Now that the election is so close....
Bundy has been campaigning hard and will likely get more votes than we expect. He has a lot of people buffaloed as he talks a good talk until you look behind the words.
He wants the state to take over all the federal land in Idaho (35 million acres) and develop it for industry. Very nice, but it wasn't developed 100 years ago because there's no water. Most of the state drains down the Snake River and that's fully appropriated. What little's left flows down to keep the fish alive. The water table is slowly dropping from over pumping by farmers. So, all that land is only good for what it's used for now - grazing and recreation. It's worthless for industry without water.
So, what happens if Bundy did get elected and did manage to get state control of all that land? It can't be used for industry without water so it sits there until it burns down. A bad fire year would bankrupt the state. So now what? All Idaho state land is under the control of the Idaho Land Board...of which the governor (Bundy) is the chairman. By law, the board is required to manage the land for the greatest profit to the state. Since it has no water for development, managing it is a loss, not profit. The land board has the authority to sell it's land to the highest bidder so they'd be selling off parts of it to pay for the losses. Now, who is going to pay large amounts of money for unproductive land? The ultra-rich. Movie stars, athletes, corporate CEO's and the like who want their own private piece of Idaho's paradise. The wealthy who already own back country land here have shown what they'll do with it - they lock the gates. Bundy will give away our state and the people lose the use of what makes Idaho great.
Bundy has a plan to eliminate property and state income taxes, throwing it all into sales taxes. Since the state still needs so much to operate, sales taxes would have to be raised to maybe 10 to 12%. It's a tax shift, not a tax reduction. Somebody has to benefit from this and guess who that would be? Ammon Bundy. He owns a truck repair business. His net worth is said to be about $5 mill and much of it's tied up in the business. Eliminating property and incomes taxes would work nicely for Bundy. In addition, he lives only 30 miles from the Oregon border town of Ontario where there's no sales tax. Guess where the Bundy's would do all their shopping? His plan would effectively relieve him of almost all Idaho taxes.
