Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/tag/greg-gianforte/page/6/)
If I thought it would make the slightest difference, I would urge readers of Last Best News to vote for Hillary Clinton, given the mountain of evidence that Donald Trump is completely unfit to be president. But it appears that Montana voters are going to favor Trump in any case. Fortunately, it appears just as likely that the country as a whole will reject him by a large margin. (more…) Continue Reading →
The candidates running at the top of the Montana Republican Party’s statewide ticket gathered Friday evening in Missoula to rally their base heading into November’s election, each promising to bring change to Helena if elected to office. (more…) Continue Reading →
I was just about ready to start this column this way: If you are not sufficiently depressed yet about the 2016 election, then I have a reading assignment for you. But suddenly I feel better. I admit that I’ve become unhealthily obsessed with this year’s presidential race. It’s the first time since the Kennedy-Nixon election of 1960 that I have genuinely worried about what will become of the country if the wrong candidate wins. I was only 9 years old then. Continue Reading →
Greg Gianforte and Steve Bullock painted very different pictures of Montana in a debate at Montana State University Billings Monday night. Gov. Bullock, the incumbent Democrat, described a Montana that is fiscally prudent and a magnet for entrepreneurs. He said the state is growing rapidly in terms of median income and gross domestic product. Gianforte, the Republican challenger, characterized Montana as poorly managed, with declining reserve funds and low wages that drive young people out of the state. (more…) Continue Reading →
Bob Story, executive director of the Montana Taxpayer Association and a former state legislator, has struck back with an op-ed piece taking on claims that income tax cuts passed in 2013 are cutting into school maintenance funding today. Story probably was referring to an opinion piece by educators, but since Last Best News has reported in considerable detail on this topic, allow me to retort. Those old tax cuts matter because gubernatorial candidate Greg Gianforte has argued that income tax revenues actually increased after the cuts, and he has proposed doubling down by cutting rates even more. (more…) Continue Reading →
The Greater Yellowstone Central Labor Council Labor Day Picnic follows an unvarying agenda: fried chicken, hamburgers and hot dogs for lunch; a range of free domestic beers ranging from Budweiser to Bud Light; bluegrass music by Jim Southworth and Southbound; inflatables for the kids; and speeches by Democrats. The only difference this year was that an early drizzle and cool temperatures appeared to hold down the size of the crowd. Lunch lines, which sometimes take a half hour or longer to get through, were so short that one line closed altogether at an early hour. But the light rain had stopped and the sun was shining by the time political candidates were given a few minutes each to make their case to union members. As usual, all of the speakers were Democrats, except for Dirk Sandefur, who is running a nonpartisan race for the Montana Supreme Court. Continue Reading →
Republican gubernatorial candidate Greg Gianforte has been distributing fliers about Gov. Steve Bullock’s stance on admitting Syrian refugees into Montana. You can see an image from the flier to the left and below. The flier was being distributed statewide just as a refugee family from the Democratic Republic of the Congo was settling in Missoula. We thought Gianforte got the message exactly right but the image wrong. So we updated it for him and posted it above. Continue Reading →
A spokesman for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign defended his statement on Monday that Hillary Clinton “lacks the mental and physical stamina to take on ISIS” by saying that Trump was referring to policy differences. “Mental and physical stamina” is a synonym for “policy”? OK, I thought: It is official. Words no longer mean anything at all. It’s kind of a relief. Continue Reading →
This is the 24th chapter of the 32-part video series “The Montana Ethic Project.” This chapter features Greg Gianforte, who was still with RightNow Technologies when this interview was conducted and who is now, of course, the Republican candidate for governor. He discusses the subject of “High Tech in Montana.” You can watch the whole video below. Here is an edited transcript of how it begins:
(more…) Continue Reading →
Revenue losses from Montana tax cuts passed in 2003 are approaching $1 billion, a new report says. “The Montana We Could Be: Tax Cuts, Aimed at the Rich, Take a Toll,” a report by the nonprofit Montana Budget and Policy Center in Helena, estimates that the tax cuts will have cost $976 million by the end of 2016. That’s enough to pay the deferred maintenance costs for all of the school districts in the state, the report says. The tax cuts, which took effect in 2005, reduced the number of tax brackets from 10 to six and cut the top income tax rate in Montana from 11 percent to 6.9 percent. The legislation also, among other changes, gave a 2 percent tax credit on capital gains. Continue Reading →
