Budget Choices & the 2026 Session with Jordan Redman

I'm good man. How are you doing? Good man. Okay. So we are in the home stretch. Like here we go.

Potentially by the end of this week. It's Tuesday right now. Maybe the beginning of next week.

We're here and you were saying that the house is still meeting with committees. The Senate is

essentially starting to shut down committees and people are just like wrap up and fix it. Yeah.

I think that's always kind of just the with with each body. I think the house normally is is

turning out more stuff right and then the Senate's more methodical and thinks through things and

takes a little more time and that's that's healthy I think. So yeah. We're still printing mills.

We're still moving forward. Still moving forward. There were something like I can't remember when

I met with yesterday. I think it was a rep Weber who was like, listen man, we had it was

something like 600 to 700 bills between the Senate and the House that got RSS. Which means we

really all committees on both sides considered probably over a thousand bills total. That's an

enormous amount of work. That's and like a 90 day period. Yeah. It's a lot of work. I mean,

a lot of these ideas come in the interim might too. So you know, once you're oftentimes in the

House too, you know, we'll bring a bill instead of going to general orders to change them on the

floor. We'll just re our asset. Okay. We heard the committee say these things. We want to

tweak these things. So we'll just bring a new bill. So I mean, that's not necessarily a totally

accurate number. But yeah, I mean, that's that's the process we go through. So it's a lot, man.

This session has really been one of like last session. The first one I really covered was very

much defined by school choice of all the things going through. It's like nobody talked about the 30

million for water. Nobody talked about these. They're like school choices. It like this is that

this is the crisis de jour. There was also discussion last session around, you know, like medicaid's

you know, work requirements and stuff. But this session has really not been defined by the things

you guys have done. It's and the programs you've kept, it's really been defined by the programs that

are getting reduced or some getting cut in whole. And that has been dominant in in the discussion.

Talk to me about the programs that, you know, you feel that we had to take out that you think

really, you know, like you may not be happy about them. But you're like, look, it was either

this guy or all of those guys, right? Because that's that's one of the problems. The trade-off is

never something that's that's appreciated. It's not like, listen, we saved, yeah, we did

ask this one. But we asked this one because the alternative was asking all of those and no one

under any circumstance would tolerate those being asked. Yeah. I mean, I think that's, uh, you know,

obviously decisions that we make as a body, right? I mean, uh, you know, health and welfare,

we deal with medicaid a lot, right? Largest budget in the state, right? So, uh, every year, you

know, we look at those types of decisions. And this year, there was a couple new ideas to help

the most vulnerable. And again, in a budget season, like we had, it's like, okay, how do we

appropriate funds there and still pay for all these other things, right? And then where do we

cut from, right? And uh, that's something that, you know, in the House Health and Welfare Committee,

we discussed those different things. I brought a bill that, you know, was looking at Medicaid

expansion, right? The able-bodied adults and the thought there was, okay, do we look at this program

here? Or do we look at all these folks that are disabled, more vulnerable? And the committee

ultimately decided, okay, we're going to work on these folks that are disabled. We're going to cut

from here, not massive cuts, but, you know, cuts that reduced the, uh, the reimbursements back to

like the 2022 times. And so, uh, and they reduced the cuts for people that were like on, on Medicaid

expansion, or these are the vulnerable adults, or who- No, so yeah, it's more the vulnerable folks,

right? Disabled folks. And the thought there was, you know, out of the government, or the governor's

recommendations, you know, looking at like $22 million here, rather than looking at, you know,

Medicaid expansion, which, you know, has 90,000 folks on it. And, you know, that's the decision

that the body came up with. Uh, you know, I would rather prioritize what the original intent of

Medicaid was, was, which was those, you know, disabled people, you know, kids, um, single moms,

that type thing. And instead, we decided, no, we're going to cut from the vulnerable adults. And,

you know, that's, that's the, the deliberation that the body makes. Uh, so yeah, that's kind of where

we settled there. You know, oftentimes though, we talk about these budget cycles, you know, when,

when revenues down, or, you know, we're, we're, you know, having a shortfall somewhere. Um, but,

you know, we also kept in tack, you know, all these different programs that we're still providing

these services for. So oftentimes, I think you hear the doom and gloom, but honestly, Idaho's

in a great position to move forward. Idaho is literally the only state I would want to be in right

now where we're actually having forward momentum. We're continuing to provide services, but also

taking care of all the constituents in the state. I agree with you. For sure, Idaho is the only place

I want to be for whatever, whatever problems, whatever warts Idaho may have and concerns people have,

it's like, where are you going to move? Yeah. Where are you going to, which you want to go to Oregon?

