Ammon Bundy is an independent candidate running for his first term as Idaho Governor. His Republican opponent, incumbent Gov. Brad Little, declined Idaho Public Television’s invitation to debate.
This year we at Idaho Public Television, along with debate organizers nationwide, saw a number of candidates decline to participate in debates or fail to respond to our invitations in the first place. As Federal Election Commission rules say we cannot hold a debate with just one candidate, we’re allowing those who did qualify for the debates a chance to sit down with Idaho Reports for a one-on-one interview in which they can answer questions much like they would have received in a traditional debate setting.
Melissa Davlin, Idaho Reports host:
Thank you so much for joining us this week. First question, why do you want to be governor?
Ammon Bundy, Idaho Governor candidate:
I actually don’t necessarily want to be, that’s not something that I’ve desired. I’ve just felt a need. I had name recognition. I see that Idaho is heading down a path that I don’t want it to go down and I believe the majority of Idahoans do not want it to go down. Where much is given, much is expected. But as far as a want, that really doesn’t have much to do with it. You know, I have a young family. I’m an entrepreneur. If I wanted to go do something, I would go into business, I would spend that time with my family, but I believe that there’s a need here. It’s time to act in certain ways, and so that’s what I’m doing.
IR:
Let’s talk a little bit about what you plan to do if you are elected. One of the major parts of your campaign proposals has to do with taxes. Can you explain what you would like to see happen?
Bundy:
Eliminating progressive taxes, I guess, is overall kind of how I’d summarize it. Certainly, that includes the elimination of property tax and income tax. I believe that the only moral way to tax a people is through a consumption tax –
IR:
So, sales tax?
Bundy:
Sales tax, yeah. I’ve proposed what we should do to replace property tax, because there is legitimate purposes of government and we need to fund those. There has to be some way to do that, and so just eliminating taxes altogether and not being responsible with it is something that is not part of my proposal. But I also don’t like the idea of the state being able to lien our properties and our homes through our current property tax system. I believe we need to eliminate it and change it.
IR:
So, you have proposed doing away with property taxes, which isn’t collected by the state. It does fund local governments. How would you replace that money?
Bundy:
So obviously, as governor, I would need the legislature to get involved in this. That’s something that would obviously have to happen, and I look forward to working with the Legislature on topics such as this. I would be proposing that we, again, replace it with a consumption tax. So, at the point of sale or at the purchase, there would be a consumption tax on it and that tax would replace the [property] taxes that we’re doing now. We would get rid of this where we have to pay on our homes forever or the state takes it, and we still fund the legitimate purposes of government. I broke that down at votebundy.com on my website.
IR:
Would you propose raising the sales tax? Because right now for most goods, that is 6 percent. Would you need to bump that up to replace the more than $2 billion just from property tax alone?
Bundy:
We will not have to raise the current sales tax to compensate for the property tax, and again, I’ve laid that out very clearly on my website. However, if we want to get rid of the income tax and we want to clear some of these other taxes up, then there may need to be an increase.
But with that said, though, we have programs in the state that I believe are absolutely unnecessary. We need to minimize those programs or eliminate those programs. For example, almost 40% of our state budget goes to welfare programs. I don’t believe that we should be a nanny state. I don’t believe that the state of Idaho should be providing that amount of welfare services. That alone is almost $4 billion a year, so let’s redirect that to lower the taxes of the people of Idaho and allow them to pay their own bills.
IR:
You said you would like to eliminate these welfare programs. Does that include aid for people with disabilities?
Bundy:
I think that there’s some opportunity for services for the state, especially when it comes to children and the need for children to have homes where their parents aren’t doing that, are not capable of doing that or are not around. That’s kind of always been something that the state has worked at a little bit. But we need to push these services back on to the churches and to the families and to the communities. A good example of that is like the homeless here in the Boise area. We have the Boise Rescue Mission, who does a tremendous job at providing services to those people and helping them to have food and a place to stay and clothing and all of that. None of that is government funded. None of those funds come from the government, and yet they’re providing the bulk of the service here in Boise in that area, and it’s not a burden to the taxpayer. And they’re much better at it than the government is.
IR:
It’s also a temporary facility. It’s not a permanent solution for folks who are experiencing homelessness.
Bundy:
Yeah, but I don’t think that welfare should ever be a permanent service.
IR:
Along those lines, you’ve said that private charities and churches should be stepping in to help with things. You’ve mentioned on your website food aid and people with disabilities who need home health care. Especially when it comes to home health care workers, there is already a shortage that we’re experiencing in this state. If that gap is already there, are the churches stepping up to fulfill those needs? And if not, are they prepared for even more?
