News you can use
News you can use
Sorted by date Results 1804 - 1828 of 3210
I pray you all had a great Christmas and are looking forward to a happy and heathy New Year. Over the past year, I have had the wonderful opportunity and privilege to serve as your District 14 senator. It has been a great experience for me to expand my public service from a county level to the State. Though the learning curve has been steep, I’ve enjoyed the year immensely and look forward to continuing to tackle state and local issues. During my current tenure, Senate District 14 has faced and addressed a number of o...
For years, Washington has grown in its power and wealth while hardworking Americans have struggled to make ends meet. In fact, the nation’s most affluent counties are suburbs of Washington, D.C. Taxpayer dollars have padded the pockets of D.C. for far too long — enough is enough. Just in time for Christmas, I was honored to join Congress in passing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. This historic tax bill will lower rates for hardworking Montanans, boost higher wages and incentivize job creation. It will keep more than $700 mil...
Santa came early for hardworking Montanans. Republicans have kept their promise to the American people and delivered tax reform that will let you keep more of what you earn. In just a couple of months, you’ll see more of your hard-earned money in your paychecks, families will have much needed relief, and small businesses can grow, invest, and create more Montana jobs. This was long overdue — actually 31 years overdue. The last time Washington reformed the tax code, Ronald Reagan was in the White House, and I had a full hea...
One-party passage of the GOP/Trump “Tax Scam” bill that pretends to aid the middle class while tilting the tax system more than ever to the benefit of the super-wealthy and corporations was the nail in the coffin of the populist charade Trump and the GOP leveraged to electoral victory in 2016. The reality in 2018 is that plutocracy once again reigns supreme under the GOP and Trump. Plutocracy is government by the wealthy. Populism is support for the concerns of ordinary people. The historical difference between Rep...
As a young high school American government teacher, I compared our system to an automobile that was useful if it could start, speed up, slow down and stop. When the people thought government needed to be more active, they elected liberal Democrats to press down on the accelerator. When people thought government’s role was getting too large and expensive, they elected Republicans to apply the brakes and slow things down. Our national debt is now $20 trillion and rising. That amounts to about $155,000 in tax liability for t...
With a notoriously poor memory for the events of my childhood and a brain that seems to make stronger, longer-lasting neural links with negative memories than happy ones, it’s nothing short of a Christmas miracle that I have so many fond memories of this holiday from my younger years. Even before the annual hunt for the perfect tree came the package from my Grandma Inez with her version of an advent calendar: a wall hanging of burlap with a green felt Christmas tree. It had t...
“I couldn’t sleep a wink last night,” it’s true. It’s silly to be lovelorn and at my age too. Oh, no. Don’t get excited. It’s not what you think. More’s the pity. I swear, I can hardly believe myself. An animal. A dumb animal. Well, not so dumb, it turns out. Saturday, the chosen day, finally arrived — Cat Ballou took an anticipated trip to the veterinarian for the essential surgery, the one to prevent an unending series of duplicates. Surgery went well. Ballou returned home c...
Imagine this. You wake up Christmas morning and there it is — the biggest gift under the tree has your name on it. Yes, yours. You grab it, place it in front of you, and without even needing to unwrap it, you instinctually know this is going to be the greatest gift you’ve ever received. Moved by this unfamiliar, yet heartwarming feeling, you set in on the task in front of you. Side by side, you carefully peel back the wrapping paper, slowly revealing what’s inside. Vast and rugged, but beautiful and snowy, you begin to see t...
Clinical Assistant Professor in family medicine at Memorial University of Newfoundland Dr. Kyle Sue recently published an article in British Medical Journal that The Guardian described as a “wry” scientific look at how men experience cold and flu virus symptoms worse than women do. Yes, a guy named Sue was looking to prove that “man flu” is a thing. In a not entirely thorough treatise based on some scientific studies and some not-so-scientific stuff, Sue proposes in part that men feel worse when they’re sick because they are...
Hunting, fishing and wildlife are important to Montanans. These are the reasons many of us live here, and tourism and outdoor recreation are now the state’s largest economic driver. Support for these values helped make Steve Bullock a blue governor in a red state, and politicians took notice. No matter what their ultimate intentions, Greg Gianforte and Ryan Zinke both took pains to portray themselves as allies of Montana sportsmen. So did Sen. Steve Daines. Their performance in Washington has proven otherwise. Now Daines h...
The same Arctic cold that swept down through the southwest and snowed on Houston brought to Jalisco, inland Mexico, our own cold snap, minus snow, just short of freezing. At the same time, the fires of southern California created winds that pushed clouds our way to hold the frigid air close to the ground. I can cope with an ordinary cold winter day. By 10:30 to 11 a.m., the sun has warmed the air, the ground, and my body — and my house. By afternoon, I’m togged out for sum...
As Christmas comes around the corner, we are reminded that Montana really is just a small town with very long streets. Our Montana way of life, neighbors helping neighbors, was on full display this year as we dealt with one of the worst wildfire seasons in recent memory. On a personal note, I’d like to say thank you again to all the firefighters and volunteers, including those who contained the fire on my family’s ranch near Glendive while I was away serving as your State Auditor in Helena. Whether it’s fighting fires in th...
