Montana Articles

If At First You Don’t Succeed…

1/23/2019

I’ve gotta hand it to Bullock - he is persistent.

I mean, when most of us fail miserably, we’ll pull back, take stock, figure out what went wrong, and try a new approach.

But not Bullock. He’s a plow-right-ahead-kind-of-guy, and damn whatever torpedoes might be in the way!

Take infrastructure.

This year the governor wants $290 million for infrastructure, with $160 million of it coming from bonds.

Bonds means we take on debt to pay for something.

And lo and behold - he wants Romney Hall and the new Historical Society building!

Again.

Perhaps you remember last session, when Bullock wanted the same stuff. In late-January 2017 he came forth with his idea to have $187 million in bonding. By the end of April his bonding request had fallen to $80 million.

Didn’t pass.

Then there was the session before that, in 2015. On January 29 that year Bullock revealed HB 5, which called for $391 million in infrastructure spending, with $212 of that coming from bonds.

Didn’t pass.

So maybe this third time’s the charm, eh?

Yeah...right.

Usually if you want to continue these same losing, hail-Mary type of situations you’d have done one of a few things:

Win enough seats for your party to take a chamber of the legislature over the past two election cycles

Convince enough people from the other party to see things your way

Spend a shit-ton of money to get voters to convince their representatives themselves

Alas, I don’t think any of those things have happened, or anything else that might have created a mindset in the GOP-controlled legislature that says, ‘You know, what the hell...let’s just abandon our decades-long principles and take on this load of debt.’

Who the hell’s drinking the Kool-Aid in the governor’s office?

Folks, this isn’t about infrastructure. Two years ago the legislature funded $1.1 billion in infrastructure. The vast majority didn’t require bonding. $173 million in cash alone was used to fund certain projects, like wastewater infrastructure.

Bonding costs more long-term. Back in 2015 we know that the $212 million in bonding the governor wanted would have added $67.8 million to the construction projects over the life of the 20-year bond.

At least this year he’s asking for his lowest amount, just $160 million in debt. Two years ago he wanted us to take on $187 million, and four years ago it was $212 million.

I just don’t think most of the legislators in the capitol are going to be impressed. I think even some Democrats are scratching their heads, wondering about this deja vu all over again.

But hey, if our governor wants to try the same thing as before while assuming he’ll get different results...go right ahead.

Most call that crazy.

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Montana Internet Users Just Got Screwed

6/13/2018

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While the focus in Montana these days is on Matt Rosendale – which is where it’ll stay for the next 5 months – there is in fact other news happening in the country, and around the world.

Why don’t we put down the partisan attack rods for a bit and dig into that, eh?

You sure as hell know that no one else in this state will.

This Week’s Disastrous Vertical Merger

Let’s discuss vertical mergers, or companies in one business joining together to take a larger share of that business.

This often means less competition among businesses, higher prices, and less choice for consumers.

For companies, it means a greater ability to grab your eyes for their content. Taking it further, this means they can show you more targeted ads, something that also allows them to use the personal data they’ve been able to collect about you.

It’s all about profits under the guise of entertainment.

Please remember…for every 30 minute TV show on the air right now, you get 12 minutes of ads. Yep, just 18 minutes of content.

Now, what we’re getting at is the big vertical merger this week with AT&T and Time Waner. We’ll see more media companies – like Comcast, Fox, and Disney jump on the bandwagon in the coming weeks, possibly even today.

The AT&T-Time Warner deal was worth $85 billion.

With a number like that, you know this is a deal for the elites of the country, the rich and entitled…the people that tell us what to do.

They also tell us what to think, what to buy, and what’s good and what’s bad.

This is TV and internet and content…all provided by a large, global corporation that prizes its share price above all else.

To them, you’re just a meaningless consumer, one that pays the monthly bill for your smorgasbord of propaganda.

And my do we eat it up!

The DOJ did not, and they sued to stop this deal, something that resulted in a 6-week trial. They said that “the proposed merger would result in fewer innovative offerings and higher bills for American families.”

The DOJ claimed that AT&T would increase customer bills by 45 cents a month, which would net the company an extra $463 million a year.

Also, please remember that the CEO of AT&T made nearly $29 million last year. The CEO of Time Warner made $49 million.

They really need that extra 45 cents from you, don't they?

Alas, the judge in the case ruled in the corporation’s favor, against the public interest.

In fact, the judge said the idea that “the combination would limit consumer choice and stifle competition” was “poppycock.”

Now nothing stands in the way of several huge media companies joining together by June 20. These include:

HBO
Cinemax
CNN
TBS
TNT
Warner Bros.
DC Comics
Cartoon Network
10% of Hulu
DirecTV
Cricket wireless

CNN – a company being bought-out in the deal – tells us that this deal includes “AT&T’s enormous distribution system, including cell phone and satellite networks.”

The main basis for this deal was that AT&T felt it might go out of business if it didn’t join forces with Time Warner in order to “compete against giants like Netflix and Amazon.”

And that might be true. Take a look at what these companies are valued at:

As you can see, Amazon is the elephant in the room…earning more than twice as much as its nearest competitor – the newly-merged company – and three times as much as the next guy, Verizon.

So it makes sense for the companies to do this…they profit. The CEOs get larger golden parachutes, get to live in bigger gated communities, and their kids can go to posher prep schools.

Meanwhile, on the consumer and artist end we know that:

There will be fewer channels for artists to get their work out on

News distribution will now be put into fewer – and more self-interested – hands

Innovation will be stunted as there’s a larger barrier to competition

Remember, during the 2016 campaign, both Hillary and Trump opposed this merger.

Another terrible aspect of this deal is that it paves the way for other vertical mergers, and ensures that any DOJ resistance will be futile.

Expect to see Aetna and CVS join up, as well as Cigna and Express Scripts. This will certainly drive premium prices up for heath insurance, and probably prices for prescription drugs too.

All of this will be sold to the public under the illusion that it’ll do the exact opposite – lower prices.

Perhaps in the short-term, but you and I both know those CEOs won’t be able to move into the larger gated community and send their kids to the very best East Coast prep schools, if they don’t start increasing those profits, which means an increase in consumer prices.

A Non-Neutral Internet

Net neutrality laws were shot down this week.

Just days before the AT&T merger, our 3-year-old net neutrality laws ended, having been shot down six months earlier by the FCC.

What this means is that the internet will change a lot, with distributors like AT&T no longer bound to supply you with the content that the content providers like Google and Facebook provide.

So in this case, AT&T might look favorably on sharing online content for companies they own – like HBO and TNT – but they might slow down the content coming from Facebook or Netflix, companies they don’t own.

We all know that slow content means you hit the ‘back’ button and go somewhere else. That in turn means lost business and lost revenue for the affected companies, something that will in turn drive up prices in order to recoup that lost revenue.

Either way – slow content or higher prices – consumers lose.

One bright spot is that service providers will be “required to publicly disclose any instance of blocking, throttling or paid prioritization” in terms of slowing down our content delivery.

That’s nice, but I doubt many will be looking for such instances. I expect so much content will be slowed down that there’ll be too many instances to list!

Another bright spot is that 20 states are suing to reinstate net neutrality.

Alas, I don’t think anything will change soon. Corporations are more important than consumers, and profits come before people.

This is your country, and you want it this way.

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Infrastructure Hodgepodge

4/29/2017

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I’m sure by now you’ve heard that the 2017 Montana Legislature didn’t pass an infrastructure bill.

Let me ask you…where’d you hear that fake news?

Was it one of the Lee papers, maybe something on MTN?

