Idaho Pulse

Idaho split the difference on election night. Proposition 1, the measure to re-legalize abortion, lost by 10 points despite millions in outside money — while Democrats flipped six legislative seats and pushed the statehouse to an 80-20 split. This episode works through the county-by-county map, the role of church turnout, conservative wins up north and losses in the Magic Valley, the marijuana initiative fight, school levies and property taxes, and what a bluer Idaho means heading into 2028.

Recorded on Election Day 2026, this episode runs through the Idaho fights over money and schools: a state budget the discussion says has doubled in seven years to more than $14 billion, government as the state's largest employer, public schools that never have enough, the case for school choice and the education tax credit, $400 million cited for illegal immigration alongside 14 bills that never reached a vote, a grocery tax repeal that keeps stalling, Prop 1 on the ballot, and growth outrunning Idaho's roads, power, and water.

A pre-election run through the Idaho fights on the table: a biannual pork report putting identified state waste at over $2 billion — enough, the episode argues, to abolish property taxes outright — a grocery tax credit sold as a tax cut, breaks handed to data centers and Micron, a state budget that doubled in seven years, the savings case for school choice, protests spreading across Europe, and Proposition 1's bid to undo Idaho's abortion ban. A conservative read on where Idaho's money, culture, and ballot are headed.

Two ballot items anchor this episode: Proposition 1, the abortion initiative, and HJR4, which would move Idaho's drug law out of the initiative process. The discussion tracks the $9.7 million cited as flooding in on both sides, argues a simple-majority threshold invites out-of-state proxy wars, and reads a trip to Spain as a cautionary tale about planned economies. Also here: a $2 billion waste claim from the 2026 pork report, Micron's tax breaks, Lava Hot Springs, and 14 immigration bills the episode says died in a chairman's drawer.

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.