New West has got a story on a poll done by Boise State University on what issues are of utmost importance to Idahoans.

The findings are a little flawed because the big headlines that people don't care as much about Same Sex Marriage or Property Tax relief as they do, issues of growth, jobs, and education (#1). The problem here is that people were asked what was the MOST important issue and nothing garnered more than a quarter of the vote.

Now, all the issues mentioned (except growth) are important to me. And some of those people who talked about growth, may also be concerned about property taxes. Asking what the top priority is really misses the point.

That said, there's a couple interesting points in the survey. 64% feel the State's going in the right direction. People don't like property taxes, even if its not their biggest priority:

On the subject of taxes, the local property tax retained its spot as the least fair tax, with a 23 percent share. Forty-eight percent of respondents felt property taxes are too high, compared to 43 percent who said they are just about right. When asked if they favored a ballot initiative to limit property taxes to 1 percent of the assessed value, 57 percent agreed. When asked how the state should replace lost revenue should such an initiative pass, 66 percent advocated cutting government spending rather than increasing other taxes.

Bad news for anti-war propogandists, your tactics have not worked in Idaho:

Respondents showed strong support when asked if citizen armies like the Idaho National Guard should be used to fight an overseas war such as the war in Iraq. Sixty percent favored the move, with almost 26 percent being strongly in favor, compared to 22 percent who strongly oppose the idea.

There was one question that was totally dumb and I wonder who thought it was a good idea to ask, here it is:

While education has been a major topic for several years running, 93 percent of this year’s respondents believe the Legislature should deal with K-12 and higher education funding.

This tells us absolutely nothing. Of course, you're going to address education spending in a legislative session. Its 62% of the Budget. How can you not address it?

This does tell me Idaho Republicans do need to get on the ball on this issue. If education is a top concern (even the #1 concern) for years and years, we're not doing anything about it. For those of you outside of Idaho, understand this. The Democrats have very little political power in our state. As such, the Teacher's Union has figured out an effective tactic is to be bi-partisan in spreading money around campaign time.

They then oppose any real innovation in the way our schools are run. They don't like charter schools and we've got a very limited expierment with those in our state.

Republicans and Conservatives need a plan for schools and education that goes beyond doing the bidding of the Idaho Education Assocation that proposes innovation and change that will make our system less expensive.