{"id":21422,"date":"2018-02-12T07:46:42","date_gmt":"2018-02-12T14:46:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=21422"},"modified":"2018-02-12T07:46:42","modified_gmt":"2018-02-12T14:46:42","slug":"opinion-unleash-the-love-fund-essential-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2018\/02\/opinion-unleash-the-love-fund-essential-services\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: Unleash the love, fund essential services"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Mary Ann Dunwell<\/p><\/div>\n

One of my favorite songs as we celebrate Valentine\u2019s Day is the Beatles\u2019 \u201cAll You Need is Love,\u201d with its lyrics: \u201cThere’s nothing you can do that can’t be done \u2026 Nothing you can make that can’t be made \u2026 love is all you need.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s show our love and stop the devastating cuts to essential public services in Montana. Short term, consider emergency supplemental appropriation. Find the money. Stop the bleeding. Save lives. Sure, it\u2019s bold and a short-term band-aid.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s also do something sustainable. Elect a legislature that understands its job is to find revenue to fund essential public programs, so all Montanans can enjoy our state\u2019s quality of life and opportunities to be the best they can be. All we need is love, not polarizing political pablum like, \u201cno new taxes.\u201d<\/p>\n

We must modernize our outdated tax policy in Montana. We won\u2019t have to further tax hardworking Montanans if we mine untapped revenue and make sure super-rich individuals and wealthy multistate corporations pay their fair share too.<\/p>\n

During the November 2017 special legislative session, some in the tourist industry testified that they were willing to support \u2014 or at least not oppose \u2014 a slight increase in accommodations and car rental taxes. Senate Bill 6 would have generated millions of dollars and maximized public benefit from Montana\u2019s yearly $4-billion-and-growing tourist industry. Yet powerful Republicans refused to even bring it to a vote. Where was the love in that?<\/p>\n

Our Montana friends, family members and neighbors are being denied life-saving services because Republicans in the Legislature would not work across the aisle to generate new revenues for these services.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not who we are as Montanans. We don\u2019t turn our backs on our neighbors or communities. We volunteer to fight fires, we bring meals when someone\u2019s sick, and we shovel the ice and snow for someone who can\u2019t. Let\u2019s melt the ice in our collective heart.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not calling for Montana lawmakers to agree on everything. Who does? I\u2019m asking Montanans to elect a legislature with courage to generate public revenues to meet the needs of the people.<\/p>\n

The Beatles sang it so well. \u201cAll you need is love, love. Love is all you need.\u201d Happy Valentine\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n

Rep. Mary Ann Dunwell is a Democrat serving her second term in the Montana Legislature. She represents House District 84, Helena\/East Helena. You can reach her at\u00a0<\/em>rep.maryann.dunwell@mt.gov<\/a><\/em>.

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One of my favorite songs as we celebrate Valentine\u2019s Day is the Beatles\u2019 \u201cAll You Need is Love,\u201d with its lyrics: \u201cThere’s nothing you can do that can’t be done \u2026 Nothing you can make that can’t be made \u2026 love is all you need.\u201d Let\u2019s show our love and stop the devastating cuts to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":19113,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3864],"tags":[6753,1122,6752,6751],"class_list":["post-21422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-budget-crisis","tag-montana-legislature","tag-taxation","tag-the-beatles","prominence-category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21422"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21423,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21422\/revisions\/21423"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}