A citizens committee has voted to give Idaho legislators a raise, and just about everyone has an opinion on whether they should take it.
Last week, the Idaho State Senate approved a bill to reject the roughly 22% pay hike, which would have increased legislative salaries from $19,913 to about $25,000 per year. The hike is worth roughly $5,000 per legislator.
This week, the Idaho House has introduced a resolution which allows legislators to forgo all or part of their legislative pay and donate it to Tax Relief Fund. In other words, if you're opposed to the increase, donate it back to the state.
Opponents of the pay hike have insisted that the money, instead, be spent on tax relief.
A 22% salary hike for legislators sounds large, until you start doing the math. In total, it represents just $534,135 in state spending, or .00009% of the state's general fund revenues in 2024.
If you used that money on tax relief, instead, you'd have enough to give every citizen in the state about 26 cents. You read that right - 26 cents.
Tax relief is needed, not only in Idaho but across the nation. Keeping tax rates low can help working families and businesses, and make the state more attractive to new business. Idaho will likely consider hundreds of millions of dollars in tax decreases this session. (For the record, we've recommended they start with lowering the income tax.)
But 26 cents won't buy you much relief.
It's worth considering how the states compare when it comes to legislative salaries. Idaho's current legislative salary is higher than in Louisiana, Maine, Nebraska, North Carolina, Virginia, Texas, South Dakota, South Carolina, North Dakota, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Rhode Island.
New Hampshire, notably, pays legislators just $100 in salary. New Mexico doesn't pay its lawmakers a dime of salary (though they do receive mileage and a travel stipend during session).
Idaho ranks below most other states and even U.S. territories, including Guam and American Samoa.
Debating whether Idaho should pay its legislators more is certainly valid. And calling for a reduction in the financial burden and taxes we're placing on citizens is needed.
But let's not pretend that we could use the proposed pay hike to lower taxes in any meaningful way.