Trying to squeak through today's harrowing economic times, state legislators during their 2009 session will be challenged in their imaginations and especially their judgment.
However, they would be irrationally foolish to set their sights on chopping funds from public education as a way of imposing austerity on the state.
Idaho's public schools do not score high in various national ratings. Would lawmakers dare cut more of education's muscle for imaginary savings and further lower education quality and standards?
Whatever slump the nation and Idaho currently suffer ultimately will end. With the return of better times for families and for business, the demand will increase for workers with communications, reading and mathematical skills to enter any workplace confidently.
How many company CEOs have we heard complain about the inability of workers to read high-tech manuals? How many bank CEOs have complained of adults who can't adequately balance a checkbook?
Make no mistake. President Barack Obama has put education and self-responsibility squarely at the top of his formidable agenda. His own example of ambitiously acquiring exceptional educational credentials and his stellar skills at moving a nation with words should be a model for politicians and young people who wonder why quality education is so vital.
Global competition is fiercer. The United States no longer can claim to be a world exemplar in education. Other nations are demanding that students excel in several languages and math. Other nations are financing college educations for more students per capita.
Although the United States boasts of being the "most powerful nation in the world," it is a fragile claim to fame: The measure is applied to military forces.
A far more worthy claim to global preeminence would be in the education of its citizens.
It takes no political courage to cut education spending, since students are among the most politically powerless. Schooling doesn't show economic results until students join the workforce.
When Idaho sales taxes were enacted, education was to be a beneficiary. That hasn't happened. Revenues have been diverted to other programs.
Legislators over time stacked the law books with more than $1 billion in tax breaks and incentives. Surely, some of those sacred cows should now be made to pony up their share.
To show their resolve for good judgment, lawmakers should vote to sell or lease the unused 7,400-square-foot Governor's Mansion donated by the late potato magnet, J.R. Simplot. With its upkeep running over $100,000 per year, how could legislators justify cutting school funds while caring for an empty, regal showpiece?