I'm going to go to Oregon and look at what Washington's doing, right? Washington is literally

moving people to our state because of the policies that they're making over there. Uh, and again,

I think that's the beauty of the states, right? You can go to the state, which, which your government,

your state government mostly aligns with you, right? And, but I think what we're seeing a lot of like

this, the common sense moves that Idaho's making, we're getting floods of people and, and that goes

back to like, you know, the housing initiatives that we put forward, right? We're not necessarily

appropriating a bunch of money to build, you know, affordable housing. What we're doing is we're

deregulating that space so we can build more housing that's simple supply and demand principles,

right? And so we still have a few bills that are moving forward. I think in the business committee,

tomorrow, we'll have about four different bills coming up, you know, kind of minor tweaks, but

tweaks that make attainable housing so you can live that American dream more reasonable.

Okay, two things I would like to talk to you about housing and cost of medical on Idaho. Let's

start with the housing, though, because you and I touched on this at the beginning of the session,

there's a, there was an idea that, hey, look, at the state level, there could be a push to

strip away things that are hyper restrictive or inappropriately restrictive towards housing.

A lot of people pushed back on that, a lot of people are for it, but a lot of people pushed back on

and said, hey, man, if star wants to be restrictive with the type of housing, star can build,

star has, star should be able to do that. And, and some people said, yeah,

to a point, right? But at some point also, like, if Idaho is going to be pro affordable housing,

we can't just become a state for the elites that can afford the million dollar house. Like,

we need something, like, and by the way, that's bad for everybody in the long run anyway,

because we don't have housing for younger people, younger people aren't going to stay here.

The 18 to 30 year olds are obviously the group that don't want to be under the roof with their

parents, but obviously don't have the down payment for the three two that everybody else is buying,

that's now like at least $500,000. So where, where did that go as far as having a state level

mandate that it's like, look, strip away the things or strip away some of the things that are,

that are hyper restrictive? Yeah, I mean, we're still in the process of that, right? We're moving

bills through currently that kind of reduce some of those barriers to entry. And, and the whole

thought there is like, let's let the free market be the free market. Let's get some of this bureaucratic

state out of the way and let's allow like, you know, building at affordable costs, because that

gets passed down to the end user, right? So now a starter home, you know, instead of paying 500,000,

which is really the cost up in North Idaho, you know, if we can get that down to 400 or 450,

just by stripping away some of the red tape. I mean, I think that's what Idaho stood on for so long,

with the red tape reduction, right? We want to be less regulated than a lot of the states around us.

And currently a lot of the building code still has a lot of restrictions in it. So, you know,

there's probably six or seven different initiatives that have been moving forward and are continuing

to move forward. And that's why I said, like, you know, some of the stuff we got from the Senate

will be taken up Wednesday. We are sending bills over to the Senate still. So it's a matter of how

much can we get through before the end of the session. And if not, you know, do we bring it back

next year? And a lot of the argument is, no, let's let local control determine that. Well,

local control has really blocked a lot of this, right? And so that's why we're in the position now

where we're at, where we have, you know, $500,000 starter homes instead of, you know, the first

home I bought, I think I paid, you know, $200,000 for it, right? And that is attainable housing,

right? That's where somebody living in, you know, even if they're a single or a dual income here

in the state can afford. Got it. That's kind of like the technical nature of what you're doing.

You're moving bills. But philosophically, is there a valid argument with like, yeah, if the community,

if the local community wants the $500,000 starter home, let them have it. Is there that sentiment,

or is it like, now that's bad for the state in general? So that's why the state steps in.

I think it's probably more like, yeah, we believe as a state, that probably is not the best

for all the constituents, right? And I think you still see that, though, right? I mean, the,

like, look at Eagle, there's probably not a whole lot of $500,000 homes in Eagle, you know,

look at Quarter Lane. That's the same argument there. But if you can reduce that in some fashion,

if you can drop that down even a little bit, it provides for more attainable housing. And,

you know, that's what that interim committee on housing looked at. Like, how do we create a path

forward so that, you know, the kid coming out of college at University of Idaho can still stay here

and doesn't have to move to, you know, Wyoming or Nevada or something like that.