The Republican Party is in the D.C. driver’s seat, having majorities in both House and Senate, along with having the presidency, with all of its institutional strength, and the vice president to break tie votes in the Senate. Such singular dominance over procedure provides the opportunity for excess. We’ve seen it time and again at the federal and the state level. Extreme political positions become the norm when there are no checks within the system. When one side of the political spectrum can make things happen with imp...
Congress has the unenviable job of deciding who wins big and who will be hurt by tax reform. One decision that should be easy for lawmakers is to retain the tax tool that has resulted in the development of more than 7,000 affordable homes, access to homeownership for 42,000 Montana families, and $2.87 billion in financing of critical projects for rural Montana hospitals. Private Activity Bonds are responsible for the public-private partnerships that have allowed us to invest in Montana communities over the last 40 years....
Remember when perfectly groomed, makeup-wearing men in stylish clothes looked like women but somehow claimed they were men — not just pretty males, but actual men — and the world called them metrosexual? Which still didn’t sound manly, by the way, but people in the style industry didn’t understand the difference so it was OK — for far too long. Then one day some fashion-forward style guru saw a guy who looked like a useful man and said, “Ohmigawd, I can do that. I can make th...
In 1977, President Carter signed a law that required the U.S. Forest Service to study 973,000 acres in Montana to determine if they were suitable for wilderness. The findings were to be reported in five years and Congress was to take action afterward. The Forest Service completed the study and determined that several of the study areas in Montana were not suitable for wilderness in its final plan. Thirty-five years later, we’re still waiting for D.C. to get its job done and release the study areas. I’ve introduced the Pro...
I live a charmed life. Now and then I’m aware of how magical is my life. Most of the time I don’t pay attention. Other rare days, snakes slither in Paradise. Take recently. A friend once told me that when a person started chewing on table legs, the cause was always money, job or love life. Two weeks ago I chose “money” as the topic for my Writers’ Group. I set the timer for 10 minutes. I don’t remember what I wrote. It’s not important. I felt a need to share with my friends the reason I chose that topic. I had too much negati...
As most Montanans are aware, the Montana Legislature just met in a special session to face some fiscal challenges associated with the lack of revenue and paying the firefighting bill. I have had the privilege of serving for almost 18 years and have been through several special sessions. This session, like all others faced many moving pieces to come with solutions that work for Montana. There is one particular issue I would like to bring to your attention and offer some perspective that seems to be lacking. This issue is...
Sure I joke about Canada, give them a little friendly ribbing about how polite they are, but I realize it’s in their constitution that they have to be kind to everyone, so imagine my surprise this week to see Canadians being so hateful to Americans. And by hateful I mean that someone compiled, printed up and is now selling a little calendar called “Justin Trudeau, My Canadian Boyfriend.” And by calendar I mean a collection of 12 GQ-like photos showcasing the Canadian prime...
BILLINGS — During the eight years of the Obama Administration the annual growth rate averaged 1.47 percent. To achieve the American Dream and economic prosperity, we need an annual growth rate of 3-3.5 percent. Likewise, during the past ten years, taxes increased, the federal debt has risen to outrageous levels, and government is growing so fast the definition of the word ‘efficiency’ should be changed to “the antithesis of the federal government.” Our tax code is broken, it’s inefficient, and any amount of economic gr...
In a time of uncertain economies, I can’t help but think about how we as Americans can take more control into our own hands. Hard work, fine craftsmanship, and innovation were some of the values this nation was built upon. In recent decades we are seeing more and more manufacturers outsource production overseas. This move is typically driven by profit margins. Keeping our manufacturing on U.S. soil not only creates jobs and strengthens our business relationships and local economies, but it does something else that may be e...
Admittedly, my wonderland is different than your wonderland. My wonderland lacks the beauty of new-fallen snow with crystalline flakes painting the landscape pristine and pure. Neither does mine include snow-shovels, car engine heaters, ice on the roads or frost on the windshields. Not that I have a car, but you know what I mean. Although cannas and hibiscus continue to bloom and the geraniums look gorgeous as ever, winter snapped us hard and fast a good month ago. Every...
A bedrock tenet of effective civic engagement in our country is the right and responsibility to petition government at every level. Individual citizens, for-profit businesses and nonprofit organizations participate in this fundamental American activity when they advocate for or against issues that impact them. Unlike individuals and some businesses, however, charitable nonprofits must stop short of endorsing political candidates or spending their money on election activities. To do otherwise would be to face the threat of...
Protect net neutrality. Neutrality on the Internet is the only way to allow democratic participation in communication, education, employment, community and public service, and to access to health, safety and other information. Do not allow a few corporations to rule the internet, to censor what we see, to charge higher fees and deliver less. None of the internet service providers invented or developed the internet and the web. U.S. taxpayers paid for the early development. The defense and research network called ARPANET was o...
Montana, and especially I, say thank you to the Montana 2017 special session House and Senate leadership for helping the legislature provide our state with $230 million to replenish the fire fund and provide dollars to shore up the budget problems. Like many situations, there are differences of opinions, but someone must make the final and best decision at the time. I feel the legislators for the 2017 special session did that. In times of trouble we all must partake. The largest users of the tax dollars, DPHHS, education and...
