Gov. Little praises Idaho successes and future milestones at Greater Idaho Falls Chamber meeting
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IDAHO FALLS — Praising Idaho’s successes and discussing the Gem State’s future milestones, the Greater Idaho Falls Chamber of Commerce hosted Gov. Brad Little for its chamber lunch on Tuesday afternoon.
This is the first visit from Little to the chamber since last year, when farmers protested his visit amid a water curtailment affecting thousands of acres of farmland.
While water wasn’t the main focus of his talk, Little started by discussing the Gem State’s economy and how resident’s personal income is expected to increase over the next five years.
“(It) would always puzzle me why Idaho didn’t have the triple-A credit rating… When I dove into that, it was because our personal income wasn’t high enough,” Little said. “Some pretty learned economists are saying that, over the next five years, they expect personal income to grow by 30%, and wages to grow by 15%.”
Little said that since day one, his goal has always been to make Idaho a place where kids who are born here stay. This has been achieved by funding education and providing more opportunities for career and technical schools.
He discussed that when he last visited the College of Eastern Idaho years ago, the college was producing 30 nurses each year; today, it produces 260 nurses annually.
Little said there will always be a certain number of students who can afford to go to college, but over time, college has become less affordable, reducing the number of eligible students.
However, praising the successes of the Idaho Launch Grant and along with classes that offer college credit, Little said, “We moved the affordability barrier down to about where it was when I went to school.”
“We are going to have to continue to scale that up. I want to coordinate 500 nurses here instead of 240,” Little continued. “We need more welders. We need more fabricators. All of those skills are going to spin out of this community right here.”
One area Little is excited to see grow in Idaho is nuclear energy, as the demand for it stems from growing artificial intelligence.
He said that while energy demand has been constant for years, projections for energy in the coming years will increase by 30%.
“There’s no place in America better suited to address that change in energy demand than right here in the Idaho Falls area,” Little said.
When discussing water, Little acknowledges the work that was done behind the scenes and the difference between farmers’ conditions today and last year.
“We now have what I promised, then we’re going to have certainty. We’re not going to be halfway, three-quarters away through the irrigation season, and have that uncertainty,” Little said.
Chamber CEO Paul Baker spoke with Little at the end of his talk and asked Little if he had spoken with Utah Gov. Spencer Cox over the shooting of Charlie Kirk.
Before Little’s talk, Baker opened the chamber lunch with a talk on how the community must learn to disagree better and come together regardless of opinion.
“The Chamber has for more than a century been about bringing people together… I invite all of us, regardless of where we stand, to recommit ourselves to respectful dialogue,” Baker said.
Little said he hasn’t spoken to Cox over the tragic incident, but he sends his sympathies to Kirk and his family and praises Kirk’s work in civil dialogue.
“One thing Charlie Kirk did was increase the level of engagement… every generation has an obligation to understand our system, understand what civil dialogue is about,” Little said.