The Montana Legislature thinks you’re stupid. Too stupid to make your own way in the world, too stupid to fend for your own family, too stupid to realize how much of your money they waste on a daily basis. Wait … I could be wrong. Maybe it thinks you’re just too lazy to take care of yourself. Whether the legislators be Republican or Democrat, there is no collective desire to lower your taxes. Everything I read about lowering property taxes involves schemes to replace the money with another funding source. Everyone is looking at it utterly backwards. There’s absolutely no thought to lowering spending. Tom Millett, in his recent Flathead Beacon article, was spot on in his assessment. Quit spending! We don’t need more funding sources. America and Montana don’t have a funding problem, our legislators have a spending addiction problem, and I suggest that our legislators check themselves into the nearest mental health facility that they love to spend money on and deal with their addiction. How many of our current state and federal legislators have you heard say that they need to curb their spending? How many have the guts to stand up at the podium and vow to vote against spending? Programs like SNAP, Obamacare subsidies, Medicaid, the list is endless. We live in a perpetual welfare state. Welfare programs rule Congress, state legislatures, and subsequently, our lives.
I’ll bet there will be several legislators, at both the state and the federal level, that will see this article. When they read it, they’ll acknowledge to themselves that I am correct. Then they’ll shrug their shoulders and say “that’s not how things work,” or “ the issues are a lot more complicated than Adams realizes.” Then they’ll continue wasting our hard-earned tax dollars on ridiculous programs that most of us don’t support. I don’t care if you support left-leaning agendas or right-leaning agendas, the government shouldn’t be dictating our agendas. Since passage of the 16th amendment in 1913 those in power have told us how they can manage our money better than we can, how they’re going to make life better for everyone, yet it isn’t true.
Government blowhards just make it harder to earn a living, unless, of course, you’re one of the beneficiaries who lives off of someone else’s hard work. Our federal government has spent over
$200 trillion since the 16th amendment passed. I submit to you that most of it was wasted. And the rate of spending has increased dramatically. Exactly how many trillions do we have to be in debt before we can find 535 Congress people who are willing to end this travesty? The state of Montana spends $8 billion a year. The majority goes to entitlement programs. Exactly how many billions of dollars do we have to pay before we can find 150 state legislators willing to say “Stop the insanity!”? I’m sick of reading the blame-casting editorials. Elected government officials need to stand up and take responsibility for their own sins.
And where did the free spirit, sense of independence, and rugged individualism that Montana is known for disappear to, now that a fourth of Montana families receive state welfare and a third of all Americans receive federal welfare? Why are those that are productive in society penalized the by these exorbitant tax rates to support those who are deliberately unproductive? How are those who are conditioned to live on welfare ever going to be incentivized to become productive when the government encourages them to be eternally unproductive? How many legislators have I ticked off for calling them out? What are they going to do about it? Nothing. Business as usual. Our voracious governments are obese, ugly, and they smell bad.
Doug Adams lives in Whitefish.