As Idaho fires poured smoke into the valley, an ashy flavor lingered in my mouth. It tasted familiar, permeated the nose, and caused distress to everyone it touched valley wide. We’ve been through it for too many summers. It wasn’t so smoky in the Flathead decades past, but given the weather and climate is different, the new normal seems more chaotic until change returns. Pray for rain while we wait for a politician to act.
Change is not what’s planned by those in charge of the state and nation. Current leaders prefer the status quo. It pays well for some, especially the consultant class. Today, government works to protect those who own most everything. Team status-quo has it good. The rest of us are getting the short end of the stick.
The richer the politicians, the more likely Montana sends them to Congress. The net worth of our Congresspeople, whose policies behave like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, is about a gazillion dollars combined. Those size wallets aren’t overly concerned about the price of coffee, milk, or eggs.
Stuff got way expensive after Montanans handed Republicans all the keys to the family sedan, doling out absolute power to one party at both the state and national level. Montana Public Radio recently reported that many locals could see up to a 75% increase in health insurance premiums. This, on top of earlier reports indicating that many saw home insurance rates double over past years. And, wow, did car insurance get expensive.
Electricity prices also got double digit increases as Republicans run all of the Public Service Commission. During Gov. Greg Gianforte’s first term in office, homeowners in places like Flathead County saw their state property taxes increase by 95%, essentially doubling in just four years.
Don’t even pretend many workers can buy homes. The median listing home price in Flathead County is $900,000. A bit south in Lake County the median listing home price is $780,000, while in Eureka the median price is $650,000. Montana is clearly not building places for working families to live.
Not long ago, Flathead Republicans in the state House all voted to sell off a million acres of state public lands, putting Montana’s legacy on the chopping block. This is the exact opposite of what locals have been working on for decades as citizens work to preserve our public lands and outdoor lifestyle for the next generation and beyond. Locals want clean places to hunt, fish, and camp.
In D.C., every one of Montana Republicans in Congress voted to slash healthcare and food assistance across rural America by a cool $1 trillion dollars while having the nerve to increase the national debt by $5 trillion.
Nearly half of our total $37 trillion in national debt occurred while Sen. Steve Daines was in Congress. Daines owns plenty of yes votes on laws and budgets that increase the debt level we leave our kids, regardless of the rhetoric flowing out of D.C.
Montana enjoys some of the best public schools in the nation. Ask any local sending their kids to school. We really like our public schools and want to make them even better for both kids and teachers. Education is key to kid’s future.
Lucky for Montana, our state Constitution is a keeper, best in the nation, and worth protecting. It guarantees us a right to privacy, liberty and freedom. There are some who seek to dismantle our rights. But many are currently working hard to keep justice nonpartisan, fair.
Working people are getting priced out of democracy. It’s time to make government work better for the people who keep building our great nation and state. Montana is a great place to work, raise a family, and enjoy and respect the amazing landscape, public lands and wildlife that make our state the envy of the nation.
A late afternoon, gentle rain cleared the smoky air. The citizen-science air quality monitor up the road now says satisfactory, that air pollution poses little or no risk. Things move fast. I’ll pray for more rain, having learned the hard way that our elected leaders will do nothing until change is let into the house.