While the questions are different for the bakery, appliance store, law firm and butcher shop – much less a software company or SEO firm, the need is the same. These 5 questions can make your business different in the eyes of your customers – and they’re what you’d call attention to if you could do […]

In the next couple of years, middle-class Montanans are eligible for a sizable tax credit from the Affordable Care Act. It is refundable so taxpayers who have little income tax liability can still fully benefit. The credit can be paid in advance to a taxpayer’s insurance company to help cover the cost of premiums. All […]

The Wilderness and Roadless Area Release Act (HR 1581/S. 1087) will be considered this week by the U.S. House of Representatives. Congressman Denny Rehberg is a co-sponsor of HR 1581. In the state of Montana alone this would remove federal protections from about 5.5 million acres. This would have a detrimental effect along the Rocky […]

Women are an endangered species under Republican legislators and governors. We no longer have the right to control our own bodies. We cannot decide for ourselves whether to limit the size of our families through contraception. We are having obstacles put in our way when we want to terminate a pregnancy because of rape or […]

It would seem that Mike Jopek believes any program supported by the government and paid for by you and me, is a good program (March 21 Beacon: “Out of Touch”). I beg to differ. It is ironic that a student in a Jesuit university, supported by a Catholic religion that doesn’t believe in birth control […]

After a second Libertarian candidate filed for U.S. Senate, Montana Secretary of State Linda McCulloch had a choice. She could hold a primary for which the cost to counties would total between $350,000 and $390,000. Or she could simply place both men on the general election ballot. She chose the latter. What this means is […]

Most American homes today are energy pigs that, as fuel prices continue to increase, become more burdensome to their owners every year. They leak warm air out of every nook and cranny, have inefficient mechanical systems (that probably need a filter change), old light bulbs and water heaters, cold windows, and not enough insulation. Compared […]

The reaction by some claiming to represent Montana’s resource industries to a recent conference entitled “power shift” at the University of Montana is both sad and short-sighted. Apparently they were offended by the fact that much of the program dealt with environmental problems associated with resource development. Thus, we read opinions bearing the titles, “Universities […]

In late February, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in PPL Montana, LLC v Montana, a case which Montana seems to have lost, badly. The flap started in 2003 with a federal citizen lawsuit by two “parents of schoolchildren” (actually professional environmentalists), claiming rent was owed to Montana’s school trust on the riverbeds under 17 […]

When something is viewed as an expense, your instinct is to reduce it to the smallest possible amount. Doing this to your marketing is not unlike choking yourself. Marketing as an expense The most obvious clue that a business treats marketing as an expense is that they cut back on it when things get tight. […]

Entrepreneurs are often surprised when investors refuse to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) or confidentiality agreements when offered an opportunity to read the entrepreneurs’ new business plans. After all, every new startup features secret ideas, partnerships, intellectual property and/or technology. Why won’t investors sign NDAs? Investors are pitched for funding by as many as 5,000 startup […]

Prior to FDR, the primary reason the federal government went into debt was to finance war. Since then, the government has made it a habit of going into debt to finance peace. When in power, liberals have created numerous financial incentives for women to bear children out of wedlock. These incentives have caused an explosion […]

It has become traditional for the president of our country to get around the law making power of Congress be issuing. “Executive Orders.” Why this function has not been challenged by Congress or the Supreme Court is a mystery for me, but it gives powers to the president not provided in our Constitution and should […]

A record number of Montanans have filed for higher office in 2012 and while that bodes well for democracy, it could also make for some messy primary races. Among legislative contests, several local Republicans are vying for the same seats, some of which are in conservative districts where the primaries may be more hard-fought than […]

Memory often flirts with a singular episode from one’s past. This year’s presidential primary campaign has me remembering a political season from my teen years. Intrigued and inspired by politics done right, I was captivated by the 1952 Democratic and Republican conventions. Many candidates sought their party’s nomination but only two held the imagination and […]