Perhaps it was a blog, or even social media.

Could be that the Dems have already sent out some fundraising emails with the ‘news.’

But like I said, it’s fake.

The 2017 Montana Legislature passed $1.1 billion in infrastructure this session.

Wow, makes that $80 million in bonding look like chump change, don’t it?

So…what’s all the uproar about?

Well, debt.

You see, Bullock and his banker buddies and those buddies of his from District of Criminals law firm Steptoe & Johnson want Montana to take on that debt.

If you have credit cards you know how it works.

You borrow $1,000 and you end up paying $1,100 back.

Sure, the amounts could be different – it all depends on the interest rate.

And who sets those?

Why, the banks, of course!

Oh, and if you haven’t looked into the history of banking in America and in Montana, please do so here.

That’s the most popular article I’ve ever written on this site.

But back to infrastructure.

Republicans are happy that we had $1.1 billion of it but Democrats aren’t happy we didn’t get $80 million more.

I guess I wouldn’t be happy either – most of that pork was in urban, Dem districts.

In Helena we had the Historical Society building.
In Butte we had the veteran’s home.
In Bozeman we had the MSU building.

All urban projects.

So how is voting no on those going to hurt Montana Republicans.

It’s not, but Dems want you to think it will because honestly, they don’t know what else to do.

Oh, and let’s not forget that we also didn’t get $41 million in rural water projects.

Why?

Because Montana Democrats voted en-masse against it.

Who led the charge?

Virginia Jenny Eck.

Remember, Virginia Jenny is from a safe Helena district. She didn’t even have an opponent in 2016.

Yet because of her reckless actions and blind partisanship yesterday, countless rural Democrats will have to go back to their constituents and explain why they voted no.

Because Virginia Jenny told me to, that’s why!

Can you imagine that?

Maybe Virginia Jenny will come along to some of those town halls, huh? Perhaps sit in and take the brunt of voter’s disgust.

Yeah, I doubt it too.

What’s really sad is how terrible Bullock is at making political deals.

He came up with some shit-brained idea to do rent-to-own to get these urban buildings built.

Well, the GOP didn’t buy that bullshit.

And who’s gonna get blamed when your gas prices go up by 4.5 cents in a few months?

The GOP?

Nope, try again.

How about the Democrats, who voted for it?

Here in Missoula Dems lost HD 92 and HD 96 last time, districts that were supposed to be safe.

Well, they weren’t.

Makes we wonder which districts won’t be safe in 2018.

There’ll be far more districts flipping red than flipping blue, mark my words.

Or just read the Dem sites and their fake news and partisan rants. They’ll likely have you thinking Dems will take back the legislature in 2019.

Ha, just let them talk. They’re really, really good at it.

Translating that talk into action, though?

Eh, not so much.

Special Election Talk

I see that Sally Mauk will keep Capitol Talk/Campaign Beat going for another few weeks.

I like that.

The Bozeman Daily Chronicle should keep Chuck Johnson on too.

And Rob Saldin ain’t bad either. He’s a lot better than the guy in Bozeman, Dave Parker.

Both are political scientists, but really…how much do they know?

Saldin has zero books about Montana, while Parker has just one.

I have 7.

I guess what I’m getting at is that we need more voices and opinions on this race.

Remember, Montana has a very small media landscape.

You’ve got the copy/pastes on all the Lee papers, then Gannet up in Great Falls and whoever has the paper in Bozeman (which I never read).

Then there’s MTN News, some blogs, some smaller papers, and social media.

Besides some radio, that’s it.

So I’m glad we have more voices.

The main voices will of course be talking tonight as there’s a debate in this race.

I even hear that Mark Wicks is going to be able to participate.

That’s great, but still…neither Quist nor Wicks are going to win this race.

Oh, I’m sorry – did you think that this news of Gianforte’s investments in Russian companies was going to change things?

I’m sorry if you thought that.

Why do you think that?

Maybe it’s because you voted for Hillary last fall.

Those are the only people that care about Russian hacks or investments or anything else having to do with that country.

Students in Missoula don’t care – they have finals in a week.

Students in Bozeman don’t care – most of their parents are Republican.

Urban voters don’t care – they’re too busy trying to scrape by.

Rural voters don’t care – there’s more than enough work to do outside.

Really, the only voters that really care about this are the hyper-partisans you see on social media and in the blog comments.

No one else gives a shit.

Hell, most people don’t even know!

Wanna know what else a helluva lot of people don’t know?

Rob Quist.

They don’t know who the hell this guy is.

That’s what all the undecided and all those Democrats voting for Gianforte in that poll this week meant.

They don’t know and they don’t care and they ain’t wearin’ no partisan underwear.

It’s a good bet none of them are making their money from the Party or politics in general.

In fact, I think most of the people that will vote in a few weeks are working stiffs, living in poverty or close to it, and know for damn sure that no politician is going to change their lives.

You know who changes your life? You do.

That’s why so many Dems are supporting Gianforte.

I think a big thing is his continual harping on the fact that Montana has the lowest wages in the country.

Should be a Democratic issue, but it’s not.

Know why?

Bullock.

Talk like that makes Bullock look bad, and in 2016 we could not have that.

So Gianforte took a reliably Democratic issue and made it his own.

Know who else did that a lot?

Trump.

You know how that turned out.

We’re now 100 days into his first term and boy, what a let down, huh?

No wall, no leaving NAFTA, and the same lust for bombing people from afar that Obama and all the other fuck-heads before him had.

Am I forgetting anything that Trump let us down on?

Probably.

I’d still vote for him again, though.

Anyone was gonna be better than Hillary, and when I think that Trump is really turning out badly, I remind myself of that.

Oh, yeah…the Russians.

God, that argument is getting tired, isn’t it?

At this point I don’t really care what happens. I figure Gianforte is getting in and that’s it.

Quist will be blamed for the loss, Keenan will come out clean, and the drumbeat for Amanda in 2018 will begin.

And my God Amanda will need to be stopped.

Oh, if you’re regular nobodies like you and I, then Amanda Curtis running is a great thing.

If you’re part of the Helena urban D establishment, however, then Amanda is the last person you want as a candidate.

Or did you think Amanda was going to stand idly by and let the Dem Party thrust a bunch of staffers on her, at a cost of $20,000 a month to her campaign?

Personally, I don’t she’s that stupid.

Actually, I saw her speak in a committee meeting this session.

I think she may have been the smartest one in the room, based on the questions I heard her ask.

Well, that comes with experience.

I for one would never allow the Montana Democratic Party within a mile of any campaign I was running.

And if I did you know I’d damn well check my wallet after they left.

Money, money, money.

You’ll hear a lot of talk about it tonight if you watch the debate.

Just remember that no one loves the green stuff more than those Helena Dems.

And with that…have a good night.

Missoula Reader Bonus

In Missoula?

I’ve got a bit extra for you today.

Mainly, it’s the letter I wrote to the Missoulian and which ran yesterday.

It’s called An Apology for Missoula’s Mayor.

I had one person today tell me it was “scathing” while someone yesterday said it was “the truth.”

It’s all true.

Sadly for some, the truth often hurts.

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Slow News Days…or Just Shoddy MT Journalism?

1/4/2017

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MT Capitol in 1913

It seemed like a pretty slow day in Montana news yesterday…at least early in the day.

That’s to be expected.

Besides the legislature – which started on Monday – most people were just getting back to work after the holiday.

I guess when I say most people I mean those with kids.

Yeah, school started again yesterday. I was very grateful that I managed to get up early and get my son off to school.

It’s tough that first day back, and I’m sure many around the state were feeling it.