Bundy:
Well, they won’t, as long as the state’s going to fill it. That’s what we’ve seen. As long as the state tries to fill a void – whether it’s a family duty, parents, the church – then it seems like society will allow the state to do that. But the state doesn’t do it very well. It’s very expensive. It’s consumed by bureaucracies and red tape, and I just believe that we need to go back to what we know worked. It’s been working that way for hundreds of years, and we need to push it back on to the families, back to the churches, back to the communities. Sometimes that might be a little uncomfortable. It might create a few vacuums here and there. But ultimately, in the end, it is much, much better for everybody, including the taxpayer.
IR:
You’ve also proposed, as you mentioned, doing away with individual income tax. That’s 42% of the $6.2 billion in revenue collected by the state last fiscal year. Does your proposal include also eliminating corporate income tax, first of all?
Bundy:
I think that corporations have a duty to pay their fair share, if you will. I don’t like the idea of having economic development planned where we bring a big corporation in, they provide low- to middle-income jobs, we give them tax cuts and tax rebates. You know, they don’t help pay for the legitimate purposes of government. I think it should be equal across the board. I don’t see how we really benefit from that type of economic development plan. I believe an accurate economic development plan – or one that we should implement here in Idaho – benefits the individual, the entrepreneur and the young businesses, because that’s where wealth is truly generated. That’s where jobs are created – good jobs. I will direct my efforts that way. Not that I don’t want to be attractive as a state to corporations – there’s nothing wrong with that – but trying to attract them by giving them tax cuts or even tax rebates, I just don’t see how that really fits in to the needs of the state of Idaho.
IR:
You’ve talked a lot about unnecessary government programs, while acknowledging that you see government as having certain proper roles. What are those proper roles?
Bundy:
Well, certainly proper roles exist in our policing agencies to make sure that we have a safe environment, and we live in safe communities. I think a lot of that responsibility needs to fall upon the sheriff’s department. I believe that there is a role in some of the needs, to fill the voids when it comes to some immediate needs for children in need. There’s certainly just the overall role to make sure that our county recorders are funded, our records are kept, and so that the people have a legitimate way to be able to identify what claims they have, what rights they have, their titles and their deeds. And then, of course – even though I don’t like what’s going on in the courts – there is a need for the courts so that when people have a dispute, they have a place to go work that out that’s peaceful. So, these are some legitimate purposes of government that we need to fund. Our roads are important. Our infrastructure is very important. But many, many of the programs in government really need to be minimized or eliminated.
IR:
How about public education?
Bundy:
Well, that’s a big program right now, and we’re not going to eliminate that. I’ve been very open with the people that I’ve talked to that we are going to have to deal with public education. First of all, I believe that it is the parent’s responsibility to teach their children. They have that duty. I believe that responsibility and right comes from God. Now, many parents choose to try to educate their children through the public school system, and there’s a lot of challenges there. I think when you look over all of Idaho’s public education system, I would say that in comparison, we’re not doing very good. We’re not doing very well. I believe that there needs to be a lot of changes there.
One of those changes is giving the parents the ability to decide where the money goes, and then also freeing up our schools. Our school administrators, our school teachers, our school boards – freeing them up from federal curriculum, from state curriculum, so that they can cater to the students they have, and to the parents. And then with that together – with the parents controlling the money through a school choice type of system, and freeing the schoolteachers and the administrators and the school boards up from federal curriculums and mandates and so forth – then we create this almost kind of a free market situation in our schools where I believe that will be the best scenario that we can create in a public education system.
IR:
How are you going to pay for it?
Bundy:
It’s going to be paid for through the consumption taxes off of property. I’ve proposed that, again, replacing the property tax with a consumption tax, and it basically equals out so it’s the same amount of money.
IR:
Do you mean the sale of property, just to clarify?
Bundy:
Yeah. I’m proposing to eliminate property tax – the property tax system we have – and to going with a consumption tax. If you look at what the property tax brings in and how it funds public education and our sheriff’s departments and so forth, and then you compare it to the system that I’m proposing, it basically compensates. It’s about the same amount. It’s a little more through the system that I’m proposing. However, it’s not dependent on the state liening your property and taking your property. The funds to fund the legitimate purposes of government are there, it’s just I believe in a better way to make sure our private property is protected.
IR:
The Idaho Constitution says the Legislature must establish a free and uniform public school system. Are you planning to fund schools at the same rate that they’re funded at now? And are you in favor of changing that constitutional mandate?
