This is a discussion that will be political in nature, but I don’t want inflammatory remarks, extreme comments, insults, none of that. I’m curious about all perspectives. Whether you’re democrat, republican, independent, libertarian, leftist, it doesn’t matter to me.
I feel like there’s a lot of talk about problems that don’t actually exist in political spheres. I genuinely feel like our government—congress, legislative bodies, representatives, even city council members—have no idea what actually concerns the average Idahoan. I believe all political perspectives have to have at least some day-to-day concerns in common. Even if the perspective is shifted slightly. There’s likely many things that we all want! But I feel like our government, popular culture, media, news sources, etc., all focus on the wrong problems we’re having.
In your day-to-day life, what can our community and government do to make your experience living in Idaho better? What do you think are our most pressing concerns as a state and community? What issues affect you, personally, that you think need to be addressed?
Like I said, all perspectives welcome, I just really want to avoid overblown imaginary problems and understand what it is that other people are actually concerned about living here. Not just Boise, too! I should specify that. I’m really interested in what concerns are for rural, low income, low population areas of the state. (Not to generalize, I hope y’all know what I mean.)
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The management, conservation, and maintenance of our public lands. Keep Idaho public.
The other big one is education. We need to support public schools and teachers. If public funds go to support private schools or vouchers it will only perpetuate economic inequality.
I definitely agree that the idaho education system needs help. I used to work at a school, but I switched over to pizza delivery because I made more with $3.something/hr and tips than with troubled and special needs kids.
Our school district just went to a 4 day week for next year 🤦♀️
Public schools are failing and I no longer want to support it with my money.
What would be your proposed alternatives? Have public schools always been failing, or is it a more recent development?
Like any government program, leave it up to the private sector and competition. There are no incentives for government programs to improve. In public school, if you don’t like how or what your kids are being taught, you can certainly send your kids to private school, but you’re still forced to pay for public school regardless.
If we choose schools like we choose….anything else, schools who do not perform will have the incentive to improve or else they go out of business.
Better change the state constitution then.
Government will never run anything well. Privatize it or suffer.
What do you imagine will happen to impoverished communities and children if education becomes a luxury for the wealthy?
Oh they know. They just don't care at best, or actively want it at worst
The UN, with the assistance of Eleanor Roosevelt, wrote a universal declaration of human rights. That’s a good start.
We want to live our lives in health and simple comfort. To that end we want health care and individual freedoms. The right to bodily autonomy: to determine what happens to, and what we put into, our own body. The right to worship, and NOT worship, how we want. To not have anyone else’s religion imposed on us in any way.
We want to be able to afford to live in the places we live and work. We want labor rights and a minimum wage that keeps up with the real cost of goods and services. If wages are too much for a business to pay without folding, then that business was never viable to begin with. Exploitation is not a value we want to build our community on.
We want our children to get an education that will prepare them to be peaceable, productive, and healthy members of our global community and economy. We want them to be just as competent as any other country’s upcoming generation. To that end we want all children to get a quality education- leaving no one out: not the poor, and not the different. Everyone gets a good education; with real, verifiable history; not just the parts that don’t make anyone uncomfortable. We don’t want public dollars siphoned out of public schools to line the pockets of private special interests teaching propaganda, regardless of flavor.
We want to continue to enjoy the beauty of this state, and this country, that we all love. To that end we want responsibility for its care to be part of everyone’s job. And we want people who cause harm to our air, land, and water to be stopped, even punished, so that the beauty, health, and safety of our environment remains for our descendants to enjoy.
We can disagree about how to achieve these things. What I can’t fathom is why anyone argues whether we even should achieve these things.
Beautifully said! Wow!
You must not live in North Idaho. There's plenty of people up here that don't want any of that. At least don't want that for everyone.
Plenty of people in North Idaho would flip out as soon as she said "UN."
I used to encourage statements like this because it meant that maybe less people would come to Idaho, but it's just having the effect of attracting the worst kind of people.
Yeah and it's making the state more radical as the most radical people move here since it's a "safe haven".
Now a bunch of my friends I grew up with have to move away because it's so gentrified to hell.
