begin each year with a maintenance budget that already includes last year’s enhancements. Then they request a new round of enhancements on top of that enlarged base.

That is not budgeting. That is sleight-of-hand.

Maintenance is supposed to cover ongoing operations; enhancements are optional additions. But in practice, every enhancement becomes next year’s maintenance. The base never shrinks; it ratchets upward automatically.

The result is a one-way escalator that guarantees year-over-year expansion. It becomes structurally impossible for government to shrink.

The Gang of Eight supports funding true maintenance budgets and essential operations, not inflated baselines disguised as maintenance.

This isn’t complicated. It isn’t extreme. It’s basic stewardship.

Leadership Spent Idaho Into This Problem

Governor Brad Little and Lt. Governor Scott Bedke are raising alarms about “budget pressures” and issuing warnings to “do more with less.” But the stress they’re describing is the direct result of the decisions they made.

Little didn’t inherit big government; he expanded it. Under his watch (FY 2020-26), Idaho’s budget jumped from $8.962 billion to $14.102 billion (plus approximately $300 million of continuous spending moved off the books), a 60% increase. He signed it, promoted it, and applauded it.

Bedke served a decade as speaker, overseeing the budgets (FY 2014-24) that put Idaho on this trajectory. During his speakership, appropriations increased 115%, from $6.455 billion to $13.855 billion. He routinely opposed efforts to slow government growth or to place limits on agencies. Today, he calls the budget “upside-down,” as if it got that way on its own.

But the record is unmistakable. The people now warning about Idaho’s deficit are the same people who voted for, signed, and celebrated the budgets that created it.

This isn’t unexpected. It’s the price of years of overspending.

Idaho Doesn’t Have a Revenue Problem — Idaho Has a Spending Problem

When big spenders claim Idaho’s budget growth is the result of population increases or inflation, the numbers tell a different story.

Between 2015–2025:

• Revenue (state tax gross receipts) up 104%
• Population up 23%
• Inflation up 35%

Revenues grew far faster than both population and inflation.

Appropriations grew even faster:

• All-fund appropriations up 108%

In ten years, Idaho more than doubled its appropriations. That isn’t population growth. It isn’t inflation. It isn’t a revenue shortfall.

IDAHO HAS A SPENDING PROBLEM.

Idaho Needs Leadership With a Plan — Not Leaders Surprised by Their Own Decisions

The coming session is a test. Idaho can continue the cycle — overspend, panic, correct, repeat — or it can adopt a sustainable budget model that protects taxpayers and preserves state sovereignty.

The Gang of Eight remains committed to a restrained, transparent, priority-based approach to budgeting. Idahoans deserve a government that plans ahead, not one that acts surprised when math happens.

The warnings were clear. The crisis is here now, and Idaho must choose whether to correct course or continue repeating this cycle.

Idaho has a spending problem. The solution starts now, with a Legislature that finally has the discipline to fix it. We intend to be that Legislature.