The Hoff Time Report

House member Jim Addis, vice chair of the House tax committee, dropped by the Hoff Time Report to talk taxes, budgets, and critical race theory. Addis says there are more tax relief bills ahead in the 2022 legislative session. 

Rep. Greg Chaney and Wayne Hoffman talk tax relief, legislative process, medical marijuana, Mike Moyle's lockdown on property tax bills, and more on this hilarious episode of The Hoff Time Report! 

It’s not surprising that the Idaho Supreme Court ruled against a new law requiring more uniform collection of petition signatures in order for an initiative to qualify for the ballot. What is shocking is how badly the court twisted itself into knots to justify its decision to the satisfaction of the state’s leftists. Contrary to what the court said, the true story of the state’s constitutional ame...

If you have a youngster in Idaho’s government-run schools, now would be a good time to either start demanding answers from state and local education officials or reconsider your schooling options. The latest in a long string of disappointments comes in the form of Gov. Brad Little’s decision to sidestep the Legislature and order $30 million for COVID-19 testing for the state’s public schools. Read...

The Idaho lawmakers defending Big Medicine’s decision to impose vaccine mandates on their employees, contractors, and volunteers are trying to make it out as if they’re unable to intervene in an employer-employee relations question. I’ve already explained why such arguments are disingenuous (Hint: lawmakers regulate businesses all the time) but it’s important to remind people that this is not an e...

Idaho has a supermajority Republican Legislature, with Democrats comprising less than 20% of the seats in the House and Senate. Republicans have held the state’s top executive positions for a quarter century, yet Idaho has had a penchant for embracing socialism, government control, and special interest collectivist causes. This is at the heart of what I expect will shape conversations and debates...

It should be obvious that Boise State University’s “independent” investigation into problems with the school’s mandatory racism and intolerance class known as University Foundations 200 was just a public relations ploy. Launching the investigation got lawmakers temporarily off BSU’s back while the school’s budget was under review. Releasing a summary of the investigation’s findings last week was j...

It appears that Boise State University President Marlene Tromp still has not gotten the message that Idahoans are tired of the school’s indoctrinating social justice programs. In public and in private, Tromp has recently struck a tone that suggests little will change at BSU despite the Legislature’s restrictions on critical race theory (CRT) and $1.5 million in cuts aimed at the school’s social ju...

Yes, the legislative session is over, but the fight to fix what’s gone wrong with the government education system is not. That work is just getting warmed up. Right away, the State Board of Education needs to get its house in order. The board added to the state teacher certification standards a requirement that educators rely on so-called culturally responsive teaching. This is just another exampl...

If there’s one thing to remember from the 2021 legislative session, it’s that the Idaho Legislature became the first legislative body in the country to successfully push back against the Marxist indoctrination happening in primary, secondary, and higher education. The Legislature rejected a $6 million federal grant for pre-kindergarten, a grant that would have given the Biden administration direct...

Idaho education officials are being dishonest when they say there’s no evidence of leftist indoctrination in our public schools and universities. They’re also being dishonest when they claim that the newly-signed House Bill 377 prevents critical race theory from being taught. The legislation is certainly helpful. It says that students can no longer be compelled to “personally affirm, adopt, or adh...

Idaho has the most conservative House of Representatives it has ever seen. That is not the doing of House Speaker Scott Bedke. Bedke hasn’t changed at all, clocking in at 66 percent right now on the Idaho Freedom Index. What’s different is the makeup of the rest of the Republicans serving in the state House of Representatives, which is behaving exactly as I predicted following the May 2020 primary...

Read Anna K. Miller's analysis of this federal grant here:  https://IDFree.us/racistbabies Here's the vote count on House Bill 226: https://legislature.idaho.gov/sessioninfo/2021/legislation/H0226/

Throughout the country, leftist activists have successfully infiltrated all aspects of government, media, and business with claims that America is irredeemably racist, and such racism is baked into our political and economic systems. These extremists believe that to combat this “systemic” racism, American systems and ideals must be scrutinized and dismantled. This dismantling includes the eliminat...

Everyone in Idaho – especially lawmakers, the governor, and members of the State Board of Education – should read Sarah Jo Fendley’s damning $10 million tort claim against Boise State University , which she filed Thursday. Members of the House of Representatives should certainly read Fendley’s complaint before they vote on a budget for Idaho’s colleges and universities, which would pluck a me...

Special interest groups including big labor unions like the Idaho Education Association seem to be winning the day at the state Legislature, thanks to liberal Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Education Committee. First, members of the committee rejected a simple House-approved measure to let school boards opt-out of collective bargaining. House Bill 174 would have given locally-elected scho...

It’s the middle of March, and the Idaho Legislature still hasn’t done anything to provide meaningful tax relief to Gem State residents. And now, there’s a possibility that waiting this long means the state won’t be able to collect $1.89 billion from the federal government’s COVID relief package and cut taxes at the same time. That’s because buried in the horrid $2 trillion print-money-until-you-ca...

Idaho’s legislative budget writers are being dishonest when they say a proposed higher education budget combats the leftist indoctrination happening on college and university campuses. It does not. Not even close. It is true that the Legislature’s budget committee voted to restrict the use of state funds for social justice. But that prohibition does not preclude the schools from accessing other po...

Rep. Greg Chaney, R-Caldwell, joins The Hoff Time Report to discuss his targeted picketing bill, which aims to curb at-home harassment of public officials. 

It’s hard to believe this, but several lawmakers have confirmed for me that there’s a plan to raise gas taxes on Idahoans during this legislative session. The word is that the proposal is to raise the tax by as much as 10 percent on the state’s already-high assessment of 32 cents per gallon. The good news though, is that raising gas taxes has never been particularly popular at the Legislature. An...

Idaho lawmakers have only one job each and every year: deciding how much money to take out of the economy to run whatever government program they decide to fund. Media distractions to the contrary, this is the job, and lawmakers aren’t very good at it. They’re focused on evading responsibility so they upset no one – or at least, none of their donors. So when public money is spent against Idahoans’...

Sen. Carl Crabtree of District 7 sits on the Senate Education Committee, which gives him considerable power over education-related legislation. What will he do with his power? Wayne and the senator discuss all things education, from reading to funding and beyond. 

Be sure to sign up for IFF's email list to ensure you stay up to date on all of the legislative action and excitement. Subscribe here: IdahoFreedom.org/email

Also, C. Scott Grow wins Statist of the Week for his awful anti-drug constitutional amendment.  Read Wayne Hoffman's full column on the GOP oligarchy's unwillingness to hear conservative bills: https://idahofreedom.org/gop-head-honchos-run-oligarchy-keep-conservative-ideas-at-bay/

Idaho lawmakers have one job each year: To set a budget for the next fiscal year. It's an incredibly complicated task, and getting lost in the budgetary weeds isn't hard. In this episode, Rep. Priscilla Giddings, who sits on the budget-setting committee, and IFF's Legislative Affairs Director Fred Birnbaum, IFF's go-to guy for numbers, break down the budget for you.