Bundy:
I’m not opposed to that constitutional mandate. The Legislature set that. The rate, that we really need to look at. I haven’t in any way said, “Well, let’s cut schools completely. Let’s do that.” I’m opposed to that. I don’t think that that’s practical. But I do understand that it doesn’t take money to educate. We have to have facilities. We have to have the places to do that. We have to have some tools and so forth. We have to pay for teachers. But there’s somehow this idea that if we dump hundreds of millions of dollars into the education system, that somehow, we’re going to have a better education system. That has proven to be absolutely false. We need to go to the drawing table and say, “Hey, look, these are the real problems that are going on. This is why we haven’t been able to transfer information from one person to another.” Because that’s ultimately what education is. This is what our challenges are. We need to face those challenges and stop making it political, stop making it something that it’s not. We just need to absolutely say, this is for our children. If we’re going to educate our children using these funds, then we need to be responsible with them and we need to actually be able to say in the end that our children are educated and ready to go into the workforce or on to the next level of education. I don’t believe we can honestly say that in Idaho right now.
IR:
You’ve also said that if elected, on day one you will sign an executive order concerning abortion, specifically criminalizing it. Would you advocate for punishing women who seek abortions?
Bundy:
Anybody who wants to kill a child, I think is complicit in a crime. I don’t believe that murdering a baby should go unpunished. If they’re part of that, if they’re involved in that, then they should be responsible. They’re culpable.
IR:
Including the woman?
Bundy:
Absolutely, including the woman. I mean, who is supposed to protect their child more than anybody else if it’s not the mother? And then to say that somehow the mother is not responsible for those decisions? Absolutely.
IR:
You’ve also said that you would do away with exceptions for rape and incest. Would you have any exemptions for life of the mother?
Bundy:
Yeah. I mean, there are some there are some circumstances where a doctor has to just make a decision. But it can’t be an excuse to just kill the child, though. It can’t be. That’s why I don’t believe that we should have those exceptions. Now, any medical procedure that goes on is dangerous. There’s some more dangerous than others. If they don’t turn out, where the life was not saved, then we don’t go after the doctor for murder. As long as the intent is to try to preserve life, then there’s nothing anybody needs to worry about. But if the intent was to take life, then I believe that it should be punished.
IR:
How about other policies regarding reproductive access, like IUDs for women? You’ve spoken a little bit about this on social media. Do you think IUDs should be banned in Idaho?
Bundy:
I don’t. The more I’ve done the research, the more I believe that it shouldn’t. I believe – unless I see and understand something differently – I don’t believe that an IUD would qualify under, you know, conception or whatever. I do believe we need to be responsible with our ability to reproduce, and I believe that that those type of ways are acceptable. Unless I understand something that I don’t understand now, that’s my position on it.
IR:
You’ve suggested a lot of proposals that are big changes from the way Idaho has done things in the past. How would you get the legislature on board to get it done?
Bundy:
Before 2020 and 2021, we haven’t been able to pay our bills for the last 38 years. We’ve had to go back to the federal government every year for the last 38 years and ask for money. Well, I don’t think that we should continue to do that in Idaho. I think we have the ability, we have the people who want to work, we have the resources. I believe that we should be able to pay our own bills, because every dollar that comes from the federal government comes with strings attached to it. This idea that we need to continue doing what we’re doing – even though it’s not good – that we need to continue and not change that, I’m challenging that. I’m saying, “Hey, look, these are some things that we really need to change to make sure that Idaho has a strong future.” Things like taking back our lands so that we can pay our own bills, becoming free from federal curriculums in our schools. These are all things that I’m proposing that might be big things, but I believe that the people of Idaho need to face the reality here. And I believe that the majority of the people of Idaho want to.
IR:
You’ve suggested that Idaho should reclaim the more than 60% of land in the state that is owned or administered by the federal government. How would the state do that? How do you get Congress on board?
Bundy:
Well, it’s unconstitutional. If you look east of the Colorado Rockies, the federal government only controls 2.4% of the land – and then west of the Colorado Rockies, it’s a complete 51%. So, they’ve basically taken land that’s unconstitutional to take in the western United States. That’s because the western United States is full of minerals and wealth and resources. It’s putting the states like Idaho into what I call undue obedience, because we’re not able to use the land and the resources. The state’s not able to tax for it, or even to tax for the sales or the generation of the resource.
IR:
We do get payment in lieu of taxes (PILT) from the federal government, though.