Even the boonies are getting gentrified. There used to just be weirdos that were relatively friendly way back in the woods near my parent's place, but now there's million dollar horse ranches with owners that try to put gates up over county roads.
I would agree with you. However the how is the problem. I want these by. A small government with limited taxes.
Can you be a little more specific, you ask for healthcare, can you not visit Dr.s and get medicine in your neck of the woods?
Reproductive rights are healthcare, so no there is healthcare (mainly women) cannot "visit Dr.s and get medicine" in their neck of the woods.
I agree government should stay out of our lives and our rights, but the left is full tilt control. They will dictate what you can or cannot say, what you can own or not own. So it sounds like you may want less government interference in your life, but your list says otherwise.
If you can look at the laws currently in place that are directly controlling the lives of the people of Idaho, the laws passed by Republicans (i.e abortion bans, travel bans, health of the mother bans, library book bans, medical marijuana/other drug bans, healthcare for minors, etc.) and can utter/write the words "the left is full tilt control" without jest, you are without logic and your privilege has you blinded.
Ever heard the phrase “know thy enemy?” I’m pretty left and there is no way I want government in “full tilt control.” Seems you have much more to learn about the other side. Don’t let The News and The Socials make you so scared—so much of that is bullshit and doesn’t represent either of us. Best wishes
As much as that slogan probably helps you sleep at nite, abortion (which is what you’re saying when you say “reproductive rights”) is not healthcare. It is the termination of one life in favor of another. While I think there are circumstances where it’s the lesser of two evils, no one has an unchecked right to take the life of another. There is no other scenario where you could look me in the eye and say “unrestricted ability to take human life is a good thing” without blushing.
Abortion is killing another human. While select circumstances may make it “justifiable”, never lose sight of the gravity of the act and in many cases, the irresponsibly involved by both mom and dad and the kid who pays the price for it.
As the laws across the country have proven, abortion is a more complex and nuanced reality than uneducated self-righteous politicians can wrap their heads around. Reproductive care IS HEALTHCARE and it encompasses more than what conservatives factually inaccurate ideas of what abortion is, when it is done, why it is done, and who receives them. It is your religious and theological beliefs that a fetus is an full fledged life equal (or greater) than the mother who carries it. Our nation's constitution allows you to have that opinion and express it. However, this is not a shared view across all people and your religious dogma cannot be forced onto the women of this country to make your congregations feel good. In the US we have a right to our bodily autonomy and to make our own reproductive care decisions with the expertise of medical professionals, NOT local church leaders and clueless politicians. The forced birth or "pro-life" laws/movement being passed in this country are the MOST hypocritical, uncaring, judgmental collections of absolute political horse shit Americans have witnessed in a long while. The state government needs to get out of our bedrooms, get out of our uteri, and GET OUT OF OUR EXAM ROOMS!
Man, if only you had someone in your life being forced to carry a nonviable ALREADY UNALIVE clump of cells. I mean, you want women to die because you can't understand biology? jfc. We don't care about your f*cking religion.
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While doctors are actually leaving the state due to law changes, the physical absence of doctors is not the only barrier citizens have in obtaining healthcare. Financial barriers that are coupled with rising housing costs, other costs of living going up, and rather stagnant wages are a major barrier. Idaho is pretty stingy with Medicaid and nutritional/ wellness programs that help prevent health problems as well. But if you want to get right down to it, yes, as a woman if I have another ectopic pregnancy like I did in 2015, at this point there's a very real chance that if I couldn't get out of the state for care, I would die before I could be helped here.
Your comment about the ectopic not being treated is untrue.
https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idstat/title18/t18ch6/sect18-617/
https://www.npr.org/2024/04/25/1246990306/more-emergency-flights-for-pregnant-patients--in-idaho#:~:text=In%20July%202023%2C%20Idaho's%20abortion,the%20mother%20and%20the%20fetus.
About 3/4 of the way down it states Idaho has not outlawed abortion for molar pregnancy or ectopic. The fact MDs are concerned about it still is not based in legal fact but rather politicking the issue
If you have an ectopic pregnancy or molar pregnancy in Idaho, you can have the treatment you need
The fact is, that doctors are concerned based on vagueness of the law, and the fact is that actual women have been denied actual services until the point when they are in actual danger. So it is true. Whether you want to call it politicking or not, we're not going to nitpick that here.
