Idaho Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin is defending her “conservative credentials” amid revelations that her businesses got $314,727 in federal COVID-19 relief loans even though she supposedly opposes government “handouts.” In a Facebook post, McGeachin bristled at the idea that anyone would suggest she was guilty of hypocrisy. “In a truly free market devoid of government lockdowns and other mandates, our businesses would be operating as normal and our employees’ incomes would be secure,” she wrote. As the Idaho Statesman reported, just three months after McGeachin’s wholesale transmission-parts company got the PPP loans, she wrote an op-ed in which she said “the solution to difficult times is not to increase the size, scope and spending of government, but to decrease these things and to put our resources in the hands of the private sector where they can grow and prosper.” She did not mention in the op-ed that her businesses were benefiting from a $2.2 trillion federal program.