“Idaho was DOGE before DOGE was cool.” That was Gov. Little yesterday in his State of the State address, and subsequent press conference, invoking the now “infamous” DOGE, the Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy led Department of Government Efficiency.

Let’s give the governor his due on reducing regulations as a way to increase government efficiency. We won’t argue whether the reductions go far enough. Our concern here is with state budgets. 

As we mentioned last month, Idaho under Little has grown state spending at nearly the same rate as the Biden administration has grown federal spending. The numbers don’t lie. Over the last five years state spending is up 53%. How about the U.S. federal budget? Over five years it is up 56%. Not much difference. 

We bring this up because we had hoped this year would be different. Last session the Legislature appropriated $235 million more than the governor requested, but our hope this year is that the Legislature will spend less than that governor called for. Why? Because the governor’s ask is unreasonable. It is the antithesis of DOGE!

For starters, it is rare for a governor to disagree with his own Department of Human Resources (DHR) on plans for state employee pay. The DHR proposed a pay raise (known in the world of government as “Change in Employee Compensation,” or CEC) of 4% for FY26. Little  topped that with his own proposal for a 5% increase. It may seem a small matter, but this is about an extra $35 million, and it certainly doesn’t send a message to agencies that it’s time to tighten belts.

Somewhat surprisingly, the governor spoke about the need for accountability in education, particularly as it relates to any education tax credit going to non-public schools, yet he also mentioned there has been an 80% increase in state education funding during his tenure. While we are not sure how he calculated this number, we would note that K-12 public school test results have been largely flat. So naturally a governor who believes in accountability would be reluctant to further increase public K-12 spending, right? 

Wrong, the governor is touting his $150 million increase in public school funding! 

This leaves us scratching our heads. The governor speaks of a need to hold private schools accountable, but he can’t seem to come up with any mechanisms for public school accountability. Nope. Just give them more money!

Looking at the overall budget, the governor's net $500 million increase in all-funds spending may seem modest, but it is masked by a nearly $500 million decline in one-time spending as COVID monies wind down. This means ongoing spending will be up roughly $1 billion! And, despite transfering over $400 million out of General Fund revenues for spending on things like public defense and workforce housing and not including this amount in the General Fund increase, his proposed increase for the General Fund alone is 7.4%. It’s outrageous growth in government.

There are many things we could say about the governor’s budget plans, but the biggest disappointment has to be his reluctance to rein in Medicaid spending. He made no mention at all of the single biggest program, which consumes 37% of the state’s budget, or nearly $5.3 billion. In fact, he requested a $551 million increase for it, though he said nothing about it yesterday.

The governor shares our hope and enthusiasm for a successful Trump administration, but we see none of the bold ideas we hoped would be forthcoming. He fails to offer spending reductions that could match his regulatory achievements.

Idaho’s population growth and strong economy has allowed the governor to both cut taxes and increase spending, albeit he’s done more of the latter. And this year his tax relief offer of $100 million pales in comparison to his massive spending increases. It’s the latter which seems to be Little’s real priority.