Popkey: Otter's days of wanting to cut programs are gone

- Idaho Statesman

Edition Date: 01/11/09

The moment Gov. Butch Otter spent almost 40 years preparing for has arrived. Ever a critic of a growing government, Otter now has the chance to sharply cut state programs.

On Monday, with revenues in free-fall, he delivers his budget message and State of the State. The most important speech of his life comes after Friday's news that Idaho unemployment jumped almost a full point last month, to 6.6 percent, the highest in more than 20 years.

But Otter and other Republicans - knowing their party has run legislative budget-writing since 1961 - realize there are few easy decisions ahead.

"We run such a tight ship over here that when we do have cuts, they hurt," said GOP Sen. John McGee of Caldwell. "It's going to be painful. And I'll tell you what's different: We don't know where the bottom is."

The Butch Otter who served in the Idaho House in the 1970s and first ran for governor in 1978 would have joyfully taken an ax to state spending. But at 66, after 14 years as lieutenant governor and six years in Congress, he's changed.

Congress taught him complexity and compromise. After calling Social Security a "failure" and urging privatization, he backed away. He cast a critical vote for the huge Medicaid prescription drug benefit.

The crumbling economy gives him a chance to affirm a core value: "Government should be there when nobody else is," but leave the rest to the private sector.

Being governor has shown him that finding that line is vexing. He says he can't get the face of an autistic boy named Spencer out of his mind. Spencer's mother confronted Otter about cutting Spencer's treatment from 30 hours a week to 22. "Nobody ever mentions the Health and Welfare budget that I don't see Spencer's face," Otter said. "Ever."

Yes, Otter worries about struggling business, including farmers. "But they're big guys. They've had to make do with the same tractor for another 10 years, or they've baling-wired something together. You can't bale-wire that kid's head."

Still, raising taxes is off the table, except for his roads initiative. A tax increase would push more struggling families over the edge and prompt more job loss, Otter said. "You create a lot more casualties when you raise taxes to the extent we'd have to to make up the difference."

Look for Otter to suggest eliminating some programs, along with trimming employee hours and other steps to minimize layoffs. Leaders of the big Republican majority want Otter to identify any luxury.

"This economic circumstance, as grim as it is, is a great opportunity to look deep into the bowels of government to say what is necessary and what is nice and make that distinction," said Senate President Pro Tem Bob Geddes of Soda Springs. Otter also uses the "necessary v. nice" phrase.

Geddes, who listened to two days of testimony last week about a sick economy, reflects a widespread view that the worst is yet to come. He doubts rebound projections. "Every one of them predicts we'll see recovery in 2010. What in the hell gives them that idea?" he said. "I've heard no evidence, no data, no real basis other than optimism that will be the case."

Geddes is also skeptical of what he sees as interest groups driving opposition to cuts, including providers of Medicaid services. On Thursday, the first march on the Legislature will be by disabled Idahoans and their families. "It's the providers that are getting these families to write these letters to the Legislature," Geddes said. "I personally take offense to that."

House Majority Leader Mike Moyle has high hopes for Otter budget wizardry. "What I'm telling my members is when the governor brings his budget forward, unless there are major holes in it, let's pass it and go home," Moyle said.

Rep. Janet McGeachin, a member of the budget committee from Idaho Falls, said public schools must be cut, contrary to longtime practice in down times. "They'll howl, but they'll howl if we raise taxes, too."

One lawmaker told me that after he lunched at the state cafeteria last week, he's decided he won't return. He doesn't have the stomach to sit with state workers with the prospect of significant layoffs.

That tension is widely felt. Sen. John Goedde of Coeur d'Alene said lawmakers who see the crisis as an opportunity to cut may learn something.

"It's real easy to take that position until you're talking to an individual citizen that's losing something," Goedde said. "How do you tell a senior citizen who can't take care of her own house and is getting help from Health and Welfare that she should sell her house and move into a nursing home?"

Late Friday afternoon, before heading home to study his speech, Otter reflected on how his perspective has changed since his bludgeon-the-government days of the 1970s.

"They're going to find out it's not easy - for all the years that we sat and wistfully thought, 'Wouldn't it be great to cut this and cut that and stop this from happening and stop that from happening?' Then you start putting faces on it, like Spencer. You start putting faces on it and it does make a difference."

dpopkey@idahostatesman.com 377-6438