Oh, listen, I don't know anything about making laws. I really appreciate this. I don't understand

how it breaks down philosophically or technically. But I do appreciate that it's like, listen,

if we have by, by, by ordinance or local regulation, these hyper elite affluent areas,

that essentially carving out the halves and then dumping the have-naughts elsewhere. And we

engage that not through, you know, designation like you shall live here, but through, you know,

building, building codes where it's like, yeah, but they just kind of made it that way. Like,

Eagle kind of made it that way or quarterly and kind of made it that way. And now they just

didn't allow for this other space. You're going to de facto have people with a ton of money

living in certain areas and then a servant class that lives outside those borders. And it may not

be a gated community. It may not be, you know, redlining. But if you have policies that create

price restrictions and become prohibitive, you will in effect have a dual, dual class of Idaho

in a certain amount of time, which is like, you're the wealthy class and the property owners in

the very desirable places. And then there's the others like the lessers. Yeah. Yeah. And that's

why I think it is kind of a bipartisan issue, right? I mean, like, honestly, Ali Robbie has been one

of the best proponents for a lot of these ideas, which are completely deregulation. With generally,

we would probably not totally align on a lot of issues on this one. We fall, you know, we totally

agree. And you know, Ben Taves has been doing a lot of the work over there with Ali. And then,

you know, I've been doing some work over here in the, in the house. And I think together we're going

to come up with some really good solutions. And I think we have come up with some good solutions.

Now it's a matter of getting them through. And I think again, that local control argument,

I would say the most local control is the property owner. The localest control is that individual that

has those personal property rights. Yeah. I had Senator Alyssa Slotkin and she, dude, I was

this close to getting Tim Walls. If I had got like that would have been the crowning jewel,

right? Anyway, and I didn't want to. So could you imagine if he was sitting in that chair? Well,

so we have we have the bill coming to the Senate. Oh, my gosh. On Wednesday, actually, that provides

so the Idaho child care plan right here that we have, you know, we're putting in some safeguards

in there. So we don't turn into Minnesota, right? It's just all about accountability. Okay, let's

make sure that we're cross checking these things. Let's make sure that the accountability is put in

place so that we don't see that happen in Idaho, right? There's a fundamental argument does should

the state be paying for child care in general? And that's that's more of an argument philosophically

like, you know what I mean, but if we do and we currently do, let's make sure we have a program

in place that we're not having fraud. We're not having waste and not having abuse and let's put

those those safeguards in place so that we don't have to go through what Minnesota went through.

Right. I actually spoke with Secretary Alex Adams. Is he a secretary assistant secretary?

Deputy Deputy Secretary. Just a week or two ago in DC about this exact thing. And obviously,

he had, you know, outlined these very specific problems that were occurring in Minnesota and

apparently the Biden administration had very much emphasized that other people should run their

child care programs like this, things like enrollment versus attendance, right? They were like they

and preemptive payment for enrollment. So as somebody's enrolled before they even have the capacity

to show up, you want reimbursement. It's like, you don't even know if they're going to show up and

just like, anyway, so all these different things and he had emphasized that Idaho, obviously,

he was in charge of the child care program here before he left. So Idaho was already in a good spot,

but it's awesome to hear that, you know, look, further checks and balances to make sure that this

money is spent effectively. Yeah. And I think Idaho wasn't a good spot. I think we're

codifying that and making sure that Idaho stays in a good spot. And we don't go through those issues

that we've seen in other states. Right. God bless that, man. This is a perfect example of a problem

that ultimately has a backstop because of social programs we have child care. Should Idaho be engaged

in child care? No, a libertarian leaning people would be like, no, this is not this is not the

proper rule government. Totally fine. And we could say, let's eliminate this child care support.