I would venture to say doctors are worried because of how this state applies the law. We have an AG that is an idiot that will sign on to any and all legal briefs asking for permission to go after these doctors...even if they are within the law. I mean I think maybe you don't really understand the difference between "can" have the treatment and having access to the treatment. The outcome is the same and is what the far-right wants.
So the only Doctors that matter are Obgyn, that is very unnerving that everyone that is not pregnant does not need your definition of healthcare help.
Stagnant wages? Yea I can imagine in these days of hyperinflation, if you don’t earn more than minimum wage you would be screwed financially so to speak. But as we have seen when companies have to pay more for SG&A they charge more for their goods or services. So which do you want lower costs of goods and services or higher wages?
Now that you've edited your comment to be more clear, I have another example of someone who isn't pregnant but wasn't able to have their healthcare needs met in Idaho in case you're curious. My son was born with a congenital heart defect, but there are no pediatric heart surgeons in the state of Idaho. We had to travel to Utah and then to California in order for him to get surgeries he needed to live. There were quite a few expenses beyond just the hospital stay from those trips as well.
The higher cost of goods and services is due to corporate greed more than having to pay for cost of living. Take in n out for example, despite California raising minimum wage again and again you can still get a full meal for 7.75$. With the most recent minimum wage hike the price of the combo only went up 25 cents. Even in states that don't have as robust a minimum wage like Nevada/Arizona the workers still make 13-20$ an hour. I know for a lot of smaller businesses this could be a killer but if we don't keep up with some sort of average national minimum wage, won't we just be left behind? Before Reaganomics we did raise the minimum with inflation steadily, I wonder why that stopped 🤔
We are no where close to hyperinflation.
I'm going to level with you, I read your first sentence several times and I still don't know what you're trying to say. I'm not pregnant. I have an IUD, but I also still have a vagina and a uterus and pregnancy is not the only reason that women may need to see some of the specialists who have left the state. Almost nobody earns minimum wage, what a silly, condescending argument. 15 bucks an hour is double minimum wage and your family would still be living in poverty. 22 bucks an hour is triple and puts you in the position of maybe not being able to pay all your bills, but making too much to qualify for any benefits to help your family. God forbid you have a kid who has a serious health concern or you end up with cancer or something. But hey, as long as corporations are making that money. Praise capitalism, screw your neighbor.
Stat with affordable housing. We can work on record corporate profits later.
The sale of our public lands to private hands.
Keep our greenery, forests, and natural features! Yes!
I agree if the federal government cannot keep the forests healthy and green the state should take over the land and responsibility, and in doing so we should have to pay less in Federal taxes and more in state so that the forests are healthy once again.
Why are the forests not healthy? It's an ecosystem that should take care of itself like it has for millions of years. Why would it matter if the fed or state has possession?
A hundred years of not letting natural fires burn like they had for thousands of years has screwed up the natural balance of burning and regrowth and renewal. Many forested areas all over the country are snarls of dense undergrowth and tight packed trees that cause the natural fires to burn hotter than they had in the past. Big healthy trees in a healthy forest can very often survive a fire.
We no longer tread lightly when we in mass go into the forests. When millions of people go in and unfortunately some do not practice carry it in carry it out. They leave a ton of crap in the forest. Back in the day the Forest Service Rangers would as a team go and clear trails clean up after the worst campers/hikers and clear diseased trees. Their budgets and head count has been eroded and reallocated to just fire fighting. Put simply there are too many people who access the forest and not enough maintenance.
Well, maybe stop voting for people who gut these programs? The forrestry teams I follow online have an immense job to do....you can help by grabbing your rake and red hat...right? Get out there bud!
Please check your assumptions. I live on a NF road and I volunteer for the local fire and medical services. I never voted for Bill Clinton, he was the first president I knew of that gutted a ton from the forest service. I would gladly vote for candidates that would support conservation of nature and wildlife.
I tend to donate more $ to those causes as well. But you go ahead and assume I vote for the evil empire that sucks the life out of the planet.
