Idaho Pulse

Four weeks out from Idaho's 2026 election, this episode works through Prop 1, the abortion ballot measure, and the objections to its undefined viability standard, its silence on parental consent, and who could perform abortions under it. Then: a new 44-page Pork Report on state and local government waste, an Econ 101 case that barriers to entry rather than big companies drive up gas, housing and i...

This episode runs the Idaho fights shaping the stretch before Election Day: Prop 1's bid to undo the state's abortion trigger law and the out-of-state money pouring into that campaign, access politics at the Statehouse and the lobbyists buying it, and a new pork report cataloging billions in waste, fraud, and abuse — from $72 million to teach teachers to teach reading to hundreds of millions in st...

This episode covers the case for disciplined, diversified index investing. It explains why stocks have built real wealth about three and a half times faster than bonds after inflation, and how owning more than 13,000 companies through four funds avoids betting on anyone's genius. It also covers why a five-year bond "war chest" lets investors ride out crashes without selling. The discussion then tu...

This episode runs from culture to cash: the case that American culture is being diluted, the American Dream as its author defined it in the 1930s, Coolidge's tax cuts set against FDR's New Deal, a bleak set of numbers on Gen Z and student debt, AI as equalizer or divider, and an Econ 101 breakdown of inflation — why gas leads, why wages lag, and why the industries government touches most are the o...

Three fights in one episode: Proposition 1, the November ballot measure the episode argues would push Idaho's abortion law past where it stood before Dobbs; a Charlie Kirk memorial on the Capitol steps, where a heckling crowd across the street becomes the proof that the message landed; and a full economics lesson on the "curse of machinery," running from the tractor to Carnegie's Bessemer furnace...

Idaho's kindergarten vaccine exemption rate has climbed to 17.5% — the highest in the country and well above neighboring Utah's 12.7%. From there: $4.6 billion in continuous appropriations that never face a legislative vote, elective continuous spending up nearly 600% in five years, a teachers' union insurance shortfall claim, Micron's $50 billion plant and the 2008 tax cap that could shield most...

Idaho's Prop 1 abortion ballot measure dominates this episode: targeted voter-registration mail, well-funded pro-abortion ad campaigns, and the warning that complacency — not public opinion — is what could pass it in a pro-life state. The Lindsey Clancy trial raises hard questions about the insanity defense and a fix-it-with-a-pill culture. Then an Economics 101 segment on consumer choice: utility...

This episode sounds the alarm on a federal plan it says would bring fuel-rod reprocessing and a third of the nation's nuclear waste to the INL, above the Snake River Aquifer, then weighs that fear against the case for nuclear power. From there: Idaho Power's rate hike and cloud-seeding doubts, Idaho's claimed 40% dependence on federal dollars, evidence that school choice lifts public-school studen...

This episode runs through Idaho's fastest-moving fights: license-plate flock cameras and the Fourth Amendment privacy questions they raise, a local-government transparency story out of Lava Hot Springs, and the case for tariffs over federal income tax. It covers the labor market, immigration, and Prop 1, the ballot measure that would roll back Idaho's abortion trigger law. The back half is a free-...

Idaho Prop 1 goes before voters on November 3rd, and this episode makes the case against it. Also on the table: the Twin Falls In-N-Out shooting and ten years of constitutional carry, flock cameras and the drift toward mass surveillance, and a plain-English economics lesson on elasticity that explains why the state taxes groceries, gas, cigarettes, and cell service — the goods people cannot stop b...

This episode runs through the Idaho stories driving the week: cities spending hundreds of thousands on flock-camera surveillance, an alcohol ordinance buried in a 576-page Idaho Falls agenda, illegal immigration tied to violence on Boise's Greenbelt, tax cuts that raised rather than shrank state revenue, the Fauci diaries and a COVID reckoning, and Proposition 1's abortion measure headed for the b...

This episode runs a conservative, free-market lens over the issues shaping Idaho now: the spread of flock-camera surveillance and the Fourth Amendment questions it raises, a bill to shield Monsanto and Bayer from Roundup lawsuits, the fight over vaccine liability and health freedom, and the debate over COVID's origins. From there it builds a sustained economic case — Adam Smith versus Marx, why bu...

This episode turns basic supply-and-demand economics loose on Idaho's biggest fights: the abortion measure likely headed for the November ballot, price controls and the minimum wage, cheap immigrant farm labor and depressed wages, and the tax subsidies used to lure Micron to the Treasure Valley. The through-line is the seen and the unseen — how policies with obvious, well-publicized winners quietl...

Comparative advantage is one of the most powerful ideas in economics — and one of the most misunderstood. This episode starts there, with a simple story that makes the principle click in minutes: why trade leaves both sides better off even when one party is better at everything. From that foundation, the conversation opens onto the issues filling the headlines — tariffs, taxes, regulation, the hou...

This episode runs through the Idaho fights driving the cycle: stalled teacher contracts and the state's education listening sessions, the first year of school choice and the education tax credit, and school-district waste from a land deal at nearly twice market value to administrator raises outpacing teachers'. It then turns to a billion-dollar rural health grant whose first dollars went to admini...

This episode runs through the Idaho fights driving the conservative cycle: illegal immigration and public safety, the immigration bills stalled in the legislature, ballooning school-administration costs and a widening student-proficiency gap, the case for school choice and the $5,000 education tax credit, Medicaid's climb to the state's largest budget line, and an abortion measure headed for the b...

Bob Neugebauer and Ron Nate break down Idaho's 2026 primary election results, where five of the top-rated conservative legislators — including Glenita Zeiderweld, Lucas Kaler, and David Levitt — lost to establishment-backed challengers funded by an estimated $800,000 to $1 million in special interest spending. Nate identifies the demographic formula behind the losses: districts with high ag indust...

Bob Neugebauer and Ron Nate examine three issues heading into Idaho's 2026 primary elections. They unpack the governor's Teacher Appreciation Week claim of "sustained investment" in teacher pay, revealing that while K-12 spending rose 70% since 2019, teacher pay rose only 21% — and nearly 100% of teachers receive top performance ratings regardless of outcomes. They explore the spread of flock came...

Bob Neugebauer and Ron Nate expose $1.5 billion in Idaho reserve and stabilization funds sitting above the state's $5.5 billion general fund budget — roughly $784 per resident that Nate argues should be returned to taxpayers. They dismantle the property tax exemption myth, showing how exemptions for veterans or seniors don't reduce total collections but shift the burden to remaining homeowners, an...

Bob Neugebauer and Ron Nate break down the 2026 Idaho Freedom Index, revealing that only 12 legislators scored 90% or above on freedom votes — down from 16 last year — while 42 members landed in the "Big Spender Caucus," voting for increased spending more than 84% of the time. Nate names the all-stars and the worst offenders, explains how election-year politics and lobbyist pressure erode conserva...

Bob Neugebauer and Ron Nate expose Big Dairy's retaliation against Senator Glenita Zeiderweld's family — pulling 85% of her husband's business over her immigration votes — and lay out the essential questions every Idaho voter should ask candidates before the May primary, from defining what conservative actually means beyond pro-life and pro-gun to whether legislators would overturn a citizen abort...

Bob Neugebauer and Ron Nate break down the 2026 Idaho Freedom Index, revealing that only 12 legislators scored 90% or above on freedom votes — down from 16 last year — while 42 members landed in the "Big Spender Caucus," voting for increased spending more than 84% of the time. Nate names the all-stars and the worst offenders, explains how election-year politics and lobbyist pressure erode conserva...