Idaho Pulse

Four weeks out from Idaho's 2026 election, this episode works through Prop 1, the abortion ballot measure, and the objections to its undefined viability standard, its silence on parental consent, and who could perform abortions under it. Then: a new 44-page Pork Report on state and local government waste, an Econ 101 case that barriers to entry rather than big companies drive up gas, housing and insurance prices, a small-town accountability story out of Lava Hot Springs, and the tax breaks behind Micron's $15 billion fab.

This episode runs the Idaho fights shaping the stretch before Election Day: Prop 1's bid to undo the state's abortion trigger law and the out-of-state money pouring into that campaign, access politics at the Statehouse and the lobbyists buying it, and a new pork report cataloging billions in waste, fraud, and abuse — from $72 million to teach teachers to teach reading to hundreds of millions in state spending left unmonitored. It closes with an econ lesson on what prices signal and what breaks when government caps them.

This episode covers the case for disciplined, diversified index investing. It explains why stocks have built real wealth about three and a half times faster than bonds after inflation, and how owning more than 13,000 companies through four funds avoids betting on anyone's genius. It also covers why a five-year bond "war chest" lets investors ride out crashes without selling. The discussion then turns to sky-high AI valuations and echoes of the dot-com era, whether AI will replace financial advisors, and why trying to time the market may be the costliest mistake an investor can make.

This episode runs from culture to cash: the case that American culture is being diluted, the American Dream as its author defined it in the 1930s, Coolidge's tax cuts set against FDR's New Deal, a bleak set of numbers on Gen Z and student debt, AI as equalizer or divider, and an Econ 101 breakdown of inflation — why gas leads, why wages lag, and why the industries government touches most are the ones whose prices climb fastest. It closes on school choice, the education tax credit, and Idaho's freedom fight.

Three fights in one episode: Proposition 1, the November ballot measure the episode argues would push Idaho's abortion law past where it stood before Dobbs; a Charlie Kirk memorial on the Capitol steps, where a heckling crowd across the street becomes the proof that the message landed; and a full economics lesson on the "curse of machinery," running from the tractor to Carnegie's Bessemer furnace to AI — the case that labor-saving technology has always created more work than it destroyed.

Idaho's kindergarten vaccine exemption rate has climbed to 17.5% — the highest in the country and well above neighboring Utah's 12.7%. From there: $4.6 billion in continuous appropriations that never face a legislative vote, elective continuous spending up nearly 600% in five years, a teachers' union insurance shortfall claim, Micron's $50 billion plant and the 2008 tax cap that could shield most of its value, more than 500 H-1B applications, and an Econ 101 lesson on why profit grows the pie instead of taking a bigger slice.

Idaho's Prop 1 abortion ballot measure dominates this episode: targeted voter-registration mail, well-funded pro-abortion ad campaigns, and the warning that complacency — not public opinion — is what could pass it in a pro-life state. The Lindsey Clancy trial raises hard questions about the insanity defense and a fix-it-with-a-pill culture. Then an Economics 101 segment on consumer choice: utility, inflation's income and substitution effects, price controls, the diamond–water paradox, and why a utility monopoly keeps raising rates.

This episode sounds the alarm on a federal plan it says would bring fuel-rod reprocessing and a third of the nation's nuclear waste to the INL, above the Snake River Aquifer, then weighs that fear against the case for nuclear power. From there: Idaho Power's rate hike and cloud-seeding doubts, Idaho's claimed 40% dependence on federal dollars, evidence that school choice lifts public-school students far more than new spending, the drive to crush Prop 1's abortion measure, and how government spending pads GDP.

This episode runs through Idaho's fastest-moving fights: license-plate flock cameras and the Fourth Amendment privacy questions they raise, a local-government transparency story out of Lava Hot Springs, and the case for tariffs over federal income tax. It covers the labor market, immigration, and Prop 1, the ballot measure that would roll back Idaho's abortion trigger law. The back half is a free-market economics lesson — efficiency, lumber and housing regulation, burger-joint competition, and what AI means for jobs.

Idaho Prop 1 goes before voters on November 3rd, and this episode makes the case against it. Also on the table: the Twin Falls In-N-Out shooting and ten years of constitutional carry, flock cameras and the drift toward mass surveillance, and a plain-English economics lesson on elasticity that explains why the state taxes groceries, gas, cigarettes, and cell service — the goods people cannot stop buying. Closing on illegal immigration, GDP, and a debt-to-GDP ratio the discussion calls a warning sign.