Big one here. The oligarchs and rich tech bros would love to buy up the public lands and keep the little folk out. People don't understand the treasure we have.
In places with little public lands (such as Texas, East Coast, Europe) there are scarce public lands. If you float down a river you cannot camp along the shores because it is all private land. If you want to hunt you mostly need to join a hunting club that allows you to hunt on a large estate owned by Oligarchs.
Conservatives attempt to coopt this issue and try to sell it as public lands is a liberal thing and it is much better to have rich people own the land and make it available out of their good graces. The conservatives are not on our side on this issue.
Thats funny, because the conservatives in my area are WILDLY against public lands getting sold off.
This is the big one for me as well
Sadly these sell offs come down to money. They were all huge money sinks now they are earners with taxes it’s sad but necessary
The cost of housing, even in rural areas it's skyrocketed and many people earning Idaho wages simply can't afford anything. Yeah there are other important things, but when basic needs are met its a lot easier to focus on quality of life improvements.
Nuclear power, sufficient to meet the entire power grid needs and then keep adding capacity for future demand.
This is the only way to replace hydroelectric allowing dam removal, and the only realistic alternative to carbon dioxide emitting fuel sources.
Idaho is well positioned to be a leader in nuclear energy if we go for it. Wish we would
We have a rich history in nuclear research and uranium extraction
I love the direction Idaho is going with nuclear research. With groups actively fighting against windmill & solar projects, and the musscle problem threatening hydropower...it would be really wise to look to nuclear.
I love the idea of nuclear power. We have a pretty substantial tech industry here in the treasure valley that makes me think maybe this could transfer to engineers reliable enough to run a nuclear power plant or 2. But also regulations about conduct and restoration would have to be really strict.
Well in order to get there, we need to have a state that is welcoming of all types. Diversity outreech isn't about woke agendas..it's also about attracting skilled labor who are apprehensive about moving here because well...Idaho's reputation. We scare away people because they look, dress, talk, or love differently. Pretty self-defeating.
Idaho has a long history of libertarianism. Feels like that is missing in the current state political discourse. Libertarianism has always skewed more towards the right, but today's Republicans seem focused on very non-libertarian efforts like banning trans healthcare, strict abortion ban, library/book bans, keeping marijuana illegal despite the states around us moving towards more legalization. Seems like a new crop of candidates could capitalize on this latent potential.
Me personally, I'm on the left and so most of my priorities sit there. I have a trans family member, so that ban affects me directly. I also work in Medicaid-funded healthcare, so funding for social programs is a top priority. Also feel the Boise area (where I live) is suffering from a general lack of good mass transit. As the valley continues to grow, it's only going to become more important.
Legal weed is needed. Our current laws create alcoholics, which is worse in comparison. An anti pan handling law would be good too. I can see it getting worse over time.
As the weather gets warmer year after year, we will see an increase in vagrancy. I don't want to outlaw homelessness by any means...but the pan handlers are a public safety issue. It's not the old days where they'd have a stack of papers to sell you at a red light. Now they stomp their feet, yell at your car..errr sing extremely loud facing your car I mean.... They're assholes. if you don't give them anything or acknowledge them. LOL
Seriously, recently in Twin there was a guy standing several feet into the road when people were trying to make a right turn. I’ve dealt with these clowns in California and New York far too often. One of them is going to eventually catch me on a bad day…
Education. I'm very concerned about what's happening to NIC. It used to be a fantastic start to your education for very cheap. Now it's being destroyed by the out-of-state morons that somehow weasled their way onto the board.
K-12 has always been pretty rough, but there have been a few bright spots at least. I've had a few excellent teachers, but they usually just stayed in Idaho because they liked the area enough to stay. The schools here are constantly having to do Levies to pay for extracurricular activities; which makes absolutely no sense to be because property taxes are going up.
Someone else wrote a letter piece on public lands, and they covered quite a bit of my concerns.
The biggest problem overall has been the same since the 80s. Outsiders moving here and changing everything without understanding anything. I know people will say that it's a typical xenophobic idahoan view, but it's changing too fast to be good for anyone except rich Californians that price out the locals. People move here and try to change everything immediately.
