Next Tuesday Jan 5th the Gallatin County Commissioners are voting on a grant application from the the HRDC. It's for a seven million dollar affordable housing grant. Commissioner Steve White is vehemently opposed. Commissioner Bill Murdoch is in favor. Commssioner Joe Skinner said "convince me" He mentioned on the news that he was hearing from property owners that they didn't want more competition from HRDC.
The reason Bozeman needs affordable housing is that landlords are charging high rents. Affordable housing has been an clear need for our community for years. That's the reason that our community was granted the seven million dollars. The property in question was bought out of foreclosure. A recession is the perfect time to create affordable housing. This is a good deal for our community. if refused, the grant money in question will revert to somewhere else in the state. We will lose seven million dollars, and the opportunity to serve our less fortunate citizens.
Could it be Commissioner Skinner is feeling the hot breath of Scott Sales on his neck? He's been hearing from the tea party about this. If he votes against this, Commissioner Skinner may gain the tea party support at the loss of his moderate image. He needs the moderates to come out for him, otherwise Scott Sales is our new commissioner. (shudder) Commissioner White made a point about the federal deficit. If this goes down, we'll not decrease the deficit by one dime. The only thing will be that more poor people will be on the street, or living in squalid conditions. At a greater cost to our society at large. Voting against this grant is fiscally insane, callous, and immoral. We will be judged by how we treat our fellow humans. This is good policy that really helps folks and I hope the County Commission comes to find it's better angels.
Not much has been heard from Scott Sales this session. And that's a good thing. Sales, of course, was one of the main contributors to the vitriol surrounding the last session. We all remember Mike Lange's expletive-laden outburst against the governor -- but few remember Sales' rhetorical tantrum at the close of 2007's regular session, in which he called Democratic legislators "obscene" and "immoral" and -- again! -- compared legislating to a war. Sales' role as House Speaker was bad enough to provoke Republican state Senator John Cobb into calling the House leadership "a bunch of idiots" who "us[e] the rules to abuse people," who "think they can bully the governor," and compared them to Third World politicians.
So it's good to see Sales get shut out of this session, even by his own party:
Sales, long one of the chamber's most outspoken fiscal conservatives, tried every way he could to hack some dough out of House Bill 2 on Monday, during the day-long debate on the measure.
He targeted agencies from big to small, including the governor's office, the Revenue Department, the Justice Department, the State Prison, the Public Defenders Office and the university system. His amendments ranged from the $1,300 per-diem to $4.7 million in student loans and scholarships.
Sales also tried everything from humor -- he called an amendment to cut Gov. Brian Schweitzer's airplane a "green amendment" that would reduce the governor's carbon footprint -- to hectoring, scolding colleagues about spending more money in the midst of a recession.
"No one's had a reduction in their budget at all," he said. "This baby's growing by at least 4.6 percent over the biennium. I don't know of one department that is taking a cut. In fact, all I see is growth. I dare say that we have government out of control here."
...in the end, Sales couldn't rustle up a single Democratic vote in the 50-50 House for any of his amendments, let alone hold his own party behind him.
"This is your last chance to register a vote for the taxpayer ... and say that we take our job seriously," he said on amendment No. 21. It failed on a 31-68 vote.
For one, our nation's leaders currently subscribe to Keynes -- spending during a recession is exactly what we're trying to do to keep the economy from sinking. Is Sales unaware? Does he have a rational explanation for his desire to slash the budget? (And rational arguments against government spending during this recession do exist, although I suspect Sales would be against nationalizing banks.) Does Sales even have a coherent vision of the economy?
That no Democrat seems willing to work with Sales is hardly a surprise, given the Speaker's behavior in 2007. That a dozen or so Republicans are willing to work with Democrats is somewhat of a surprise: is this a rejection of their leader's dutiful and antiquated obeisance to 1990s Gingrich rhetoric? A rejection of Sales' leadership? Or simply a desire to get things done?
Still, you've got to wonder what this session would have been like with a clear Republican majority in the House.
