My reply to Rob Quist's tax liens

Recently, it was discovered that Rob Quist had tax liens filed against him by the state of Montana and it was turned into political fodder. I am not going to condemn Mr. Quist. Like many working Montanan’s not everything has gone as planned in his life. Sometimes no matter how you plan, the world just doesn’t cooperate. Unexpected bills can happen at any time and expected payments usually are farther away than anticipated. Welcome to the real world, folks. This is where most working Montana families live all the time.

It also makes me think of all the people that lost everything in 2008. I spent last winter driving BNSF rail crews up and down the Hi-Line. Most of them had worked a good job before BNSF and many lost them in the recession. They had nice homes and all the things Montana families like to buy and they lost it all in the housing collapse. These weren’t people that spent their money foolishly. They expected to go to work and then one day they didn’t have a job anymore or a home soon after. These are the people that to this day have black marks on their credit scores because they didn’t know the economy was going to kick them in the teeth.

Rural families have different problems with the same result. Farm and ranch families are often caught in the crosshairs of bills they can’t pay. They have such irregular income that sometimes bills have to be put on hold until a crop can be sold. Just this fall I was scrambling. My entire mustard crop was wiped out in a hail storm and calf prices were so low I wanted to wait until January to sell, hoping maybe the market would recover, but Joyce Fuel and Feed in Fort Benton had sold me a Wheatheart post pounder on credit in a handshake deal and I intended to make good on my word and pay them off. I managed but it was a lean Christmas for the kids.

They say most families are one paycheck away from disaster at any time. I believe that. So I’m not going to beat on Mr. Quist for something that could have happened to anyone of modest income, but what I do think separates Mr. Quist and I is our view of fiscal responsibility. I believe we need to balance the budget and not steal from the next generation. We have to get our financial house in order so we can pay for all the programs the government provides. We are already $20 trillion in the hole, but when I looked at Mr. Quist’s website, balancing the budget didn’t make the top 19 issues! We don’t need any more tax-and-spend politicians in Congress, and we don’t need politicians that can’t remember what it is like to struggle to pay a bill.

So remember Montana when its time to vote, it’s just like the three bears story, one bear is too far left and one bear is too far right, but one bear is just perfect for Montana. I’m that bear! Vote for Mark L. Wick for Congress.

Mark L. Wicks

Inverness