Fine. What ultimately happens, though, is you walk down the line and you eventually get to

somebody engaged into social social safety net, somebody engaged in these social services,

where it's like, okay, these services costs a billion dollars. And that could be, you know,

single moms with kids that aren't getting work and they can't, you know, support themselves,

whatever. If we're paying a billion dollars, they're like, okay, if we help support child care,

it'll cost us 50 million, but it'll take a hundred million off of this billion dollar price tag

over here. And that those are kind of the pushes and polls that lead to child care, right? Like

essentially, there's a financial argument, which is if we spend five dollars here, we'll save

ten dollars over here. That's generally at the core of these programs. Is that accurate?

That's a hundred percent. Well, certain programs, right? Child care is a real one that actually shows

that it actually gets people back to work, right? Because if you don't have a place for

to watch your kids during the day, how are you going to go to work, right? And so I do think that

child care, and then you go back into the, you know, philosophical argument, should government

pay them? Well, probably not, but we, that's the place we're in right now. We are paying for it.

And so let's make sure the program is has good stewardship, and we're sturdying those

tax dollars to the best of our ability, and we're not allowing for those fraud, waste abuse,

those types of issues. Right. Because until the backstop changes, down the line, like if it always

comes down to, no, no, no, we're going to pay for it way over there. Until that changes,

it's like, well, then this is the best financial option, right? And child care is like probably the

one welfare program where you actually do see that people get back to work. They're able to provide

for their families, and hopefully they continue to graduate up that economic ladder. Right.

Right. They don't have to, right? Right. So you build, you build obviously your resume, you might

have a starter or a mid-level job at the beginning for the first five years, but then eventually it's

like, okay, now I'm on year six. Now I don't even qualify for this child care subsidy, because I'm

making it rain, you know, like whatever. And I think that should be the goal with all of our

welfare programs is we want to be that safety net to provide services in those tough times,

but hopefully we're providing that safety net so that people can continue to, you know,

as life happens, graduate out of that place they're in where they're at. Right.

Coming around to medical care. Yeah. Okay. Idaho is a place that you can afford to live in,

you know, not in all areas, but a lot of areas you can afford to live in a lower income.

But the problem is that the medical care, like I've been self-employed my entire life,

and I was paying something like 25,000-ish dollars just for my premiums for medical care

for my family when I lived in my former state. I move here slightly less. I think we

write out of the blocks. It was like 18,000. I'm like, hey, that's a saving. Great.

But it's not a saving analogous to the income drop that a lot of people experience. Right. So

you can afford to live to stay with housing or with food and you let's say Southeast or, you know,

magic value or something based on salaries in housing, food and things. But the medical cost

hasn't adjusted appropriately based on that inflation. So you have people that are working

appropriately, working full-time jobs in areas of the state, making like 20 or 25 bucks an hour.

But it's not, it's not that much to actually afford. Like, like, if I had to work at 25 bucks

an hour, 2000 hours a year, $50,000 total income. And I was self-employed and I had a family of

five like I do. And I had $17,000 of insurance premium. It's like, yeah. Like, what do we do in Idaho

outside of, you know, again, I know a lot of people don't like the Medicaid expansions. Totally

fine. I don't know a squad about it. But like, what I do know is that the cost of medicine

and medical care is so astronomical that I can see people saying, like, I just, I'm working full

time. I don't have the money to afford this health insurance. And then that leads to obviously

worst care, no preventative care. And then we end up back to the social safety net argument.

Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think that is the argument that we need to be having, right?

Is why is the cost of care so expensive in the United States in general, right? And part of that

is because it is a economic, I mean, back, you know, 20 years ago, you looked at the largest

economies throughout in each state, right? And it was, you know, agriculture or construction or,

you know, manufacturing, whatever those are. Now in every state, it is health care is the

largest economy. And so that cost of care has gone up significantly. And there's so many

different factors in that because obviously it's a convoluted system, whether it's the insurance

payers or whether it's the pharmaceuticals or whether it's actually the providers. And so like,

it's a much larger discussion that needs to be had. But if you look at other countries, right?

Oftentimes, the quality of care is high. The cost is less. And it's probably not as high. I would

say we still probably have the best quality of care in the United States. But is it, should it be

4x? What it is in other places, right? And so I think like some of the stuff that, you know,

the Trump administration is looking at doing is great. I think RFK has done some really good work.

You can Alex Adams over there with RFK. I think they've done some really good work. But part of

that is, I think transparency too, right? And we don't have great transparency in our medical system.

