It’s been called the plunder of the commons when governments whittle away at the functions of government that serve and protect its citizens. It’s an interesting way to analyze the budget crisis Idaho faces this year.

It’s what happens when the “public wealth” of the state — the revenue raised by taxation and user fees — is regularly cut from the state budget under the guise of tax relief.

In case you missed it, Idaho’s public wealth is under siege. The most obvious attack on its public wealth is threats by some Republicans to sell off public lands. That hasn’t gone well for the party with polling showing Idahoans do not want state or federal government handing over thousands of acres of public wealth to wealthy landowners. So, Republicans have been busy backtracking on that idea and reassuring the public there is no such plan underway in either the state or federal government.

The public wealth of Idaho is also its state budget; nothing more than the revenue raised from Idahoans to provide for services state agencies deliver to the citizens of Idaho. And this is where the handiwork of Gov. Brad Little surfaces. Just last week, he signed the bill of significant budget cuts to state services by claiming ”Idahoans expect their state government to operate efficiently and effectively.”

But according to a report in the Idaho Statesman, since 2005, per capita state spending has remained flat, adjusted for inflation. That sure seems to take the wind out of Little’s sails as he struggles to justify a state budget that serves Idahoans less effectively.

There are legislators who get this. An informal coalition of Democrats and a few Republicans believe the budget cuts, tax increases and exemptions that have created this self-inflicted budget crisis have gone too far. But not enough of them can prevail on a more sensible approach to protecting the public wealth of the state and quitting this nonsense of tax relief on top of tax relief — a naked ploy by Republican leadership to keep their supermajority in Idaho state government.

Little signing the budget-busting bill with no explanation of how Idaho managed itself into such a mess is disappointing. It shows his preoccupation with getting in and out of a primary without a challenge from the right. So, he salutes the right and signs the bill.

One of the findings of political scientists is that many voters inherit political party affiliation from their parents. Set the alarm for a wake-up call if you still think this is the Republican party of your parents. What we have here in Idaho is nothing more than a replica of a heartless Republican party led by a president with no concern for those outside his elite orbit. If there was ever a time to leave our parents’ Republican loyalties behind, that time is now. If there was ever a time for rock-ribbed Republican voters of the past to declare Independent as a voter, that time is now.

Many Republican voters are playing a waiting game as far as Trump is concerned, hoping against hope that the midterms in November will limit the overwhelming control of one-party government and then in 2028, we can start anew. But in the meantime, Republican supermajorities like those in Idaho’s state capitol have been invaded by right-wingers who have way too much sway over the few Republican officeholders left among its elected public officials who still have a modicum of concern for those less fortunate.

To get a whiff of political courage on the Republican side, read Sen. Jim Guthrie’s floor speech on the Medicaid cuts. His speech is reminiscent of that riddle “if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” Guthrie’s Republican colleagues were around and heard him, but only a few heard and acted with Democrats to create a voting bloc that killed the Medicaid cuts for now.

Somewhere along the line in this protracted struggle between those who attack Idaho’s public wealth and those who support it, there must be political courage of the Guthrie type that proposes a Tax Reform Task Force to re-examine the state budget from its revenue side.

“Tax relief” seem to be the only two words in the Republican lexicon, but now it is relief of a different sort that Idaho needs. It’s relief from a series of budget cuts that did not have to happen if Idaho Republicans were not singularly focused on rewarding high-income taxpayers with the tax cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill of President Donald Trump’s and their own mischief in granting tax relief to those who simply don’t need it and should be paying their fair share.

It’s Idaho’s version of the plunder of the commons, the commons that citizens hold dear as what defines an Idaho that cares.

Bob Kustra served as president of Boise State University from 2003 to 2018. He is host of Readers Corner on Boise State Public Radio, a regular columnist for the Idaho Statesman and a contributing columnist for the Chicago Tribune. He served two terms as Illinois lieutenant governor and 10 years as a state legislator.