Bundy:
And it’s like a penny on the dollar. I think it totals like $34 million, is all it is. We’re talking about billions of dollars that we’d be able to generate. I mean, you can estimate it. I know that there’s estimated just the subsurface mineral rights in the western United States is $117 trillion. So, generating the wealth in Idaho compared to what the federal government pays in PILT is not even a comparison. We need to be able to use that. The people of Idaho need to be able to benefit from the land and the resources, and the federal government is unconstitutionally holding it away from the people. In return, what do we have to do? We have to go back to the federal government to ask them to pay for a little over a third of our bills.
IR:
With these big proposals that you have, a lot of it is going to require getting people on your side, whether they’re members of the legislature or local governments or members of Congress. Meanwhile, you rose to prominence – you said earlier in the interview that you have name recognition – partly because of protests and the occupation of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in 2016. I don’t want to relitigate Malheur, but how will this history and the approach that you’ve had to some of these protests inform your governing style?
Bundy:
You’ve laid out here that these big ideas – or these big things that we want to accomplish, and I believe need to accomplish in Idaho – will take a lot of people getting on board with that. Ultimately, that’s what I’ve done. When you look at what happened at Malheur, there was a family that was being terribly persecuted or put under extreme duress by the federal government. I rallied tens of thousands of people across the country for their aid, and ultimately was able to get a presidential pardon for them. President Trump only pardoned 17 people, and I advocated for three of them. At my father’s ranch, you know, I didn’t live on the ranch, but I went and helped him. And again, we rallied hundreds of thousands of people and got international media attention for a certain cause. I do believe that if we can win this election, get the office of the governor going in the right direction, I believe that the people of Idaho will rally behind that. I believe that we can set a vision and work with the Legislature to get them in that direction. I believe we can get a lot of this done, because the past has shown that I’m able to do that.
IR:
You have said in in a recent video that you were hoping that somebody would “take care of” a judge who issued a ruling that that you didn’t like, for somebody who was engaged in a protest at a local public official’s house. What exactly did you mean by that?
Bundy:
Well, we have a lot of injustices going on. Robert Jones was in the middle of the day pounding on, I think it was a Home Depot bucket, on a public street. He was arrested for disturbing the peace, and this judge gave him a sentence of six months in jail.
IR:
They were also playing sounds of gunfire outside of the house, right?
Bundy:
Well, Robert Jones wasn’t. He was pounding on a bucket, and he was given six months. How is that free speech, in any way? I mean, it was in the middle of the day, he was pounding on a bucket, standing on the sidewalk – and this judge sentenced him to six months. She did it because she’s a political machine. I don’t believe we should have judges that are biased like that. That’s my opinion, and I think it’s an absolute injustice what happened to him.
IR:
You also said hopefully we can take care of her peacefully. Are you open to political violence in these cases, and what level of violence?
Bundy:
So, there’s lots of ways to take care of a judge. First of all, you could vote them out. I know that there’s a process through the Idaho Supreme Court that you can go through to have them removed. I do believe that we should go through those processes. I believe that that judge should not continue as a judge. I think she showed her bias and her injustice. I know there’s a little family that’s suffering because of it, and Robert Jones is in in jail right now because he pounded on a bucket in the middle of the day on the street.
IR:
Are you open to political violence?
Bundy:
What do you mean by political violence?
IR:
Well, I’m asking based on what you said in the video: “hopefully we can do it peacefully.” If that doesn’t work, what’s the alternative?
Bundy:
How is that in any way promoting violence? I said, “hopefully we can do it peacefully.” That’s of course what I would hope. That’s my desire. You know as well as anybody else that there’s a whole bunch of other non-peaceful methods that are used. I’m saying, I don’t condone that. Hopefully we can do it peacefully. Anybody that doesn’t believe or want it to be done peacefully, I don’t believe is in the right mind. And so that’s why I said that. Hopefully we can do it peacefully.
IR:
We are just about out of time. I do want to ask if you will accept the results of the election if it shows that you have lost.
Bundy:
Oh yeah, of course. If the people of Idaho have spoken and they don’t want me as their governor, I don’t think I have a choice, right? I’d have to accept it, and to be honest with you, I’d go right on with my family. I’d probably increase my business and keep doing that.
But, I also believe that Idaho is at a turning point. I believe that we’re sliding down a path that is bringing us more to being like Oregon or Washington, and that if we don’t correct that path, the people of Idaho will suffer from that. We don’t want to be like Oregon. We don’t want Boise to be like Portland. At least I don’t, and I believe the majority of the people of Idaho agree with me.
IR:
Ammon Bundy, thank you so much for joining us.
Bundy:
Thank you very much.