So there's been a bill that we've been working on in the house and we probably won't actually have

it, you know, make it the whole way this year. But having that transparency in the medical

system that if I go to, you know, provider A, it's going to be $1,000. If I go to provider B,

it's only $200. And I should be able to make those decisions as a consumer where right now we

don't have any transparency. It's like, if I don't feel good, I go to provider A just because it's

close or it's down the street or it's what I'm used to. Whereas if consumers could shop that a

little bit more, I think you would have much better outcomes as well as it would drive down cost

of care. Representative Church is working on one of those, isn't she? Like one of the transparency

bills coming in later today. I'll ask her about it. Yeah, you should. No, I really appreciate

Representative Church. She's an awesome representative and she has some great ideas. So no, she,

I'm sure she is. I didn't, I don't know that we haven't talked about that together. Got you.

Gotcha. But I think that's again, kind of a bipartisan issue, right? Like we want to

Yeah, man. Yeah. Yeah. You know what's really, I had this aha moment a few weeks ago. I was talking

to somebody who's running on a national stage and he was like, there's no reason we shouldn't be

affording this. Like, why can't we just provide healthcare like every other country? And like,

I kind of had this moment. I'm like, okay, okay, wait. We're saying this cup of coffee is way too

expensive for Jordan and for Matt. Like this is insane. That this cup of coffee is wild.

And the answer for a lot of people is, let's just take the cost away from you. Yeah.

You know long to see it. And when I was talking to this guy, I was like, wait a minute. I don't

want to eliminate my capacity to see how much the coffee costs. I want to know how much it costs.

I just wanted to get it beaten up and cut because if it goes from $6 to now, I don't know how much

it is, but it goes to $10 while I'm not looking because I don't see how much it is anymore. I'm not

happy about that. I want to see this cup of coffee go from $6 to $3. Right? And by the way,

human beings, not six bucks, they just shout out. And by the way, they said, I'm happy. They're like,

you're so hip. I'm like, thank you. You made my morning human being. But that's this concern I have,

which is the cost is skyrocketed. And there is a push to eliminate people seeing the cost. It's like,

I don't want to eliminate seeing the cost. We're going to pay for it somewhere. I want the cost

to be less. I want to see why it costs that much. And to your point, I want transparency. So it's

like 200 bucks there, 1000 bucks there, 5000 bucks over there. I had this idea. I thought

there was a gangster idea. I was like, I should put a section on like the ranch podcast.org. I should

put a section where I call around the entire treasure valley for the top. I use the chatty G. I'm

like, what are the top 10 most frequent, you know, medical needs in the entire treasure alley? Is

it like labor and delivery? Is it like an ACL replacement? And I call around. And I get updated

numbers every single week or like every single two weeks. I'm like, this is how much it costs.

These procedures in these five medical institutions across valley. And I don't know if they would even

give them to me, but like it would be great to just have that. And have people be like, okay,

if I have one of these 10 things, this is where I can find out like this is how much the cashman,

and how much the problem with like the cash payment is actually less than the insurance copay.

Like that's another like, how is this happening in America? Yeah. Well, then you go back to like,

like you said earlier, right? Like, I mean, if I understand that the cost over here is X, the cost

over here is Y, but I'm just going to X because I'm a creature of habit. And I don't actually know

the transparency there. Then that drives up cost for everyone, right? And so especially with all

the different, you know, whether it's insurance premiums or whether it's the welfare programs,

that will drive cost for everyone. So we actually did a bill earlier this year. I want to say it was

Chris Bruce, ran a bill, but it was allowing for that cash pay to go towards your max out of pocket,

right? And that completely makes sense because honestly, the provider can be really happy because

they got their money right away. They're not waiting 60 days to get paid. And that's why there's

that discount there, but that should go towards the max out of pocket. And so that bill moved through

the house. It's in the Senate now. So I think a lot of these incremental changes can actually provide

a lot of that relief in the in the cost of care with keeping quality intact. Let's do that.

Let's beat the hell out like let's introduce real competition. So people can decide who they

want to buy from like last session. We were talking about Hudson's the burger place up in

Cortalin, which I have not been to. And I'm very excited to go this year. But we were talking

it's like, if Hudson had a $20 burger, he'd be like, dude, I like the burger, but it's insane.

