With the some of the lowest wages and now the least affordable housing in the nation, Montana changed radically over the past few years of total Republican control. Older, more-conservative Americans flocked into the state during pandemic years, while younger progressive voters suddenly fled the outrageous cost of housing in Montana.
Newcomers to Montana often think that that the Treasure State is flush with cash like many of the places they fled. It is not. We’re not rich like California, Texas, Oregon or New York, though you’d never know it, looking at the new wealth that has migrated to the state. McMansions everywhere, nothing affordable to the working stiff, and Montana still acquires most of our state budget revenues from the federal government.
Welcome to Montana, you’re now one of us. We like our freedoms. If you like public infrastructure like schools, hospitals, water, or roads it matters bigtime who we send to Washington, D.C. to do our work. We’re one rural state, bigger across on the rail than from Chicago to D.C.
Without someone in D.C. who understands rural Montana and our working way-of-life, our state taxes will increase dramatically to sustain basic services like public schools, public lands or infrastructure like hospitals and police. In Congress, legislative power and seniority matter most to policymaking.
Almost all of the next years policymaking in Congress is decided by you, the voter, on Election Day. It’s all over next week. Your one vote on the ballot decides how communities prosper.
Montana got financial help from D.C. since statehood. Recently things got so ugly in Washington, D.C. that most of the people we send up there vote against the very things that make our local lives more affordable and livable in rural Montana. Important things like capping the cost of medicine, opening up new veterans clinics, tax cuts for health insurance, or keeping local senior living centers and local hospitals open.
The reason rural Montana enjoys better internet and roads has everything to do with congressional seniority and a basic understanding of what it’s like to live and work in the fourth largest state in the nation. Not all of us working in Montana earn California wages. That’s a luxury reserved for newcomers, the lucky, and remote workers.
For each dollar Montana taxpayers send to Washington, D.C., the state receives a dollar and a half back to help fund public services. A quarter of Montanans are retired and collect billions of dollars annually of their own invested money from the federal government. Medicare and Medicaid healthcare returns billions of dollars more to Montana each year which keeps rural hospitals and clinics open.
Old-timers in Montana know Sen. Jon Tester gets stuff done. Tester still farms the same land his grandparents homesteaded 100 years ago. Newcomers in Montana are slowly getting to know Tester and like what they see.
The dirt farmer delivered federally-funded local projects into Montana, creating nearly a million American jobs nationwide through his bipartisan infrastructure law. In Congress Tester assured Montana’s state budget was flush with billions of dollars on surplus funds.
Thanks to Tester’s seniority and understanding of rural, public infrastructure improvements to local airports, hospitals, schools, high-speed internet, roads, waterways, and conservation have been widely delivered across the Flathead, putting people to work in towns across Montana.
Marc Racicot, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee and chairman of the George W. Bush reelection campaign recently wrote that “The Democrat Jon Tester I met 28 years ago as a Republican governor is still the Jon Tester I know today. Montana is changing, and now more than ever we need a seasoned champion representing us in the U.S. Senate.”
Like you haven’t guessed from the truckloads of mailers jammed into your mailbox or from the obsessive television advertisements, Election Day is next week. You have one vote to protect your rights, to assure that Montana remains the kind of place where you want to raise a family, grow a business, and enjoy the great outdoors. Reproductive freedom and privacy matter to old-timers and newcomers alike.
We’ve got great schools in the Flathead, good healthcare and access to open public lands because decent leaders do right by our families and local community. If you like hospitals, schools, and community you better turn out and vote for experience, seniority and dignity.
Recently Tester said, “The truth is, I’m not in this race for me. Young Montanans are our future and the things I’m fighting for today -good schools, good health care, and affordable homes- affect them more than anybody else.”
Either old-timer or newcomer, you’re a Montanan. One vote is all it takes from you to keep U.S. Senator Jon Tester working for all of us and assure that the Last Best Place remains a great state to live.