Oh well; the kids were ready for bed earlier last night, and that offered some respite.

I hope this post offers you some respite from your otherwise boring day.

We’ll discuss state records a bit, talk about the special election, get into what’s in the infrastructure bill, discuss why Montana reporters are colluding with Democrats to release false numbers, and finally we’ll mention an old alcoholic that ran a university.

Enjoy!

State Records

Something else that’s ready for bed is the issue of the state emails, at least if you look at it from the Democrats’ point of view.

James Conner had a post up the other day saying that some “Democratic leaders are starting to look like fools on the issue of retaining emails and other official documents.”

It gets back to a report that IR reporter Jayme Fraser did on Monday on the fact that “not a single email is stored in state archives” even though “state law requires emails of importance to be preserved.”

It’s just not a high priority, and that led Conner to wonder what Dems are trying to hide from the public.

I’m a big fan of record retention, and allowing easy access to them.

I feel we need to get all our old PDFs and other files into text format that you can read on a website.

That way Google can index it all and it’s easy to search.

Heck, have a state website/search engine that allows me to type in a name or date or expense record and have everything with that come up.

It means more openness and transparency in government, and since taxpayers paid for the creation of all those records in the first place, it’s a good idea.

I know the state has time. The Secretary of State’s office has already updated their website, after all.

Special Election Talk

Something else that’s up is my hair – it’s standing on end.

What in the hell is going on with Hillary staffers taking over the Democratic National Committee?

I saw the story last night and then James Conner had something up today on it.

“…political suicide, the only thing Democrats still do well,” Conner wrote of the decision to have the DNC war room staffed with “Democratic establishment operatives who helped Hillary lose the election.”

Oh well.

I think it’s pretty clear looking at the Montana Democratic Party that Dems haven’t learned a damn thing since November.

It’ll be amusing watching them muddle about in the coming months.

I fully expect them to lose the upcoming special election for Zinke’s seat.

Hell, Nancy Keenan is still calling the shots for the Party!

We know how well her ideas ‘work.’ Logicosity had a good post ripping apart her silly fundraising request.

Why anyone would donate to the Montana Democratic Party while she’s in charge is beyond me – just pissing money away.

Currently I’m most interested in supporting Casey Schriener for Zinke’s seat.

He’s a legislator from Great Falls, and I know absolutely nothing about him.

I do know that he’s never lost a statewide race before, like Amanda Curtis has.

If Curtis couldn’t do it in 2014, how’s she going to do it in 2017?

Until someone can give me an answer to that question, I see no reason to get excited about Curtis.

Pete Talbot over at Intelligent Discontent thinks that a network of staff and support will help with that.

Sadly, because Brian Schweitzer hasn’t made his intentions clear yet, many candidates are unsure if they should start the money-raising game yet.

Well…why wait on Schweitzer?

Montana Democrats need to get over this hangup that Brian Schweitzer is the only thing that can save them.

He’s not.

It’s actually got very little to do with Schweitzer at all – it’s his ideas, his message, his tone, and his penchant for not giving a damn.

That’s what people like, and any circus trainer can make a candidate jump through those hoops.

That’s why I like the idea of giving someone else a chance.

And really, if you haven’t said anything by January 20th, then to hell with you – those that have declared their interest will get my support and anyone after that date can rely on the state press for their publicity.

What’s the Infrastructure Bill?

According to the Montana newspapers, the infrastructure bill being carried by Jim Keane is $293 million.

Don’t ask me where they got that number, and please don’t ask what the bill number is.

I’ve been asking for about 12 hours now and no one will tell me.

I think it’s shoddy journalism.

I think reporters just made that number up.

We have the statehouse reporters just going with what the Dems tell them, which is this $293 million number.

Nowhere was I able to find a bill with that amount…yet.

I looked through every bill that Jim Keane has signed-off on and there’s nothing about this $293 million.

So our state newspapers are actually lying to us right now.

No one is calling them out on this.

That’s sad – the corporate collar is back in full-swing for another Montana legislative session.

So what do we know?

HB 2 is the 39-page General Appropriations bill and it has $4.93 billion in state spending in it right now.

HB 5 is Long Range Building Appropriations bill, and it has tens of millions of dollars earmarked for various agency projects, many of which have been approved and just need to be signed-off on.

HB 11 is the Treasure State Endowment Program, which will give $1 million to local governments via the Department of Commerce.

HB 14 is the Jobs in Montana Program, which gives $50 million in grants to local governments for infrastructure.

All of those bills are being carried by Jim Keane, the man that all the newspapers said had signed the fiscal note for this new infrastructure bill.

Well…what is the note…what is the bill?

I want to know that so I can look the bill up and begin going through it with a fine-toothed comb.

Perhaps that’s why the press is shy about giving us that information – they don’t want us ripping it apart.

Or it could just be shoddy journalism, which is what I call it when you leave critical information out of a report.

To our reporters, however, maybe that’s not critical.

To their way of thinking, it’s not the public’s job to go and look up bills and read them, it’s their job.

If you had more people like me doing that, what would we need those reporters for anyways?

That’s kind of been the trend for the past decade, however – go to places online to get your news so you don’t have to pay shoddy reporters for it.

What’s In the Infrastructure Bill?

I was able to dig through HB 2 a bit, and here are a few tidbits:

The university Student Assistance Program will be getting a paltry $9.6 million in 2018.

The Department of Transportation Construction Program will be getting $318 million for 2018 and $377 million for 2019.

The Commissioner of Political Practices Office is getting $771,000 for 2018.

Overall, HB 2 has about $4.9 billion in spending, with $2.1 billion coming to us free from the feds and the other $2.03 billion coming from the state’s general fund.

So I’m sorry that I can’t give you more on what’s in the main infrastructure bill.

I blame reporters for that, and I blame Democrats.

Both should have been putting this information out there.

The fact that they didn’t makes me wonder…what don’t they want me to know?

I figure it’s Romney Hall and the Heritage Center – two boondoggles that helped sink infrastructure last time (not the $92 million in infrustructure we actually funded with smaller bills, however).

It could also be the heavy reliance on bonding.

I heard HD 94’s Kim Dudik talking on the radio yesterday about bonding, and how if we do that we can have it all – infrastructure and taxpayer-funded preschool!

That’s true, it just means going into debt when there’s absolutely no reason for us to.

Please, don’t forget that we’re set to raise taxes by $123 million this year…and there is absolutely no reason to.

Well, there’s one reason – Bullock’s bromance.

For years now our governor has had a hard-on for the cool sum of $300 million.

He loves that number, loves the idea of that much of your money sitting in the bank in Helena…or wherever the rich bankers put it.

Please, don’t forget that to have such a high surplus of cash we’d need to take yours, to the tune of $123 million.

Sure, we could have a $177 million surplus without raising taxes…but that’s not the Democratic way.

The Democratic way is to take money from rich people that worked hard – and in many cases simply stole through legal means – so they can shuffle that money around, fund programs, but mostly keep it in the bank.

See, by keeping that money in the bank we can keep our ‘good’ credit rating.

With a ‘good’ credit rating the rich bankers will allow us to borrow more money.

That works really well for rich bankers as they don’t pay interest on their loans, so when we give them more money they have more to lend out at those reduced rates.

The Federal Reserve – a foreign bank that’s never once been audited – ensures it stays this way.

It’s all a big mess, does nothing to benefit you or your family, and I’m glad we have a GOP-controlled legislature to stop this nonsense.

Personally, I’d rather have my money in my pocket and if the state needs more, they can figure out what to do with the money I’ve already given them.