Recently, Montana 's rural schools applied to lease state-owned coal in Otter Creek Valley . The idea is to push Governor Schweitzer into getting a deal done that would allow a mining company to mine the coal, from which agreement, the state's school system would get a cut, not to mention the jobs and money that would necessarily flow into the community.
Schools are naturally concerned about funding. They were shorted in the 2007 state legislature, and the Good Guv has told them not to expect much of an increase in the next session, either.
Republican hacks jumped to attack. (Possible former?) House Speaker Scott Sales called Schweitzer's remarks hypocritical because he, you know, spent money on schools in 2007, and blamed the Guv's spending for the upcoming national recession. And Republican gubernatorial candidate, Roy Brown, said the Good Guv won't develop the coal tracts that would give schools a funding boost.
So, the principled conservative position on education is basically this: schools are rapacious, wasteful institutions that a new Republican governor would give more money to. Maybe Scott and Roy should get their anti-schools rhetoric together before they issue their press statements.
I'd also add that, if the schools are facing upcoming shortages, these jokers could have done something about it in the last legislative session. Only they didn't. In fact, Sales went even further and was against the education spending increases as they were proposed. If schools are facing budget crunches, Sales et al. are the biggest culprits. His brand of radical conservatism wants to destroy public schooling, not preserve it.
Second, schools tying themselves to coal is a bad idea. I've written before on the indications that coal is a dying industry. Siphoning off money from the sale of public coal would put money into school coffers, for the short term. But what about ten years from now? Five years, when coal prices skyrocket because of a carbon tax? Mining operations halt, and the state is left with land devastated from coal extraction, and no revenue can be made off it?
Such an agreement would benefit the big energy company that would mine the coal, probably at a state-subsidized price. And it's telling exactly which candidate is supporting the idea. (The Oil man?)
Third, mining coal from the Otter Creek tracts is simply not feasible. Due to the patchwork array of state lands there, negotiating a deal there is difficult, at best; and even if a deal were made, there's no rail line, and none likely to be built. In short, it ain't gonna happen.
And there's a better way to make money off of state lands. Ochenski:
Ironically, at the same time the rural educators were trumpeting Otter Creek as their fiscal salvation, Madison Valley Renewable Energy and its partners were moving ahead with leasing state lands near Norris for a wind energy project they say will eventually cover some 14,000 acres. Their test towers are going up now and if all goes as planned, 150 megawatts of clean wind energy will be available for sale with 3.1 percent of the revenue going to-you guessed it-Montana's schools. A similar wind development near Judith Gap produced $50,000 last year from land leases and will continue to do so into the foreseeable future.
In that editorial, Ochenski says that the Montana Rural Education Association "got some bad advice" in staking its future to the Otter Creek coal tracts, which begs the question, from whom?
Let's see. Who could that be? Who benefits from distracting the public from who is actually responsible for shorting Montana 's schools, financially...presenting a false promise that Big Energy is Montana 's fiscal salvation...and making the Good Guv look responsible for it all?
So yesterday I started penning a tirade against Montana House Republicans, based on Jennifer McKee's report that the House leadership was considering "freezing out" the senate in deliberations over the Good Guv's request for funds to cover this year's firefighting costs.
But that didn't happen. Compromises were made, the money was allocated, the Governor's request to extend his state-of-emergency powers was denied. (More on that later.) Hats off to Senate President Mike Cooney for talking House Speaker Scott Sales off the ledge. This is, of course, how it should have been in the last legislative session.
I couldn't help but notice what the original fuss was all about:
GOP leaders complained that they had little warning and little input in the special session call that Schweitzer issued last week.
"This is how much communication I had," Sales said, forming his fingers into a zero.
Senate Minority Leader Corey Stapleton, R-Billings, said Schweitzer had shown "incredible disrespect" to call the session when Sales had planned to be gone to attend a national conference of speakers of state House chambers.
We wouldn't want to convene a special session of legislature to deal with the state's recent and serious fire season and interrupt Scott's little vacation, would we? We wouldn't want to let his job get in the way of good times, would we?
