Carrie: Isn't this year's focus for the Legislature supposed to be education and transportation? Yet the end of March is fast approaching and they still haven't figured out the funding.

Jerry: Well, what's it going to cost?

Carrie: They are proposing to increase teacher pay by $125 million over the next five years. Transportation is an even bigger item. They say we need $262 million just to catch up on all the delayed maintenance on roads and bridges.

Jerry: OK ... but my conservative farmer friends want to know how we'll pay for all of this?

Carrie: Because they are phasing in education increases over five years, they think there will be enough money in the general fund to cover most of it. But repairing roads and bridges will require new sources of funding.

Jerry: Shouldn't the folks who use the roads and bridges pay for that? How about higher gas taxes, raising registration fees and asking commercial truckers to pay more?

Carrie: The Legislature has introduced several competing bills offering Band-Aid solutions. Some ask for higher gas taxes and registration fees. One wants to increase sales taxes 1 percent. But these only raise about $80-$100 million per year and polls show that the public opposes higher gas taxes. So they're stymied.

Jerry: The Legislature's approach reminds me of the guy who loses his car keys in a dark parking lot but looks for them under the street lamp where the light is better. They seem to look for solutions to problems where it's convenient instead of taking a more comprehensive look at how we fund government services.

Carrie: What do you mean?

Jerry: Did you know that there are 92 categories of products and services exempt from sales tax? If we removed all these special tax breaks, it which would generate almost $2 BILLION annually in revenues. By comparison, the entire 2015 education budget is $1.5 billion.

Carrie: Do they ever review these tax breaks to see if they still make sense?

Jerry: No. Here's an example. If they removed the sales tax exemption on "professional services" such as legal, accounting, advertising, etc., it would generate over $250 million annually. If the exemption was removed on "businesses services," such as employment agencies, building and security, etc., it would yield another $127 million annually.

Carrie: Maybe there would be fewer lawsuits if they did that!

Jerry: My farmer friends are currently exempt from sales taxes on agricultural and industrial services. If that tax break was removed, it would yield another $8 million annually.

Carrie: Here's another source of revenue. If our Legislature would accept federal dollars to cover the Medicaid gap, it would save the state and counties $173 million in taxes over the next 10 years. Clearly these funds would be better used for education and roads. Equally important, it would provide better health care for over 78,000 uninsured Idahoans including many veterans.

Jerry: What I don't understand is why our legislature won't even look at these sources of revenue. Eliminating sales tax exemptions on professional and business services would not only pay for all our road and bridge repairs, it would create enough surplus that we could likely lower the overall income tax rate.

Carrie: Our legislators seem to have trouble standing up to special interest groups. In fact, they just passed a bill allowing a new sales tax exemption on prescription eyeglasses and contacts. There goes another $4 million out of the general fund. Once again, we sacrifice the basic needs of our citizens to satisfy special interest groups.

Jerry: Sounds like this year's legislative focus is more like "Always to the greedy, never to the needy."

Jerry Scheid is a retired farmer/rancher and native Idahoan. Carrie Scheid is a retired nonprofit administrator. They live in Idaho Falls.