That’s how it’ll turn out this session – Bullock will be forced to accept a smaller surplus, infrastructure will be more cash than bonding, and very few new programs will be started.

Or did Democrats have some kind of leverage that I wasn’t aware of that will allow them to get their way?

No, I didn’t think so.

Dennison Dies

Another failed-historian kicks the bucket.

Yes, George Dennison has died, the longest-serving president of UM.

My, he really drove that place into the ground, huh?

Oh, I guess you could say he boosted donations by $100 million, and that did help with building tons of new buildings, but gosh…so what?

What difference does it make if you boosted enrollment by around 6,000 students if most of those gains are now wiped out?

What difference does it make if a year of college back when his presidency started was around $5,000 and today it’s about $15,000?

What difference does it make if most of our graduates are moving out of state and all we get moving in to replace them are rich transplants?

What difference does it make?

Let’s not forget it was the campus atmosphere that Dennison helped create that directly led to the U’s current problems.

What are those problems?

Booze.

Dennison was a boozer, big time. I’d call him an alcoholic, actually. I figure he got up really early to run each morning so he could work that booze out of his system.

I always wondered too if he lost most of his teeth due to problems with his alcoholism.

Who knows.

Of course, much like Engen’s alcoholism, the Missoula press didn’t report on Dennison’s either.

I took the opportunity to schedule a meeting with Dennison on December 8, 2006.

I remember the day because it was the last Friday night football game of the season, one where they brought the lights in.

We ended up losing that game, and I think I lost all credibility with Dennison that morning too.

I didn’t talk with him long, just 5 or so minutes. I could tell right away that he didn’t want to meet with some student, especially when he just did so for the Kaimin earlier that week.

One thing I remember is asking him what he’d do when he was done being president (which I hoped would be soon, though it took a few more years).

He said he really wanted to write a book on the early land-grant colleges of Montana. I thought that was interesting, but alas, Dennison never did that.

It’s odd.

Here’s a guy with a BA in History from UM, and a MA as well. He even got a doctorate somewhere!

Yet despite all that schooling, the man was only able to write one book in his lifetime, and that on a long-forgotten UM professor.

Well, I guess if that’s what someone as educated as he was wanted to spend his time on, oh well.

To me, however, it points to failure.

Dennison could have given us so much more – books on Montana history, university history, Missoula history, political history, and even manuals for his successors on how to run a university.

He gave us none of that, however.

He did give us the culture of beer and circus, and for that, UM alumni will be forever grateful.

Most students in the state won’t pay much attention to the passing of Dennison.

Many have no idea who he is.

Most of them go to Bozeman now, after all.

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Montana Obamacare Ain't Worth a Bucket of Warm Piss

12/12/2016

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Is Obamacare helping you?

I’m guessing it’s not.

If you’re like most Americans, you’ve seen your monthly premium double or quadruple while your deductible has skyrocketed.

Last night I signed up for an Obamacare plan for my family.

It’s a bronze-level plan and it looks like this:

As you can see, I’m paying nothing each month for this plan.

Because of that I get a $13,100 deductible.

Cancer and car wrecks – that’s all Obamacare is good for.

That’s all I expect to use Obamacare for – if I get cancer or have a monumental car wreck.

Those are the only two things that are going to drive my medical costs up and over $13,000.

Only then will my Obamacare insurance be worth anything…after I’ve paid $13,000 of my own money.

Only then will insurance kick in to ‘help.’

That’s why I say Obamacare ain’t worth a bucket of warm piss.

I told you at the end of August how I dislocated my foot while in Oregon.

Then I told you at the end of November how the hospital just ate those costs.

Why’d they do that?

Simple – I made $17,000 last year, my wife didn’t make much more, and together we had a combined family income of $30,000.

The federal poverty level for a family of three is $20,160.

So we’re within the 100% to 400% of the federal poverty line. So we don't pay.

That also means we qualify for Obamacare tax credits.

This year we get about $630 in tax credits.

Yes, that means that the bronze plan I chose with a $13,000 deductible typically has a $630 a month premium.

Can you imagine paying $630 for that shit-shingle plan?

I can’t, and I won’t.

I’ll pay $0 for that plan as that’s all it’s worth.

Well-off families in America will make up for that $630 that I’m not paying.

They’ll do this with their higher premiums and their higher deductibles.

Hell, I heard on the radio last night that a family of 5 somewhere has seen their Obamacare premium go from $600 a month to $2,500 a month!

And that’s a plan with a $6,000 deductible.

So that family will pay $30,000 a year in premiums and then if they actually need to use their health insurance, they’ll pay $6,000 more before insurance covers anything.

Obamacare – ain’t worth a bucket of warm piss.

Now, you’re not going to hear me bitch and moan about Obamacare too much.

Last year I had a $7 a month premium and paid $84 for the whole year.

When I got hurt, my insurance made it quite clear that they weren’t going to help me.

So this year I’m just going to pay $0 a month.

I’m not stupid.

I know how the system works.

Why would I pay for health insurance when my family income is so low that ultimately, I won’t be charged a penny for medical care?

Going to the emergency room is the best for this – they can’t refuse you service from the get-go like clinics or other places might.

So healthcare in America is working for me.

It works for me because I choose to live in poverty.

Oh, I could go out and get a job at Walmart here in Missoula, maybe do some fast food, some retail work, or even get some kind of janitorial position.

But why?

So my income can go up and I have to pay for medical care?

Hell, I’d rather live in poverty and have the well-off taxpayers pay that for me.

I know how the system works.

Plus, I don’t mind living in poverty.

It’s pretty nice, actually.

I don’t have a TV (with expensive cable) so I’m not assaulted by a constant bombardment of advertising for shit I don’t need or want.

I don’t take a lot of trips to places I’m not really interested in and don’t want to spend money at in the first place.

I don’t have a super new car with a big monthly payment.

I don’t own a home with a big monthly payment.

I don’t have a bunch of credit cards with big monthly payments.

I don’t have student loan debt.

Mostly, I live a minimalist lifestyle free of consumer goods and the desire to collect more.

Again, not having the TV is the most important for this – without that constant, 5-hour-a-day barrage of propaganda assaulting me, I don’t feel the need to go out and spend and buy and rack up debt.

In that regard, I’m not like most Americans.

And because I’m not, because I don’t feel the need to buy and go into debt, I have no problem living in poverty.

The only reason not to live in poverty is because you want lots of things.

You don’t need them, but you want them. So you work more, often at a job or jobs you don’t like, and many times you go into debt.

To me that’s not just a deep level of monetary poverty, that’s poverty of the soul.

Let’s talk about some other things.

As you know, the Montana Infrastructure Coalition is the main driver for the various local option sales taxes that our largest cities want.

Here in Missoula they really want one and it’s the same in Billings.

Over in Billings it’s a real theatre of the absurd.

Tonight their city council will vote on whether to support the local option sales tax or not.

This is nothing more than a gesture.

The only one that can decide whether we’ll have a sales tax or not is you, the voter.

Sure, city councils might vote to support it, which might give legislators in Helena a feeling that people actually want this.

That way they can justify voting for this.

So they vote for it, it passes the legislature, and then the various cities can put the sales tax on the November ballot.

They’ll want to get that puppy on there in an off-year, like 2017.

Turnout is lower, mainly teachers and other property taxpayers that see some benefit in a sales tax.

And some cities might see ‘em pass.

It really is hard to say at this point. Personally, I feel most voters in Missoula will vote against this when it does eventually get onto the ballot.

I’m extremely proud of them for doing that.

Because you know what? I can’t think of one way in which a sales tax is going to benefit my life, not one.

