Renewing Responsibility in Government
Thank you, everyone, for your support during the campaign. Despite losing, it was one of the most positive experiences in my life. I’m very grateful I had the opportunity.
I will be fully behind Steve Gibson, who won the primary. He worked hard, and he deserved to win. He can win in November too. He’s worth our support, and I hope you’ll join me.
I believe the people of East Helena and Helena need jobs. The economy’s tough right now, and anyone who wants to represent the people needs to be thinking about that. If the people choose me to represent them, I will work to create those jobs by making it easier for our local businesses to hire more people. We can do that by easing the tax and regulatory burden that they have to work with.
While the people of Lewis and Clark County are tightening their belts to deal with challenging financial circumstances, the state government is currently expending more money than has come in to the general fund. We have a spending problem, and we need to reign it in. I want to help restore responsibility to government.
Responsibility means being responsible with the tax dollars that people send in. More than that, though, ti means remembering that Legislators are responsible to the people who put them in office. Those who are elected are charged to listen, to be humble, and to work hard for the people they represent.
That’s what I want to work for if the people choose me to represent them: a responsible state government that never forgets those to whom it is responsible, and that works to make their lives better by reducing the burdens and obstacles to prosperity.
Here are the three candidates in my primary profiled in the IR.
http://helenair.com/news/article_118dbeb6-6956-11df-b331-001cc4c002e0.html
Tonight I was going door to door and met a young man named Taylor, who was probably about 7. He was giving me the stink eye at first, being a stranger in the neighborhood. But once he’d seen me knock on a couple doors and leave literture behind, he took over the campaign! “Try this door, they’re home.” “Let me take one to these people.” “I want to give the paper to them!” What a great kid, and a fun night of campaigning.
What I want to do today is present my own personal experience with the Tea Party here in the Helena area. I am not a member. I have never once been to one of their organizational meetings. I’ve been to two of their rallies, met a large number of members while out on the campaign trail, and know a few of the members from before I ran for office.
I’ve heard a lot of things said about the people who go to Tea Party rallies, and almost all of them are incorrect — or at least, they’re wildly different from any of the things I’ve seen with my own eyes.
On Friday I met a man who asked for a yard sign for my campaign. He was asking probing questions about my position on the tea parties, trying to find out where I stood without giving his own position away. Eventually, after I’d discussed my observations about them for a while, he told me that he considered himself a member of the tea party. But what he told me next was most important. He was a former union worker, a former Democrat, and hated Reagan when he broke the air traffic controller’s strike. He said he still wasn’t sure that was the right thing to do.
So claims that the tea parties are just Republicans wearing a new costume do not match up with my own personal experience. This man was not a Republican. No Republican can breathe the words “hate Reagan” without choking. It was hard for me just to type them!
On the other hand, yes, it must be said that there are a lot of (former?) Republicans in the tea party movement. A large number of people I have met who describe themselves as tea party members used to go to Republican meetings. Some still do, others do not. The common thing that folks of that kind say is that they felt ignored by the Republican party. The tea parties offered them a way to be a real part of something, not just a number to be counted, asked for money, and otherwise ignored. These are the people to whom the Republican party most needs to listen.
The next charge is that tea party members are angry, violent racists. I have never heard a racial slur at a tea party rally, or in conversation with a member. I have heard those slurs in conversations with people who look down on tea party members. I have never heard a call for violence at a tea party rally. I have heard calls for a revolution at the ballot box, but voting isn’t violent. (Even though it will hurt the people on the wrong side of it!)
As for angry, the emotion that best describes people I’ve met at tea party rallies is actually happy. They are happy to be a part of something. They are happy to have a real voice.
In my opinion, the thing that most directly led to the tea parties was not the election of Barack Obama but the years of a Republican Party that was more concerned with winning than with our principles. We were happy to watch George Bush spend, spend, spend as long as he kept an R on the White House.
I say that as one of the guilty parties. I certainly spent my time saying, “Yeah, sure, that’s a morally right idea, but it’s not realistic.” I learned my lesson. Now, I hope, the state and the country will learn too. The tea party people are great teachers.
I am told that by May 8th, the state general fund had spent $161.2 million more than deposited this fiscal year.
Meanwhile, all around us, Montanans are tightening their belts. While my neighbors are making do with less, the state government has been spending more than it has.
We need a state government that understands the pain of people who are struggling through challenging economic times. We need a Legislature that understands that the people are its owners and bosses. We need to restore responsibility.
Well, the poll’s been running long enough. Four people said that reducing the tax burden on businesses was the best way to create more jobs, two said that easing the environmental permitting process was the best way, and one each voted for investing in education and spending more on service programs.
With the majority, I believe that reducing taxes and permitting regulations on our main street businessmen and women will help put more people to work. Our neighbors need that. Times are tough right now — I’ve talked to people while going door to door who are facing serious financial challenges. Whether I am elected or not, I hope the next legislature takes action that makes it easier for businesses to create jobs. People need that way more than they need one candidate or another.
Yesterday while I was out campaigning door to door, a constituent talked to me about fuel taxes. He was a former truck driver.
He described his own frustration with the fuel tax dollars he paid for diesel — quite a lot of money — being spent to pay for boat docks and things of that ilk.
I need to study the issue more. This is an excellent example of true representation, where instead of a politician talking about what he believes, a constituent can bring his concerns to his potential representative. I want to learn about this constituent’s concern because the situation he described seems wrong to me.
The sales pitch for the gas tax is always something along the lines of “those who use the roads should pay the tax to maintain them.” But if that tax is not being used to maintain roads, then the implicit bargain is being broken. A truck driver pays his fuel taxes as a professional expense of doing business. It’s not right if the state is then spending them on play facilities for other people.
People have been telling me they’re hearing the radio ads. For those who haven’t, you can listen here:
Today I received a letter from the Montana Shooting Sports Association endorsing me in the HD78 Republican Primary. Just as with the Right to Life endorsement, this is a profound honor.
In their letter, the MSSA wrote, “You are clearly the best candidate in your Primary Election contest to represent gun owners and hunters.”
In all my time being politically conscious, opposing gun control has always been one of the issues that really fires me up. Defending yourself is nearly the most fundamental right there is, and the Second Amendment is central to protecting that right.
If the people choose me to represent them, I hope to work for legislation that advances our Second Amendment rights, and I’ll be glad to have the opportunity to work with MSSA to do it.
