Here are some topics that recently caught my attention:

• State of the State Address
• Balanced Budget Accountability Act
• Homeless in Flathead
• North Dakota

STATE OF THE STATE ADDRESS:

The Associated Press (AP) covered Republican Montana Governor Greg Gianforte’s state of the state address Wednesday night:

Gov. Greg Gianforte reiterated his administration’s priorities to improve Montana’s economy in his State of the State address delivered Wednesday to the Legislature, whose job over the next few months will include determining how to allocate an unprecedented $2.6 billion budget surplus.
“The fact of the matter is Montanans overpaid,” Gianforte said of tax payments. “We need to give it back.”

If Gianforte and the legislature would send me a $2,000 check (tax-free) I think we can call it even, and I might even like them a little bit.

The AP reports that some Republicans are considering a different proposal:

Earlier this week, a little more than a third of the 102 Republicans in the Legislature introduced an alternative bill calling for paying off $100 million of state debt, $275 million in property tax rebates and a $1 billion income tax rebate, which would include up to $3,500 per person depending on their 2021 state income tax liability.

If they would send me a $3,500 check (tax-free), that would be even better.

Gianforte closed his address with this:

While the American Dream might be fleeting in some states, it’s alive and well here in Montana, because we embrace the freedoms that are foundational to who we are as Americans. We support all those who want a better life and are willing to work for it. We stand with the parents doing everything they can to give their kids a better life. We celebrate our shared values of hard work, commitment to family, freedom, and love of country. We embrace the fundamental idea that the American Dream is a sacred one, and together, we’ll always defend it.
Friends, our best days are ahead of us, and the better, brighter future we’re building together, one we’ll leave to our kids and grandkids, that inspires me every day.

Here are some facts that Gianforte may have missed. There are a lot of problems in Montana – state prison issues, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons, nursing home issues, state hospital issues, drug issues, MAGA nutjobs, hate, homeless issues, freedom issues, privacy issues, etc.

When these issues are adequately addressed, maybe the “American Dream” can actually be considered alive and well in Montana.

You can read Gianforte’s entire speech by clicking HERE. Read the AP coverage HERE.

BALANCED BUDGET ACCOUNTABILITY ACT:

U.S. Senator Steve Daines (R-MT), who has an estimated net worth of $33 million, is doing his martyr act by reintroducing the “Balanced Budget Accountability Act” Daines introduces this bill each congress.

Daines says the bill will “hold Congress accountable and require a balanced budget or members won’t get paid.”

Most members of congress don’t actually need to get paid as many are multi-millionaires, like Daines.

Daines’ bill is dead on arrival, as normal.

HOMELESS IN FLATHEAD:

After officials and the MAGA crowd in Cascade County and Great Falls treated the homeless population like shit, it appears officials in Flathead County said, “Hold my beer.”

The Montana Free Press has the story:

Advocates for homeless people in northwest Montana are pushing back after the Flathead County Board of Commissioners called on community members to stop enabling the “homeless lifestyle” and blamed the valley’s growing homeless population on the opening of a low-barrier shelter.

By the way, the commissioners are all Republicans.

In the letter, the commissioners wrote, “Therefore, it is our hope that our community will be unified in rejecting all things that empower the homeless lifestyle.”

Like a warm place to sleep and food to eat to survive?

Someone said that the Flathead County Commissioners should resign. That’s a good idea, but it won’t happen. If they don’t resign, maybe they should at least get a heart.

There will always be poor people in the land, so I command you to give freely to your neighbors and to the poor and needy in your land. – Deuteronomy 15:11

NORTH DAKOTA:

A reader sent me a link to this story via email…

There are a few states who probably lead the nation with people who are bigoted and intolerant of those who are different. North Dakota comes to mind. So do Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana. I do not have a source to prove my argument, but I do read about people in these states being bigoted.

NBC News reported the following:

Six Republican members of the North Dakota Legislature introduced a bill Wednesday that would send a clear message to nonhuman-identified students: You’re not wanted in the Roughrider State.
The two-page bill, which is primarily a measure seeking to prohibit schools in the state from accommodating transgender youths, includes a subsection aimed at a different — and theoretical — category of students.

NBC went on the report that the two-page bill states:

“A board of a school district, a public or private school, or a teacher in a public or private school may not … Adopt a policy establishing or providing a place, facility, school program, or accommodation that caters to a student’s perception of being any animal species other than human,” the bill, labeled an “emergency measure” by its authors, states.

NBC News says that this section of the bill appears to be connected to an urban myth about litter boxes in U.S. schools that spread among conservative Republicans ahead of the November election.

The litter box myth is not true although it still gets some attention from the nutjobs.

NBC News also reported this alarming piece of information:

In just the first few weeks of the year, state lawmakers across the U.S. have introduced over 140 bills targeting LGBTQ rights and queer life, according to an NBC News analysis, with the majority of these bills focusing on transgender young people.

I wonder if Montana is one of those states. Readers?

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