Or is paying 3% more on certain purchases going to improve my life?

I doubt it.

Oh, and what is the project here in Missoula that the sales tax money will be directed toward?

We know that with these local option sales taxes:

Only a specific project can be funded;

The sales tax will exist only until enough money has been raised for that project;

The sales tax can only last for 10 years.

The fact that we’re even talking about sales taxes makes me wish Gianforte won.

Hell, I voted for him. I knew the Dem smear tactics of him supporting a sales tax were bullshit.

The only one supporting a sales tax are rich county commissioners, well-off city councilors, and a bunch of yahoos in the legislature and the scum with the Montana Infrastructure Coalition.

Let’s not even get into the 10 cent a gallon hike that legislators want to do for the gas tax.

How is paying an extra dollar every time I fill up my car going to help me?

Remember, I live in poverty so I really hang onto those dimes.

Oh, I guess it’s so we can fix our roads.

If fixing roads was so important to a place like Missoula, however, why’d we spend $42 million on parks and trails, $30 million for a new library, $17 million for a private developer to expand the mall, and $2 million for a one-way street study?

You’re telling me that $91 million wouldn’t have fixed our fucking roads?

When I hear bullshit like that I know it’s time to get new representatives at all levels of government – city, county, legislative, state, and federal.

First of all, we should be directing the vast majority of our federal tax dollars back to the states so they can use that for what they need.

Second, we should get out of Iraq because it should be clear by now that the CIA lied to us, Colin Powell lied to us, George W. Bush lied to us, and there were no weapons of mass destruction. So…why are we still there?

Third, if Big Pharma wants to continue to have a reliable supply of opium for their pre-heroin-user drugs, let them hire their own private security forces for Afghanistan, not the U.S. military.

Fourth and finally, if people in Helena and people in Washington aren’t going to talk like this, then what the hell are they doing there in the first place?

That’s why I’ll never vote for Tester and I’ll encourage everyone else to not vote for him either.

Just leave it blank.

Because honestly, if Tester’s been in Washington for 10 years and we still have these problems, we’re still at war, and the country continues to fall apart…what the hell is he doing?

What do we need him for?

The country will continue to go right to hell whether Tester is there or not.

10 years and you can’t raise your voice against our dual wars, Jon?

Shame on you.

Don’t you think the best way to help veterans would be to stop creating them?

But he doesn’t think like that. He’s a corporate hack, just like the rest of ‘em.

I’ll be glad when he loses in 2018.

Whether we’ll have a sales tax and an increased gas tax in Montana by then, I don’t know.

Perhaps.

I’ll just spend less, like I do now.

You know full-well I’m going to try like hell to not make anymore money.

Gotta protect that poverty-level status that keeps me healthy, right?

I do feel sorry for the American middle class, though, or at least what’s left of it.

Nothing will get better for them. Higher insurance costs, paying more for gas, paying more to eat out…times are tough for them.

Oh well – it’s how they want it.

They know full-well that D’s or R’s aren’t going to be changing their lives.

But they keep votin’ for ‘em.

Maybe one day they’ll wake up.

Until then, thanks for paying my way.

0 Comments

Why is the Missoula Jail Always Full?

6/23/2016

7 Comments

Missoula Jail

Yesterday it was reported that 30-year-old Tiffany Ortego was sentenced to 30 days in jail for swearing at Judge Karen Orzech.

Today it was reported that Ortega was let out of the Missoula County jail.

“I spent a few minutes checking out the Missoula County Inmate Information Portal where I learned that despite driving under the influence, careless driving, a felony probation violation and the criminal contempt charge, Ortega was released from jail just hours after flipping out on the judge.”

What the hell is going on here?

In Missoula we continually hear about problems with our jail, overcrowding at the jail, and tons of other problems that stem from that facility and the culture we’ve created here in the Garden City.

Why is the jail full?

A total of 65.5% of Missoulians agreed to build the damn thing back in 1996 with the promise that it’d have more than enough beds, and that it’d actually earn money!

When it opened in 1999 the $17.1 million facility took over for the 86-bed unit on the fourth floor of the county courthouse annex.

We’re still paying that jail bond off, with a yearly obligation of $1.25 million, meaning it’s $18 a year on your property taxes.

It was clear Missoula had problems as early as 2008 when a $16 million bond measure was floated to build a $23.5 million emergency operations building next to the jail.

That bond vote failed, getting just 49% of the vote.

Since then Missoula has had to pay out $250,000 renovating the jail, another $565,000 in liability payments for a 2009 alcohol withdrawal death, another $255,039 for the lawyers on that case, and then in 2011 another $286,294 because a woman killed herself in the jail.

Boy, so much for making us money, huh?

So what happened?

Thankfully we commissioned a study last April for $85,000 to determine what happened.

It took 14 months, but the commission produced a 115-page report telling us the state of things.

So…what does this $85,000 report tell us?

Considering that none of the local newspapers or TV stations have told us, I’ll take it upon myself to wade through that report and tell you much of what it says.

First of all, let’s take a look at the makeup of the jail and prison system in Montana:

Montana's Prisons

That’s where many in the jails are waiting to go, either when something opens up or when they get done with their trial.

We know that nationally, 50% of our prison inmates are in for drug-related crime and just 7% of our national prison population is made up of violent offenders.

We know that the population of low-risk offenders in Montana rose by 133% from 1998 to 2013.

In Montana 24% of our jail population is women, which is nearly twice the national average of 13%.

Native Americans make up 13% of Montana’s female jail population and 9% of the male population.

Nearly 50% of the people in Montana jails are between the ages of 18 and 30.

We know that the Top 9 reasons people go to jail in Montana are as follows:

DUI (9.4%)
Criminal Contempt (5.1%)
Probation Violations (5%)
Partner or Family Member Assault (3.7%)
Driving While License is Revoked (3.6%)
Disorderly Conduct (3.6%)
Revocation of Deferred or Suspended Sentence (3.1%)
Larceny/Theft (2.9%)
Obstructing a Peace Officer (2.6%)

Those nine crimes come make up 39% of the infractions that people are in our jails for.

We know that in Missoula County 83% of prisoners report dissatisfaction with their medical care, the worst in the state (the average is 43%).

Missoula County pays $806,039 a year to Correctional Health Providers for that care.

When that contractor is unable to provide services, Missoula goes to outside healthcare in the community.

This outside care for Missoula County jail inmates costs $108,969 a year and has gone up in cost by 22% since 2011.

Missoula jail inmates report a 66% dissatisfaction rate with mental health care, more than double the state average of 30%.

Here in Missoula we have 115 full-time jail workers, which includes 84 detention officers.

Turnover is about 25% to 30% each year at the Missoula County jail and it costs $11.6 million a year to run the place.

That means you pay $195.36 a year on your property taxes to fund the jail’s yearly operations.

Missoula expects it’ll need a new 60-bed unit if the city/county population continues to grow.

This will cost $5 million with an additional cost of $2.3 million every year to staff and operate.

Currently the Missoula County jail can hold 370 adults and 24 juveniles.

Because that’s such a large amount of available bed space, the Missoula County jail contracts with the Montana Department of Corrections to fill 146 of those beds.

The contract to do this runs until 2029 so even if the county wanted to free up space, it could not.

Yes, the state is stretched just as thin as the counties are.

The jail cooks 1,100 meals a day.

In 2015 the Missoula County jail saw 4,223 individuals come through its doors a total of 5,997 times.

Yes, that means that 1,774 times that someone came into the jail, they’d been there before.

Inmate bookings have increased 31% over the past decade.