The Governor is calling a special session to deal with appropriations for fires. So here's the question -- will it be handled in a single day as it should be or will House Republican leadership manage to drag this one out?
Montana Headlines responded to my recent post on the Montana Legislature, in which I responded to his claim that the Good Guv's budget was inevitable, and, therefore, House leaders' obstructionist tactics were unnecessary.
Even if one were to accept the idea that in any political situation there are only two choices (an idea that is mentioned only to be condemned,) one wonders how such a "corollary" would be arrived at, other than by intentionally creating a caricatured Republican strawman to swat about.
The far more obvious alternative case to be made was for Democrats and Republicans to arrive at a modest but real compromise on spending and taxes in the special session. It is hard to tell whether Montanans should be intrigued by the idea that perhaps progressive thinking isn't capable of arriving unaided at the concept of compromise -- or unsettled because Democratic partisan discipline won't allow it, even in an essentially tied legislature.
Still, I admit that it's a good thing that there's a legislative check on all the spending proposals the Governor will make. Republicans should have a say in what our state budget will look like. That's not a bad thing - unless the Sideshow Scott Sales dog & pony show turns the whole negotiating process into a circus. Which might just happen.
So much for MH's understanding of "progressive thinking."
From the "I told you so" department, we get this from the Helena Independent Record as the emergency special session and budget crisis in Montana finally concluded this week:
"House [Republicans] stripped out components [of the final budget] that would crack down on out-of-state businesses and individuals not paying their legal share of Montana taxes."
There has been a lot of coverage of this budget showdown, but as I've been saying, when you cut through it all, it was easy to see that the Montana Republican Party was ultimately going to make its last stand on the issue of basic tax enforcement, and that making such a stand in defense of tax cheats and out-of-state corporations is one of the purest forms of class warfare.
Ed Kemmick and David Sirota having a back-and-forth on the session.
Ed is ultimately calling for a truce in the war of words. I respond in his comments, but some of it is worth highlighting:
Meanwhile, Democratic leadership in the legislature is working to get a sit-down meeting in Billings with Republican leadership to hammer out some details - and if the Dems and the GOP in the leg can work out a deal, the Governor will basically have to come along for the ride. But the Dems aren't even sure that House GOP leadership, consisting of the Sideshow and the Madman, will bother to come.
Anyways, it's pretty important to remember when the war of words started, since people seem to think that it was started by the all-powerful liberal bloggers. It wasn't. It was Sales and Lange who from day one insisted that their job was to obstruct, to declare war, and to break their own campaign promises as need be.
The difference between liberal bloggers and the mainstream press was that most of us liberal bloggers had the audacity to take the Speaker at his word. He's following through on those promises now. We still seem to be the only ones noticing.
Now, there's a fair response to this -- that pointing fingers doesn't help anyone. And I'd agree, if Sales and Lange were actually interested in coming to the table and working with Democratic leadership.
But it just doesn't make any sense now to pretend that Sales and Lange are being anything close to responsible. They keep demanding things of other people without asking anything of themselves.
I think Ed knows this, too. He and I have pretty different perspectives, but a fairly recurring theme on his site is the need for responsibility. Republican leadership in the House pretty clearly still needs to learn what that means.
And they need to stop simply demanding that other people clean up their messes for them.
This press release just came across the transom - and it shows Montana Democrats are going on the offense on taxes:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 3, 2007
Contact: Jessica Rhoades 406-442-9520
Democratic Leader Says GOP Hiding Intent to Give Big Tax Give-Aways to Multinational Corps
Ordinary Homeowners, Main Street Businesses Left Out of Republican Tax Plans
(Helena, MT) House Deputy Minority Leader Rep. Bob Bergren of Havre today vowed that Democrats will continue to push for historic tax cuts targeted to ordinary homeowners and small businesses, and to make it their top priority in the coming Special Session. He also blasted Republicans' proposed $300 million tax cut plan for concealing efforts to advance tax give-aways worth millions of dollars to multinational corporations and wealthy out-of-state vacation home owners and developers.
