Idaho's Budget Problems

Part of the problem is an unexpected surplus of $247 million. (For you Californians--that's "million" with an "M"--try not to laugh at how small Idaho's budget numbers are.) The other part of the problem is that Governor Otter wants to raise taxes to pay for $200 million in road work. State Controller Donna Jones says that there's enough of a surplus to pay for the road work without raising taxes:

State Controller Donna Jones said Idaho's $247 million surplus should be enough to fix roads without raising taxes.
"Taxes are too high on Idaho's families," Jones said in a statement released Monday. "Instead of looking at raising taxes to pay for road and bridge repair, the Legislature could potentially use $200 million of this surplus to tackle Idaho's backlog of road repairs."

A little later in that same Idaho Statesman article there is an explanation of why we need to raise taxes from Governor Otter's spokesman:

Hanian said there are plenty of needs for the surplus money, like overflowing prisons, higher education, pre-kindergarten and mental health, as well as the costs that will likely stem from this year's forest fires.
"When it comes to surplus dollars, the needs comes up like quills on a porcupine," Hanian said.

It might well be that there's more than $247 million in needs that require government funds. But if the argument for raising taxes is paying for $200 million in road repairs, shouldn't we pay for those road repairs, and then discuss whether a tax increase is needed? Or if we need to do this in a holistic manner, looking at all the needs, then let's do that. I know that a lot of people in Idaho aren't keen on more funding of pre-kindergarten programs. I am generally supportive of increased funding on mental health--but before we throw money at this, I would like to know if incidents like the recent Moscow mental patient shooting rampage were because of a shortage of hospital space or not.