You see old extremists move here (Republican or Democrat) and immediately jump into local politics. They infect every position they can (city councils, school boards, chambers of commerce).
I'd like to see some laws enacted that significantly limit the amount of properties one person can own (2 to 3 properties). I worry that this could backfire a little, so it would be necessary to impose even stricter laws on corporations.
Also, I think you should have to live in Idaho for a minimum time (maybe 5 years) before you can hold an elected position. Not so long that it limits new ideas, but long enough that they have to at least learn about their community.
Dude that unseated Winder came here in 2018 is part of this crazy California migration of weirdos.
Good news is he lost yesterday's election👍. He's the craziness behind book banning legislation.
i could never stand behind a law that would limit individual property rights. instead i’d stand behind limiting a corporation’s ability to owning multiple single family housing props. For example, HUD has a system in place that gives priority to owner occupied buyers on all of their homes for sale. the owner occupied bid period typically lasts between two weeks and a month… they then take the highest bid from that pool. if no owner occupied bid comes in, they then open the sales up to anyone and everyone. it’d be great to see something like that put into place in idaho as a general practice- especially on single family (i.e. non commercial) props
My rights to my body as a woman.
Keeping public land public and out of the hands of wealthy dickheads. Outdoor recreation is huge here and privatization of public lands would kill it.
We’re on a whole different level of land access here in Idaho compared to a lot of places and it’s one of the reasons why I haven’t left.
Issues,concerns that affect me and my loved ones that I think about on the regular:
•Transgender laws
•Women’s healthcare laws
•Healthcare overall
•Keeping up with improving the infrastructure of our city as the population has grown (IF)
•Teacher’s pay
•The entire education system
•Legalization of marijuana
Housing prices. They got to do something so people from here can’t just get priced out all the time
Environmental conservation
Corporate developer greed (goes hand in hand with my first point)
Public school improvement, and subsequently access to education regarding how the government actually works lol (SovCits can’t just commit crimes and be above the law)
Lots of others, but these will cause the demise of Idaho and society as a whole if not handled properly imo
Education, conservation of public land, access to Healthcare(abortion), rank choice voting and better affordable housing.
Also the reduction of extremism on both sides (but mostly the right).
Ranked choice voting would be a game changer in the US in general but especially in Idaho! I'm honestly surprised more people on both sides aren't invested in it
Humans tend to have an uninformed opinions and vote against there best interest.
In no particular order:
Robust conservation and access to public lands
Investment in public education
Investment in healthcare, and yes, birth control and abortion access
Low wages (I've said for a long time that Idaho positioned itself to be preyed upon by investment firms and rich people in other states, pricing Idahoans out of our own housing)
More housing
More vague, but Idaho's legislature seems overly concerned with "culture wars" and things that don't directly affect Idahoans and under-concerned with the above issues.
Education...we have dropped the ball on that issue. Idaho schools are horrible.
Health care...women's reproductive rights. Let's get some intelligent legislation, please.
Public lands and the support they need.
Infrastructure, fix our bridges and roads and the rest that has been neglected in the name of having a "budget surplus"
Term limits on politicians! Federal and state.
Not the only thing of course, but at the very least legalizing medical marijuana. I’ve had too many family members/family friends needing to travel across state lines to get edibles to help with the pain of chemo treatments. It sucks that they had to make such long trips while they were sick, but it also angers me to think about what would’ve happened if they were caught.
Inflation (greedflation) is my #1 issue
anti-abortion & anti-trans laws and how they strip people of bodily autonomy and reproductive rights, doctors leaving Idaho at an alarming rate (particularly OB/GYNS, specifically high-risk obstetricians), attacks on public libraries & education, hate groups & paramilitarization in and around the state, marijuana legalization.
Nobody cares about your body autonomy. It’s the baby that is of concern.
A zygote is not a baby. Use proper terminology and your argument has a lot less force or none at all.
I care about my bodily autonomy and 2. a zygote/embryo/fetus isn't a baby
This is exactly the type of comment I was not wanting. If you have concerns you’d like to share about what’s going on here in Idaho I’d love to know.
This particular commenter is a known instigator. Peruse their comment history for a sampling. Best to just block and move on