The heart-wrenching testimony at today's public hearing on funding for Health and Welfare programs moved Sen. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, to tears. "We had some very moving testimony from people that clearly have no other sources for assistance other than their government - that's pretty compelling," she said after the hearing. "I think that it would be less than human to sit here, with some of what we have heard this morning, and not be impacted. So the challenge will be, what do we do next?"

Keough said she was surprised to learn, even as person after person testified to the committee that the state should go after online sales taxes or make other moves, rather than cutting services to the disabled, that House Speaker Lawerence Denney had sidelined the bill to take the first step toward enabling online sales taxes. "I don't want to second-guess the speaker, because I have no idea what his intentions are, but it definitely was interesting timing," Keough said. "In this session, everything's on the table, from the services we provide to the structure of our tax system. Everything has to be on the table."