| Mike Dennison's got a report on the Montana Republicans' launch of their new legislative campaign. There's not much surprising here; it's the same, stale lines they've been doling out for years: Democrats are for higher taxes, Republicans lower. Democrats want to increase the size of government, Republicans decrease it. Democrats are the party of "environmental obstructionism," Republicans...the corporate whores? Or something.
Of course, the political reality doesn't support these allegations. Under Democratic leadership, the state has done fairly well compared with the rest of the country. The state has run budget surpluses under its Democratic governor and the state has had sound fiscal management. A good response should be to remind folks (especially some of our own) that Democrats and leftys believe, not in bigger government, but better government. That we want to build a party for the people, not the plutocrats.
And, yes, I'm aware that the present state of the Democratic party falls short of those ideals.
And then there was this:
Senate Majority Leader Jim Peterson, R-Buffalo, ripped into the Democratic-controlled Land Board, saying it "turned its back on responsible natural resource development" last month by voting to set overly high lease prices for state coal in eastern Montana's Otter Creek Valley.
"We're committed to developing our energy resources and putting Montanans back to work," he said.
I don't want to toot my own horn, but...what did I tell you?
Republicans will push against the Land Board, claiming they set the price too high on purpose to prevent the coal from being leased. After all, why not? They have a tendency to treat public land as corporate America's backyard, why not try to pressure the Land Board to essentially give away the state's coal tracts? It's good for teh childs! Well, not so much.
The Republicans are dutifully stepping up to play their part in the Otter Creek Kabuki. Man, don't you just hunger for someone, anyone in politics - Republican or Democrat - and just say this whole deal is bullsh*t, and have done with it? |
