Legislative budget leader sets stage for showdown with Little over spending

An Eagle legislator who cochairs the Legislature’s budget committee has pushed back hard on the budget Gov. Brad Little proposed in his State of the State address.

Rep. Josh Tanner replaced Wendy Horman of Idaho Falls as the cochair of the powerful Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee after Horman left the Legislature on Jan. 5 to work for President Donald Trump’s administration. In one of his first public acts in the role, Tanner challenged Little’s budget proposal in a testy exchange with Lori Wolff, Little’s budget director, and in a news release.

“The Governor’s budget does not balance,” Tanner said in the release. “It relies on one-time gimmicks, spends more than the state takes in on an ongoing basis, and leaves Idaho with the lowest-ending fund balances in nearly a decade.”

His comments set the stage for a showdown over the budget, which lawmakers must set before the legislative session can adjourn. The state constitution requires that they set a balanced budget.

Little’s proposed budget relied in part on one-time cuts and bet on higher state revenues than in past years. Tanner said that means “temporary fixes are being used to mask permanent spending commitments.”

“That is not sustainable, and it is not responsible,” he added.

Tanner’s pushback came during a Tuesday meeting of the Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee, the first of the session. In response, Wolff noted that projecting revenues always involves some guesswork. On Monday, she had told reporters that “we’re betting on Idaho’s economy.”

But Tanner said the administration’s proposal, which would leave about $30 million in ending balances in fiscal year 2026 and 2027, was cutting things too close.

“These razor-thin reserves leave Idaho with virtually no margin for error,” Tanner said in his release. “Any revenue slowdown, economic disruption, or continued Medicaid growth could force a special legislative session.”

Finance chair seeks Medicaid cuts

Little told reporters on Monday that he would not support the elimination of the state’s Medicaid expansion program, which provides health care coverage to about 90,000 lower-income Idaho residents. Instead, he proposed additional cuts to the rates at which the state reimburses providers who see Medicaid patients, among other trims.

But that plan would still allow Medicaid spending to grow rapidly, Tanner wrote, and wouldn’t structurally change the rapidly rising costs of the program.

“Medicaid growth is crowding out every other priority,” he said. “Instead of presenting real reforms, the Governor leaves behind a Medicaid budget hole based on unspecified cuts.”

Tanner served on the Legislature’s interim “DOGE” committee, modeled after Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency that slashed federal jobs soon after Trump returned to office in 2025. The Legislature’s committee voted in December to recommend the repeal of Medicaid expansion, which offers subsidies to Idahoans who earn too much to qualify for standard Medicaid but not enough for private insurance discounts under the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.

“The more I’ve dug into budget issues, into social issues on this, it becomes a more blaring light to me of what is actually going on within this program,” Tanner told fellow DOGE committee members . The Medicaid expansion population is “becoming a large burden upon the state,” he said.

Hundreds of protesters gathered at the Capitol building on Monday holding signs with slogans such as “Medicaid Unites” or “People Before Cuts,” a sign of a fight ahead as lawmakers face weigh the program’s fate amid tough budget decisions.

Little had previously expressed reservations about cuts to Medicaid expansion. The two-term Republican governor said it was important to remember that Medicaid expansion “was passed overwhelmingly by the public” through the ballot initiative process.