Let's go to this other place. It's only 10 bucks. Like everybody makes these basic economic

decisions. Dude, I went to this new place downtown. This is my birthday. And I like, I got

taken out and I get not killed. But they're taking out for dinner. But we got this burger downtown.

Here's a problem for you. Dude, the alcohol beverage tax or the alcohol alcohol alcohol licensing

structure. Okay. I go out to this new place downtown. And I'm like excited to be there.

It's a hundred dollar rib eye. Bro, it came out cold. And I don't mean because I like it medium

rare. Yeah. It was like the coloring was correct. The char was correct. But they left it sitting

there for too long. Apparently, bone in rib eye. And I was like, dude, this is cold. The wife

is sitting next to me. She takes the bite of her rib eye cold. And I was like, what do I do? And

they're with friends are like, you send it back. That's a hundred dollar piece of meat. Like they

have to send it back. So we flag down our waiter. I'm like, Hey, man, this is a, this is cold.

They're like, Oh my god. Oh my god. Like they prostrate. I was like, yes, this is what I want.

Like something like take the steak seriously, right? They're like, we're going to take care of this.

I'm like, thank you. Like, that's great. I'm trying to be cool about it. Bro, they bring

it back three minutes later. I'm like, how did you heat the rib eye up? They're like, we're so sorry

about that. They're like, Oh my god. You know what they did? The plate was warm. They just put

it under heating. Oh no. Look at how is this? And now I don't want to send it back a second time.

No, you can't. But a whole the whole nature of this place serves gin and tonics, right? Like

and because they serve gin and tonic, if you're going out for a nice steak, you don't want to go to a

place that doesn't have a gin and tonic or a bourbon or whatever the hell you drink. I didn't

even drink a gin. I just had a tonic in line. But the point is like, that is driving lack of

competition within our, within our hospitality market, right? Like, how do we fix that? I know we

only have like three days left. Can you just fix this? Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's an ongoing

discussion that has been for several years. Like, we probably do need to reform all of our liquor

laws in the state because right now, all we do is little fixes. Like, like, like, yeah,

I feel, you know, just the other day that was basically a fix for one specific location,

though, you know, that was in the, the representative district. And then I appreciate them helping

that constituent. But instead of doing these little minor fixes here and there, right? Just

scrap the whole thing, start from new and, and, and create that. I don't know, you know,

that's a large lift. And I don't know who's willing to take that on. I feel like you got some

broad shoulders, baby. I feel like you could just put that on. Just do some squats with it. Like,

you could do this. Yeah. Yeah. Probably not. Well, maybe, maybe we'll see what happens in May.

So it does need to be fixed. You're right. Yeah. And again, I didn't understand. I

understood they were like, okay, it's hard to get a liquor license, but I didn't understand the

nature of not having competent because like this place can charge this because they have the

thing. They have a big old bar at the beginning where everybody stands around and they get drinks

while they're waiting for their table. Totally fine. Great atmosphere. But they don't have to compete

under the, under the quality of their rib eye. Right. They just compete. They, they outcompete

everybody else who doesn't have a liquor license because they have one. And the other guys might

have a great rib eye. And I never know because I went to this place because I didn't talk to

that. I didn't even get right. Right. Right. I got the hot blood right now. Man, that you're

passionate about that. Anyway, listen, you got to finish up this week. I don't want to keep you too

long. Anything else you want to hit on? No, man. I think it's been a good session. I think we've

done a lot of good work. You can definitely feel the folks being a little irritable right now.

I think everyone's ready to be done. So yeah, get some budgets through. Wrap up the session and

we'll be out of here. All right, man. Well, listen, I'm coming to Cordillane to get a burger

this time. Do it, man. Make it happen. I want to see, I want to see the spot. Yeah, hang on.

There's a lot of spots. The best way to get there is to fly in to Spokane and then drive over,

right? Probably. I mean, it's a beautiful drive coming up through, you know, 55 and 95. But yeah,

you could, you could fly to it. It's like eight, nine hours from here. No, always probably seven.

Yeah. Oh, what's, what's an hour between? Yeah. Totally, man. That's easy. God bless it. Yeah.

Representative, thank you for what you do for Idaho. Thanks for coming in again this session and

yeah, we'll see soon. Thank you, man.