The Lewiston Tribune
The Idaho Legislature may not go home for weeks, but already, the session’s prize for blatant hypocrisy has been claimed.
And this year, that distinction goes to the Idaho Freedom Foundation.
Last week, the IFF successfully called for defeating the Idaho Division of Welfare’s annual budget. Included within that budget - and the source of IFF’s ire - was federal coronavirus relief for the state’s struggling child care operators.
The idea behind this aid - contained within the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act signed by former President Donald Trump - was to maintain the infrastructure of child care providers during the pandemic. Much as it propped up the airline industry and colleges and universities, the federal government decided it would be cheaper and less disruptive to keep these businesses alive than to attempt to rebuild them once the economy recovered.