Columns

Working to protect Montanans from Democrats’ tax and spend spree

Democrats, led by President Biden, Chuck Schumer, Bernie Sanders and Nancy Pelosi, are rushing a reckless $3.5 trillion tax and spending spree bill through Congress that would reshape the very foundation of America and push the U.S. down the path of socialism.

Montana is not a pumpkin

By Jeff Essmann and Dan Stusek

Try this one weird trick to get politics out of education

Over the last two years — since the New York Times introduced its 1619 Project to “reframe the country’s history” around the consequences of slavery — something called “Critical Race Theory” has become the new football in the never-ending political struggle to control the content of K-12 education in America.

Vote no on debt limit raise Jon Tester

This month, U.S. Senators began the markup of Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget resolution package. This rubber-meets-road moment seems to have given pause to some in their party whose votes will be needed to get a bill through Congress and across the President’s desk.

Brother, can you spare $29 trillion?

Well, it’s time for one of those periodic “debt ceiling” fights in Congress. Every so often, American politicians argue over whether to allow themselves to borrow more money, with their promise to beat it out of your hide, plus interest, later, as their collateral.

“It can’t happen here,” Down Under Edition

Clever tweets tend to morph in content and meaning over time. I don’t know where this one originated, and I’ve edited it to taste as people will do with such things, but I’m sure you’ll get where it’s going:

Senator Tester faces choice on Colstrip, Montana energy jobs

Hidden away deep within the massive, $3.5 trillion Congressional budget package is a ticking time bomb for Montana’s economy. The innocuous sounding Clean Energy Payment Program (CEPP) is actually the left’s latest scheme to eliminate affordable, reliable fossil fuel energy. If they are successful, we’ll all pay more and at the same time the reliability of our electricity grid will be diminished. Worse, energy-producing states like Montana will pay the price in terms of lost jobs and economic output.

Montana businesses are in an untenable position

On Thursday, President Biden announced the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration in the coming weeks will issue an “emergency temporary standard” that will mandate all employers with 100 or more employees to require their workers be vaccinated or undergo weekly Covid testing. This rule is estimated to impact 80 million private-sector workers, with businesses facing fines of up to $14,000 per violation.

APR’s proposal to BLM would set a terrible precedent

An important deadline approaches for Montanans fighting to stop the American Prairie Reserve from decimating the agricultural economy of Eastern Montana. The Bureau of Land Management will take public comment until Sept. 28 on APR’s proposal to “rewild” their federal grazing allotments by removing them from agricultural production. The stakes of this proposal are high due to the precedent it would set.

Congress is a deadly extremist organization

“What Drove 9 Moderate House Democrats To Hold Up Their Party’s Agenda?” Nathaniel Rakich asks at FiveThirtyEight. “[N]ine moderate Democrats threatened to vote no on moving forward with Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget resolution, unless the House first voted to pass the Senate’s bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure package.”