We keep telling you that everything got too expensive. But it seems you’re only listening to the overpaid consultants. Hopefully last week’s landslide election results opened eyes a bit.
People are unhappy about liberties getting trampled. Everything from food to rent to healthcare to power to daycare got way too expensive. Maybe it’s hard to see this reality through the glamor and disillusionment of Washington, but here locally only the few dance the Charleston.
All across America, in hundreds of local elections, people chose leaders they trust. Some new faces, many familiar. A friend recently said that voters chose leaders who’ll work to make it suck a little bit less. The locals know who’s in charge of this statewide mess. Voters appear in the mood to replace a do-nothing Congress with anyone willing to make it better, less expensive.
Voters from Georgia to Colorado said no to chaos and yes to economic populism. They elected people who seek to make it better and overwhelmingly said no to the yes-men and bootlickers. Yet, you guys remain in charge. Where you take Congress and Montana is hard to say. Maybe you don’t yet know. But if the past year is any indication, it sounds bloody expensive.
We’ve known each other for a while, being from the same small town and having served in the state Legislature at the same time, representing the same hometown locals. Our politics diverged after you went to D.C. and suddenly voted to repeal COOL, the country of origin labelling of meat back in 2015. Repealing COOL hurt Montana farmers and consumers.
And it seems we don’t much agree today, seeing that you cut off food stamps and health insurance for Montanans. That’s a cruel vote, doesn’t sound like the old you.
I know the paid consultants with cushy jobs keep telling you that everything is fine. That only power matters and there’re no problems. Ignore the media, full steam ahead they yell. But there’s another story you’d hear walking the streets of our town, valley, and state. One much more dire, unkind and frankly unnecessary. And it’s hurting workers like plumbers and farmers.
The tariff taxes are bankrupting workers across Montana. The cost of everything we need to grow food or fix stuff has gone through the roof while the long-trusted crop markets farmers built over decades of time and across the world have been destroyed. It’s bad. Very bad.
And it’s not just farmers and plumbers in trouble. Renters are underwater. Any self-employed worker with heath insurance is pulling out their hair, trying to figure out how on earth to pay those extra thousands of dollars in annual premiums come next year.
Look, maybe these aren’t things that personally concern you. We pay your health insurance, Washington wages are really good, and not many of us farm anymore. Yet there’s plenty of plumbers, electricians and drywallers in Montana. And we all eat.
Outside Congress, the ever-rising cost of food is a big deal. Someone must be cooking the books in D.C. because for us working stiffs, food is expensive. The struggle is real, my neighbor.
Those tariff taxes made car repair more expensive, increased the cost of housing, jacked up coffee, and make chocolate lovers pig biting mad. Yeah, funny words, but there’s nothing remotely humorous about letting Montana kids go hungry. All across our state, everything today costs more and more. It seems you know it and hide from public townhalls.
We don’t have to focus on New York City, where a record numbers of locals turned out to vote for change. From New Jersey to Virginia to right here in Kalispell, voters chose change and selected leaders who understand the pain cast upon everyday people when the stuff we need to live in Montana and across the nation cost more than the paychecks we earn.
Here in the Flathead, neighbors are helping. But national policy like tariff taxes, insurance premiums, price of food, and these damn data centers that are blowing up local power bills remain in your hands. You could help. You should help. That’s the job. Represent.
I gotta hunch that if congressmen don’t help locals with the skyrocketing costs of living, a lot of them will be out of those cushy jobs this time next year. No matter how congressmen act over the upcoming year, locals are still doing our part. We know food matters. Kids matter. Housing matters. People matter.
Hunger is alive in the Flathead. It’s left to locals, to community, up to local people and leaders to help fill the hunger gap, much like any neighbor would do for the kids.
In the Flathead, we see who’s helping. Local organizations like Land to Hand, North Valley Food Bank, Flathead Food Bank, Sparrow’s Nest, and the Flathead Warming Center are doing good work helping people during hard times in Montana. It’s getting cold, the time to help is now.
Mostly what Flathead non-profits like Land to Hand need is money to help feed hungry kids. If you got a few extra bucks, go on, please share. Any donation, ten bucks, a million bucks helps.
There’s no better time than now. It’s up to us locals to help hungry neighbors. Congress remains on paid vacation throwing shade on Montana, yapping about how glitzy and glamorous the new ballroom in D.C. will look during the Roaring Twenties of our lifetime.