We know that 75% of the Missoula County jail population are non-violent offenders.

72% of them are men and 28% are women.

The average stay for a Missoula County jail inmate has gone up by 54% over the past decade.

In 2015 most inmates were in the jail for 12 days, and the report tells us that this is the main reason for overcrowding.

Since 2007 inmates have stayed in jail 50% longer. Back then it was about 7 days then in 2009 it was 9 days. It really shot up in 2012, with 11 days and then to nearly 15 in 2014.

Court cases have gone up by 30% over the past decade in Missoula County.

All that took me up to about page 38 of the report.

I didn’t want to read anymore. Not only is it depressing, it’s boring too.

For the next 70 or so pages we get a lot on treatment and courts. To me it seems the courts and the legislators are mainly to blame.

Early on in the report we’re told some of the main reasons that jails are overcrowded in Montana. It comes to us from a 2005 study by the Montana Board of Crime Control.

They said that we have problems with:

An inadequate public defender system
Little use of pretrial release
Lack of risk and needs assessment tools
Few instances of pre-sentence investigations
Little in the way of community-based interventions
No comprehensive statewide re-entry planning

The main suggestion of the study was to create a committee to study the problem more.

We’ve been doing that for years now, and I don’t think that will change.

So let’s get another $85,000 of the taxpayer money together and do just that.

Perhaps we’ll finally get an answer, and maybe some officials willing to act on it.

7 Comments

The Boondoggle of Montana Infrastructure

6/9/2016

5 Comments

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room.

It’s infrastructure.

It sits there staring at us, wondering why we haven’t funded it since 2011.

Oh, we say we want to fund infrastructure…it’s just that it never gets done.

In 2013 the infrastructure bill made it to Bullock but he vetoed it, saying he wanted a larger surplus.

In 2015 it went like this:

On January 29 HB 5, a bill that asked for $391 million in infrastructure, (with $212 million of that coming from bonds), was shot down by the GOP, mainly Tea Party types.

On March 17 we first saw SB 416 introduced by the GOP, asking for $150 million in infrastructure.

It was then shot down on April 27 by the GOP.

So now for 2017 Bullock wants $200 million for infrastructure…but he won’t tell us the details.

I’m pretty sure one detail is the Montana Historical Society’s pet project, the Montana Heritage Center.

The $37.5 million Montana Heritage Center

You’ll remember that I discussed that $37.5 million center extensively back in August 2015 in a report called The Montana Historical Society: Then, Now and Tomorrow.

Today Bob Brown, the President of the Montana Historical Society Board of Trustees, is making the newspaper opinion column rounds with a piece touting this project.

You can read it for free on Last Best News, which is also where I left a long and disparaging comment of both Bob Brown and the Historical Society’s current director, Bruce Whittenberg.

I encourage you to check it out.

For the most part…why can’t we get this center funded, and to take it a step further, should we get this center funded?

Well, do we want jobs?

I really tried to drive the point home last year that Montana’s history is creating jobs via the film industry, which pulls the tourists in.

I’d love it if our Film Office here in Montana would do more research on this.

The numbers I have in that old post from last year tell us that $50 million was expected to come into the Bozeman economy from the 76-day HBO Lewis and Clark miniseries shoot.

I mentioned that on a comment on the Flathead Beacon last year when an article about the film The Revenant came up.

Someone then emailed me back saying that those numbers were not accurate.

Well darn.

I wish they were accurate, and I wish we had some good numbers to go off of.

I was hoping to discuss that with the Historical Society’s Director last week when I called him.

I hoped to get a meeting so we could talk about our utter failure in capitalizing on our history.

We could do this by using our film, tourism and historical center to craft marketing plans, long-term outlooks, and just plain ol’ ideas on how to get more money into the state via our history, Hollywood’s interest in it, and people’s desire to come and actually see the lands that they saw on the big screen.

Why aren’t we doing this?

Well, maybe it’s because state government in Helena is incompetent.

I pointed out to one of the main research staff in the Historical Society’s Research Center that their files were not in good shape.

For instance, why is there just one article on the Yellowstone Pipeline…and that going to when it was built in 1955 or so?

When it comes to many of our politicians, the information we have is scant.

It’s in the archives and in the microfiche of old newspapers, but Historical Society staff are too busy sitting around and chatting to get that information closer to our fingertips.

We see the same incompetence statewide with the agency-by-agency failure to put information on web pages instead of buried in PDF files that people are forced to download and skim through.

Who does that?

No one, and for state government types that don't want any sunshine on what they're doing, that's great.

Getting back to history...personally, I like going through a single file for a subject or a person to find my information.

I wish the Historical Society would work harder but they do not. Instead of trying to help us improve the lives of common Montanans now, they’re putting out books about old school marms.

Perhaps there is a hungry audience for that, but I don’t think so.

I think most of the Historical Society’s efforts have fallen flat lately. I don’t think many people care about them at all.

So when I see letters from the head of the Historical Society’s board, and when I see virtually nothing of value come from the Historical Society in the nearly 5 years the current director has in place, I take issue.

I wouldn’t expect any funding for the new Historical Society building now or well into the future.

Until you folks at the Historical Society start making us think that you’re actually helping us, why should we help you?

Currently I don’t know how you’re helping us common citizens.

I don’t think you do either.

That’s a good place to start.

I know the 53% of Indians that are out of work up there on the Fort Peck Indian reservation would like some work.

Perhaps they’ll dress up and ride around on horses and whoop it up a bit, like they were eager to do for the HBO series.

Yes, history can create jobs in this state, and in many, many ways.

Film crews staying in hotels and renting cars and eating at restaurants is just one part of it, and a part that we oh so dearly need to unionize and give some political muscle to.

Again, something we don’t talk about…why is that?

Perhaps it’s because we never really talked about the monumental loss of union jobs we suffered when Butte and Anaconda went under more than 30 years ago now.

It’s been a generation – it’s time.

It’s time to talk about that, and the folks at the Historical Society would seem a wonderful bunch to do so.

Alas, all we hear from them is their need for money.

Thanks, guys…but we’re not interested in hearing that tired spiel again.

So back to the drawing board, good fellows, for right now we just...don’t...care.

5 Comments

Mormons and Money, Idiots and Infrastructure

4/29/2016

1 Comment

I’m going through my “Montana Articles” folder today and cleaning out some things.

I’m also looking at some new things.

First of all, I’d like to discuss campaign finances.

I noticed the other night that in Montana Supreme Court race #3, Juras has raised $52,000 for the primary. Her main opponent, Sandefur, has raised $93,000 for the primary and another $46,000 for the general.

I’d like to assume that Sandefur will be the winner. Despite that, I remember VanDyke last year.

Didn’t he have a lot of money, and outside mailers, but he still lost?

Perhaps what I’m really trying to say is…give us some information on these races and who the hell these people are, you sleepy Montana newspapers you!

My Campaign Finances

When it comes to campaign finances, Monday’ll be a big day.

That’s when the latest C-5 income and spending reports for Bullock and Gianforte will be out. You’ll remember that I looked that those in detail in both March and April.

I should really do a bit more on Juneau and Zinke, but I’m not as familiar with the federal reporting system, or the filing deadlines. If you are, please share the links.

Now, I got the email from the Commissioner of Political Practices office yesterday telling me to get my first C-5 in by 5 PM on Tuesday.

I’d suggest doing this, as you’ll get in trouble if you don’t (I’m not sure what the penalties are).

The next C-5 after that is due on May 26.

