During the 2025 Legislative Session, lawmakers have passed over $450 million in tax relief that will be ongoing each year and cut roughly $500 million from budgets.
COEUR d’ALENE, Idaho — At an event on Saturday, March 29, Idaho Senator Carl Bjerke (R–Coeur d’Alene) candidly responded to a question about Idaho’s overall economic standing.
“I would say we have good news,” stated Bjerke to the crowd of roughly 350 people who attended a legislative wrap-up town hall hosted by Candlelight Christian Fellowship. “We are healthy economically in this state.”
He then proceeded to give a synopsis of the current situation. Readers can watch his full address on the topic via this link.
“We’re in the top four of states in growth in the United States,” he stated. “Our population is increasing, our revenues are increasing. We are anticipating $6.4 billion in revenue this year.”
Bjerke reiterated comments made by his fellow legislators about how the legislature has cut over $450 million in taxes across three revenue streams—property tax (H304), grocery tax (H231), and income tax (H40)—this session alone and has reduced budgets by hundreds of millions.
“We have cut a half a billion dollars out of our budget… giving $453 million in tax relief, keeping three percent on the bottom line. A very, very healthy economy,” stated Bjerke after reminding the audience that Idaho has a balanced budget. “We are not the federal government.”
Bjerke explained that over a 5-year period, state growth has been 32 percent when factoring population increase into the 24 percent inflation growth. “None of our budgets have grown over the five years—base budget to base budget—anywhere near 32 percent.”
“Somebody will tell you we need to cut 55 percent out of our budget, that’s not true,” he stated. “Someone tells you that, they are misleading you.”
The senator, who is the vice chair of the Health and Welfare Committee and former co-chair of the Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee (JFAC), said anyone who claims the budgets have grown exponentially are factoring in the money from Medicaid. “We have programs here in the state that we are in collaboration with the federal government.”
Bjerke detailed how the biggest amount of funds coming in from the federal government is to provide Medicaid and Medicaid Expansion programs to Idahoans, which is why roughly 40 percent of Idaho’s budget is “funded” by the federal government.
“We are statutorily and legally responsible for paying those budgets.”
Rep. Elaine Price (R–Coeur d’Alene) sits on JFAC and said she is very proud of the work the committee has accomplished this year. “We have made huge strides in cutting the budgets this year.”
“We have 548 line items that we view and we cut 48 of them, which is millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars,” she stated. Additionally, she said 36 other line items were reduced in spending. She said that this is how lawmakers tell the agencies that “we have got to stop spending.”
Bjerke pushed back on naysayers who cry foul over using federal money. He views the “federal money” as our money coming back to us.
“Economics is like the practice of medicine. If economics was finite and ‘solved science’ we wouldn’t have multiple theories.”
“You want a group of people that see things with a little bit more of their own perspective and life experience. The question was: How are we doing in the state? We are doing fantastic.”
As a final thought, Bjerke reiterated that the growth of the state will require intelligent spending. “When you cut, you also have to appropriate [funds] appropriately.” He noted that Idaho is 50th in medical providers per capita. “We are dead last… my constituents call me and say ‘hey I need a doctor’… so is there an appropriation that can help assist that? Yeah. We need to look at things a little bit more holistically.”
A lot of other issues and legislation was discussed by 10 of the 12 lawmakers from Legislative Districts 2, 3, 4, and 5 at the event. The entire event was streamed on Candlelight’s website and can be viewed via this link. Additional articles with more specifics will publish soon.
