Guest Columnist ID Representative David Leavitt: The Bill Nobody Asked For — And Who Actually Pays For It

Washington has offered Idaho millions of dollars for rural healthcare.

At first glance, that sounds like good news. But before Idaho accepts the money, there are three questions every citizen should ask: where the money came from, why it exists, and who will ultimately pay for it.

A bill moving through the Idaho Legislature, House Bill 862, the Rural Health Transformation Act, would create a state fund to receive federal rural healthcare grant money and establish a legislative committee to oversee and recommend how those funds are used.

Now that Idaho has applied for these federal funds without prior legislative approval, we should ask three simple questions: where the money came from, why the program exists, and who will ultimately pay for it.

This program did not originate because Idaho asked for it. It was created as part of a political deal in Washington. When the “One Big Beautiful Bill” moved through the United States Senate, it needed votes. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska had leverage with her vote and used it. In exchange for her support, tens of billions in rural health spending were added to the bill.

Idaho was not the reason for that provision. Idaho is simply one of the states now invited to participate in the result.

There is another detail that deserves attention. The Idaho Legislature never voted to apply for this federal grant. The application was submitted by the executive branch before lawmakers had any opportunity to weigh in. By the time the Legislature convened, the Department of Health and Welfare had already developed a framework describing how the money would be spent. Lawmakers were not deciding whether Idaho should pursue the program. We were being asked to formalize a structure that had already been set in motion.

Some will say that doesn’t matter. If the money exists, Idaho might as well take it.

But that argument requires ignoring a simple reality: the federal government does not have this money. It does not collect enough in taxes to cover what it spends. The difference is borrowed. The national debt now stands near $38.9 trillion, and every new program adds to it.

The money offered through the Rural Health Transformation Act is borrowed money.

In 2021, when federal ARPA funds were sent to the states after the pandemic, the Idaho Legislature confronted the same question we face today. Lawmakers passed Senate Bill 1204, asserting legislative authority over those federal dollars and acknowledging what they truly represented.

The bill stated plainly:

“ARPA funds are borrowed from our grandchildren. To the extent allowable under law, the state should make long-range investments with ARPA funds that will benefit our grandchildren.”

Those words were written by the Legislature itself. They were not campaign rhetoric or political messaging. They were a formal recognition that federal spending today becomes debt carried by the next generation.

Despite that warning, ARPA-funded programs were written into Idaho law and into the state’s budgets. Instead of making long-range investments that would benefit our grandchildren, we used borrowed money to bind them to the bill.

The warning was clear, yet the lesson went unlearned. Temporary federal money became permanent state obligations, and now we are being asked to do it again.

Federal spending follows a familiar pattern. Washington borrows and sends money to the states. Programs are built around those dollars. Expectations form. And eventually the federal support fades while the obligations remain.

But the problem is not only financial. It is moral.

Taking what belongs to someone without their consent is wrong. Government borrowing does not change that moral reality, it only changes the mechanism. And federal borrowing goes further still: it takes from people who cannot consent because they do not yet exist.

Our country debates endlessly about abortion, about when life begins and what protections the unborn deserve. That debate divides the left and the right and shapes elections, courts, and public policy. Yet regardless of where someone stands, one reality is consistently ignored: whatever the unborn are, we have decided they can pay. If they have no claim to life, they certainly have no protection from financial obligation. And if they are full human beings deserving every protection we can offer, binding them to debt before they draw their first breath becomes a different kind of violence. You cannot have it both ways.

We have chosen to treat the unborn as disposable when their existence is inconvenient — and as collateral when their future labor is useful.

The French economist Frédéric Bastiat warned about this dynamic more than a 170 years ago.

“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”

Federal spending today follows exactly that pattern. The language speaks of investment, compassion, and progress. What it rarely names is who actually pays.

The children who will repay this debt were not present for the negotiation. They cast no vote. They have no voice and no recourse. Yet they are already obligated.

That is not investment. That is not compassion. That is generational bondage.

If we truly believe what our own law says about federal money, the answer should be clear.

Idaho should reject these funds. We should refuse to build state programs on borrowed money our children and grandchildren will be forced to repay, and we should pass legislation ensuring these funds like these are not accepted by any state agency or institution.

We should also send a clear message to the Governor, who allowed the application for these funds before seeking legislative approval: Idaho will not participate in this.

Going forward, any application for federal grants of this magnitude should require legislative approval before it is submitted. The executive branch should not ask Washington for money first and ask the Legislature for forgiveness later.

If the money is truly borrowed from our grandchildren, the only honest course is to stop spending it.