For the most part, this is the job of the campaign treasurer. I serve as my own treasurer, and I can tell you right now that my C-5 is done and looks like this:

My second C-5 will be really easy to fill out as it’ll be the same as the first.

Yep, I’ve spent all my campaign cash.

Please, do not send me anymore.

That’s right – I don’t need your money. What I could use is a letter to the Missoulian on my behalf.

Besides that…there’s not much you can do to help me. I guess you could go around and knock on doors, but hell, who wants to do that? Most of the candidates for the legislature don’t want to do that.

I don’t much want to either and I’ve been putting it off. The rainy weather this week has helped.

Don’t worry, I’ll get out there and you’ll hear about it soon.

Montana Democrats Sell Out

I just can’t talk enough about the Montana Democratic Party selling its super delegate votes to Hillary.

It’s a damn shame.

Mainly, we shouldn’t be surprised…considering Nancy Keenan’s at the helm of the Party. After all, she did spend all that time back in D.C. where this is just business as usual.

D.C. – that’s where the money comes from. Those D.C. types, boy…you gotta watch out for ‘em.

At the beginning of the month we had a birthday fundraiser for Juneau with Steny Hoyer. It cost $50 to $5,400.

Then on April 13 there was a birthday fundraiser for Bullock. It cost $50 to $1,320.

Someone commented to me via email that they:

“thought Missoula and Helena were demo strongholds. I looked at the Montana demo party website and thought this was interesting. It said county central committees are the backbone of the Montana democratic party.

Well there only 27 committees out of 56 counties. On the republican side they have 54 of 56. Talk about ignoring rural Montana. These eastern Montana rural counties have no demo committees. Sheridan, Valley, Roosevelt, Mccone, Phillips, Richland, Blaine, Daniels but all have GOP committees. These are almost all oil and gas production counties that Bullock vetoed infrastructure for.”

How long can you keep raising money with D.C. insiders while staying in the cities?

I know there’s a lot of talk of the rural areas deteriorating, losing people and all, but gee whiz – is clinging to the cities a viable long-term strategy, or a smart one?

Maybe it is viable with the trend in population and job patterns. But is it smart to just say to the people living in those rural areas that they don’t matter? That’s 90% of the state’s area that doesn’t feel like they matter, even if it is only 45% of the state’s population.

Well, Democratic leadership seems to be taking that stance. I can only shake my head.

Anger at the University

I’ve been getting a few emails about the problems at UM.

What problems, you ask? Yeah, it’s been awhile since I really went after Engstrom, but the problems remain.

Mainly, Administration is loony, students are suffering, and staff are getting laid off.

There is virtually no reporting on this in the Missoulian and if it wasn’t for the student newspaper the Kaimin, there’d be no pressure.

The pressure really begins with UM’s Administration.

You might remember in January when all that news came out about the hiring practices of UM vis-a-vis Mormons.

The Missoulian didn’t really do a good job on the article, and the Missoula Independent called them out on this in an article called The untold story of the Missoulian’s Mormon story.

“The Indy contacted Szpaller, but she declined to comment because she was ‘not cleared’ to discuss her story,” the Independent told us.

So…why wasn’t Szpaller cleared? Perhaps it was the overbearing editor she had, Matthew Bunk.

I’ve heard from someone else that after Layton Bradley – who was the professor who first spoke of the Mormon-hiring rumors – gave his information to Szpaller, he was threatened by the Administration and told Szpaller to withdraw everything.

That’s why the “real story,” as I’ve been told, never ran. The Mormon nepotism is actually far worse than anyone knows.

Responsible individuals at UM are “currently investigating nepotism within the University system’s upper tiers,” how those upper tiers are “selecting their own oversight boards, etc.”

When you look at the university’s budget it’s clear their situation is excruciating because they're trying to expand their way to success by building their way out of the current crisis. The most egregious example of this is the new $14 million Champion Center.

Meanwhile, the arts and humanities are being slashed. The reason for this, Administration tells us, is on account of enrollment numbers being down.

When those numbers have been analyzed, however, it’s been found that there’s a disproportionate amount of humanities being cut in comparison with the actual enrollment drops.

For example, the Business School, which has experienced a 20% enrollment drop, is only laying-off one person, while other departments are experiencing far more significant cuts despite slight enrollment drops.

An example is the library, which is being forced to terminate 13 positions, despite the fact that no new positions were created even while the rest of the campus grew and grew.

Meanwhile, all the upper administrators are dropping like flies around Homeland Security Advisory Council Trustee Engstrom, er…UM President Engstrom.

The man’s due to receive $500,000 in bonuses (semantics aside, Administration denies wholeheartedly that these are “bonuses” when that is in fact exactly what they are, despite the technical language they're trying to bury that terminology beneath).

The whole thing stinks and it stinks of money. It’s of course no secret that Administration has been prioritizing athletics over academia for a long time, but what is surprising is the contempt with which they're now destroying the humanities.

They're hiding this deliberation behind the technocratic language of statistics, but when those stats are analyzed the numbers add up to something that few are willing to discus.

The Kaimin has maintained pressure and that's been a source of collective frustration vis-a-vis the technocrats. A lot of the language comes from the horse's mouth, as concerned university members have conducted interviews and sit-downs with a wide array of faculty and staff.

And don't forget that KGVO's student journalist just won a Hearst Award for talking about UM's problems.

Getting back to the Mormon presence at UM, we know that the provost Perry Brown and the financial affairs coordinator Mike Reid are both high elders within the Church of Latter Day Saints, as is Scott Whittenburg,

Then there's the volleyball coach, the softball coach, the football coach, the athletic director - the list goes on and on. Nevertheless,the administration has been effective in intimidating that story away. Considering that religious politics have always been touchy, this hasn’t been hard to do.

It’s clear to concerned members of the UM community that the Montana Supreme Court will side with Krakauer in the 2012 rape records case.

The reason for this is that his claim that the university is using FERPA to shield itself from wrong doing is correct.

The university is doing a lot more than that, however, and those in the upper tiers will eventually pay the price.

Bullock’s Third Time at Bat

Bullock stepped up to the plate again yesterday, telling us about his 2017 Legislature infrastructure proposal.

The Montana newspapers and TV stations are falling all over themselves trying to figure out the details.

Meanwhile, I went ahead and went back to the analysis I did on Halloween.

If you remember that post you’ll remember that I talked about bundling.

Well…is this Bullock infrastructure package one giant project bundled together, or is it various projects that different legislators will take interest in?

The former did not work in 2015. The latter worked for the past few decades.

In the press release the governor’s office put out, we’re told that Bullock wants $200 million for infrastructure.

Seems low to me.

Worse, he wants to do the exact same failed strategy as last time – cash and bonds.

The big argument over infrastructure last time was about going into debt when he actually had the cash not to. Bullock wanted to, the GOP did not.

Notice I don’t say Democrats wanted to. Many did not want to but were pressured by the Party to stay silent.

On top of the exact same failed push, Bullock is adding a new twist – screwing around with the Coal Tax Severance Fund “to create the Build Montana Trust to fund Montana’s infrastructure needs in the future.”

Bold ideas…will they get the green light?

Since it’s all but a given that the GOP will have the legislature again, I’m not holding my breath.

I’d like more details, and specifically, I’d like to see what’s being carried over from the failed 2015 infrastructure bill. Here’s the want list from that one:

Those totals come to $80.2 million and at the time that failed, we had $455 million in the bank as a surplus.

That money has since decreased, and although I don’t have a firm number, I think it’s around $300 million now.

