I know the rent is expensive, but “Have you seen that the Dow is over 50,000?” seems to be the only reaction from the Republican machine running Montana and Washington, D.C.
The Dow dipped back below that historic peak. Headed up, headed down, it’s sure jumpy. Yet risen 10% over the past one year. Comparatively the rent has increased some 50% in the Flathead over the past five years.
If you have capital in the stock market like some 60% of Montanans, you’ll appreciate making money. Montana became a very expensive place to live. Recent reports suggest that the median Montanan has some $50,000 invested in the stock market, much of it untouchable in retirements and 401(k)s. Any gain is welcome to retirees after decades of hard work.
For the 25% of valley-wide tenants, the cost of housing remains a huge hurdle as rentals cost an average $2,000 a month, a bit lower in Kalispell. Lots of jobs are paying better but it still takes $25 per hour just to live in the Flathead. Go ahead, ask anyone but a politician and they’ll agree.
In 2010, Jimmy McMillan famously repeated the phrase, “The rent is too damn high” like a political mantra. His politics are absent in Montana or fall on deaf ears as the rent keeps rising as sure as the morning sun over Glacier Park. Affordability and accountability matter.
Everyone knows that the tariffs Congress embraces cost everyday Montanans a lot. Republicans like Rep. Ryan Zinke and Sen. Steve Daines tout how great the Dow is, but the folks doing the everyday jobs in the valley are paying way more as each year passes. That’s not viable.
Zinke even voted to keep the Canadian tariffs in place, forcing locals who build a home to pay a lot extra for softwood lumber. Canada is Montana’s biggest trader and Zinke apparently doesn’t much care how much locals have to pay to live in the Treasure State.
Montana is a hot mess, divided and upset. Democrats are annoyed with each other and Republicans are infighting like gray wolves during clan wars. Tens of millions of dark dollars keep pouring into the state as a handful of global billionaires call the shots, deciding what Independents and Libertarians think about in Montana and who is worthy of election.
Voters choose the winners in all these dark money political battles that the left and right are waging against each other across Montana during upcoming June primaries. One thing remains clear. Everyday workers are the losers in this endless power struggle over dark money and its paid consultant class. They’ve bought control away from candidates and the parties, leaving lobbyists more in charge. And they answer to their corporate bosses.
Lawmakers only returned half the property tax increases from recent reappraisals back to homeowners. Some join the Montana Chamber of Commerce touring the state touting a new sales tax on every local to help fund yet more top end income tax cuts in the state budget.
Insurance is through the roof, if you can even get it. Many homeowners are reporting that policies are no longer even available on the same house they’ve lived in for decades. It feels like at every turn, they’re robbing us blind. And we need someone to blame.
Politicians want you to blame the neighbors, the people who do the work, the folks who own less, or moved here recently. Blame anyone, they insist, but not the lawmakers who do little to help everyday folks doing an honest day’s work, trying to get by, and send a kid to trade school. The disconnect between politicians and people isn’t new. It defined the Great Depression.
Eighty-eight years ago, Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “Democracy has disappeared in several other great nations — disappeared not because the people of those nations disliked democracy, but because they had grown tired of unemployment and insecurity, of seeing their children hungry while they sat helpless in the face of government confusion, government weakness — weakness. Finally, in desperation, they chose to sacrifice liberty in the hope of getting something to eat.”
FDR said that while seeing the rise of fascism in Germany and Italy. During a Fireside Chat he made a strong argument to Americans and to a skeptical Congress, that economic security is the first line in the defense for freedom.
In the political world of Zinke and Daines, the haves need more tax breaks while the have nots must pay thousands extra for health insurance, rent, food, energy, and building supplies. Even Libertarians and moderates are seeing the light. Just ask your neighbor about the cost of living.
There’s an economic populist wave in Montana. As Lee Iacocca, one-time CEO of Chrysler famously said twenty years ago, “Am I the only guy in this country who’s fed up with what’s happening? Where the hell is our outrage? I’ll give you a sound bite. Throw the bums out!”