When you factor in the original infrastructure bill that Bullock proposed back in 2014, and the additional $335.4 million that it contained, you’d have a want list that looks like this:

That graph totals out at $415.6 million. We don’t have the money for that, but when you take out the $165.8 million in Long Range Building Program appropriations you’ll have a total of $249.8 million.

You can see why Bullock wants to tap into the Coal Tax Trust Fund to secure the rest of the money he needs - he has no choice.

Will GOP legislators allow him to do that? Maybe, but maybe not. Bullock has no power over it other than what he can negotiate.

Once again, the Democrats’ inability to take even one chamber of the legislature has them on the defense.

I’m also convinced that Trump will beat Hillary in November. Even if he doesn’t, he’ll drive turnout big time. Democratic losses in Montana this year will be immense (though Tester should win in '18 due to the backlash).

At least Bullock has an infrastructure plan, and he put Gianforte on the defensive because of that.

Here’s the Gianforte infrastructure plan – bitchin’ and bellyachin’:

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The New Highway Bill for Montana

12/8/2015

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I got an email from Senator Daines today.

He told me about the “Long-term Missoula highway funding” that comes about through the new highway bill.

He has a lot more info on his site, as well as commentary from Montana officials.

The highway bill will be for 5 years and it’ll cost the country $305 billion.

It passed the U.S. House on December 3, the Senate soon after, and was signed into law on Friday, December 4.

It’s 1,300 pages long and filled with “terribly dry, boring government jargon,” according to the Verge.

The site makes note that it’s the first “surface transportation bill funded for longer than two years in almost two decades.”

It seeks to fix our crumbling infrastructure, at least that associated with highways, and that’s a good step forward.

There are a few problems, however. Some say we should have adjusted the gas tax to help pay for this, which hasn’t been done since 1993.

Another contention is that $90 billion of it could have been paid for if we’d just go after all the corporate tax dodgers that simply refuse to pay taxes.

Oh well, Congress is broken and we all know it.

For Montana, the highway bill gives $2.2 billion to Montana projects, according to Daines.

That comes to 425 infrastructure projects.

Missoula will be getting $9.3 million for “city planning and public transportation.”

Additionally, Montana will get $1.6 million for trails every year for 5 years.

What’s more, we get $127.7 million for “highway safety improvements” over the next five years too.

Daines mentions that he “helped successfully reverse the $3 billion in cuts to the federal crop insurance program.”

All in all, good show.

We’re getting money from the feds to see to infrastructure.

Since we know we need $13 billion to fix everything we’ll only need about $10.5 billion more.

Get to work, boys.

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Loyalty and Leverage in Montana Politics

12/2/2015

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I was disappointed to see Jon Sesso’s spiel in the Billings Gazette today.

“Interest rates are so low it is cheaper for the state to go into debt than let construction costs increase while waiting for cash to accrue,” we’re told he argued. “I don’t know what we can do to make that more clear, but we’ll keep trying.”

It’s an article called “Falling short: Montana leaders predict debates over bonding, new revenue.”

So every Democrat in the state has to be shackled to another terrible infrastructure bill, one that gives bankers huge handouts in long-term interest payments.

My God, the bankers are hungry for it too. No new state debt has been authorized since 2005, the article tells us.

For 10 years they’ve waited, licking their lips.

It’s currently 13 months before the 2017 legislative session yet “both sides are analyzing the key debates they expect to resurface,” we’re told in the article.

Montana needs a total of $13 billion in infrastructure spending to meet all the crumbling that’s going on around the state.

We know that our current surplus is about $450 million but Montana firefighting costs for 2015 were $45 million.

We can expect the same next year and also for both those numbers to go up. I haven’t been impressed with revenue or cost estimates from the state lately, myself.

Despite this now $405 million budget surplus, “state programs will provide only $90 to $130 million” for infrastructure projects “over the next two years.”

To add insult to injury, this funding is “mostly loans” that “require many communities to increase local rates to qualify.”

Something else I’m concerned with are the suppliers who are gouging the government.

For some reason cement and asphalt have gone up in price. Don’t ask me why they have, or why other suppliers cannot be contacted. I’d guess it’s because the government is too busy…doing something.

This is a huge pain in the ass for people like me that want to run for the 2017 legislature and want to see infrastructure funded.

Mainly, we’re going to go back to this same tired argument that borrowing is cheaper than paying cash…in the long run, of course.

This is foggy thinking that a grade school kid can see through.

Everyone knows that paying cash is cheaper than borrowing!

Alas, it looks like the Montana Democrats are going to be trying to do more bonding for infrastructure.

The main argument this time is that the costs have increased from just eight months ago.

Please.

I know there are many Democrats that oppose bonding. The problem is that they have more loyalty than leverage.

Let’s look at these two concepts.

Loyalty: Democrats want to be loyal to the governor’s plan or way of thinking. The idea of breaking ranks with the party is so unnerving to many legislators that they’ll remain lock-step in line, lemming-like, as Montana’s long-term finances go over the cliff.

Leverage: Democrats need leverage in the legislature so they can act as an independent branch of government, pulling the governor where they want him to go. This is why it’s so critical to have the infrastructure projects broken into pieces, so we can have an effective give-and-take between the various areas of the state and their representatives.

Despite this need for a ‘pulling of the governor,’ the final vote on Infrastructure was 47-3 in the Senate. It was the House that killed it. “We were one vote shy in the House,” Sesso said.

I don’t feel that will be the case when you have the Romney Hall bill riding on the success of the UM Clapp Building bill. Bozeman and Missoula will come together to get them both passed.

In turn, perhaps Helena could join forces with some legislators from Billings, ensuring we get a new Historical Society building and adequate funding for…whatever the hell it is they need.

What do we need, anyways?

2015 Montana Infrastructure Needs

That’s the list I put together a month ago and while I’ll include on my campaign literature.

Until something better comes along, it’s an accurate telling of what the state wanted last time and what will be up for discussion this time.

It’s something to talk about, and that’s what people want when it comes to infrastructure.

More, they want some work to get done.

To get that work done it’ll probably take most of the money we have.

I say to hell with Moody’s and their damn credit rating – we won’t be borrowing again until 2019 so what do we need a good credit rating for?

Yeah, that’s right, it sounds like we need to do some bonding. Even some Republicans are saying that now.

Fine, but let’s make it as low as possible, with the majority coming from cash.

I feel most Montanans can agree on those points – more cash over bonding and small infrastructure bills.

Will legislators and perhaps the governor have the sense to propose that?

If they want to get elected I think they will.

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If At First You Don’t Succeed…

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Infrastructure Hodgepodge

Special Election Talk

Slow News Days…or Just Shoddy MT Journalism?

State Records

Special Election Talk

What’s the Infrastructure Bill?

What’s In the Infrastructure Bill?

Dennison Dies

Montana Obamacare Ain't Worth a Bucket of Warm Piss

Why is the Missoula Jail Always Full?

The Boondoggle of Montana Infrastructure

Mormons and Money, Idiots and Infrastructure

My Campaign Finances

Montana Democrats Sell Out

Anger at the University

Bullock’s Third Time at Bat

The New Highway Bill for Montana

Loyalty and Leverage in Montana Politics

MT Book 7

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​Special Election Talk

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Montana Democrats Sell Out

Anger at the University

Bullock’s Third Time at Bat

MT Book 7

​Montana Blog

​Popular Posts

Categories

Archives

​My MT History Books

My Montana Novels

My Montana Short Fiction

Special Election Talk

State Records

Special Election Talk

What’s the Infrastructure Bill?

What’s In the Infrastructure Bill?

Dennison Dies

My Campaign Finances

Montana Blog

Popular Posts

My MT History Books