"Republican leaders Mike Lange and Scott Sales have consistently blocked meaningful tax reform that would benefit working families throughout the 2007 legislative session. The tax-cut proposal they are now pushing is all about giving tax breaks to undeserving multi-national corporations and wealthy vacation homeowners," said Rep. Bergren. "The true intent of their tax plan is to give huge tax breaks to Exxon, who is gouging Montanans at the pump; to BNSF, who is gouging our family farmers and ranchers at the railhead, and to Blixseth and Charles Schwab, who are throwing up gated communities across Montana for wealthy Californians. This is wrong."
In a Department of Revenue study released last summer, it was shown that ordinary Montanans saw their property taxes increase more than 50% over the 12 years of Republican control, 1993-2005, while multinational corporations saw their share of the state's tax burden decline precipitously. Rep. Bergren said it is high time that homeowners be targeted for tax rebates, which Democrats aim to accomplish in the Special Session.
During the 2007 Session, Republicans rejected Democratic proposals to reduce the tax burden on Montana families by enforcing the laws to make out-of-state businesses who make money in Montana pay the taxes they already owe.
"Montanans have a right to ask Rep. Sales why he insists on protecting the out-of-state multinational corporations from paying the taxes they owe. After all, when out-of-staters evade their tax bills, ordinary Montanans pay higher taxes, and it gives them a competitive advantage over our main street businesses," added Bob Bergren.
Speaker Sales told Yellowstone Public Radio yesterday [5-2-07] that he opposes all Democratic tax measures to level the playing field for Montanans, which include permanently reducing the tax burden on small businesses in Montana, and to put an end to the unfair tax advantages enjoyed by the out-of-state corporations who make money in Montana.
I had a post mostly written, parts of which I'll try to reconstruct later, but I managed to hit the "delete" key which my browser sometimes interprets as "Go Back" and lost everything.
Please, though, go read this article. Senate President Mike Cooney has proposed a meeting with bipartisan leadership of both chambers to make sure the upcoming special session isn't what we call in the business a big fucking waste of time and money.
The response? Hemming and hawing from the usual suspects -- Scott Sales, Mike Lange, and John Sinrud. These are three guys who could not be more constitutionally averse to leadership. On the first day of the session, they apparently got a new "Job Description" that consisted of the following points:
Say No.
Don't counter-offer.
Make personal attacks.
Repeat.
The difference between House GOP leadership and Homer Simpson building a BBQ is that Homer tried. That's where these jokers are now -- bigger punchlines than the dumbest man in the history of television.
William F. Buckley points to the war in Iraq, which now polls at roughly the same level as George W. Bush (hint: they're both now unpopular -- and so unpopular that they'll probably soon hit a net negative approval rating in Utah).
He writes:
There are grounds for wondering whether the Republican party will survive this dilemma.
I cite Buckley mostly because I think some folks will take his views on this seriously, but also because I think he's right.
This is a moment of crisis for the GOP. It's unique in Montana, where the child-like leaders in the House refused to appoint conference committees, screamed "bad faith" at their opponents, offered no counteroffers, and then blamed the whole thing on everyone else.
Oh, right, and confused negotiations with bribery in profanity-filled diatribes caught on video.
Oops.
There's an opening here for people who want to take it -- either organizing and getting involved in primaries in their party or simply launching a new effort. The former is in some ways easier, but in some ways tougher (there's clearly still a significant base in the GOP quite pleased with where they are at).
Still -- it's a fair question. Between the war and Montana House Majority Leader Blutarsky -- can the GOP survive this mess?
I am just back from my weekend in Montana's Paradise Valley (see the photo I snapped to the right to prove what I said Friday about the fact that if you haven't been there, you haven't lived). Unfortunately, my mental vacation ended before I got home. Over breakfast in pristine Pray, Montana (you Montana readers likely know where I was lucky enough to be), I read this story which is running statewide in Montana and was reminded how quick reporters writing on deadline are to blame Democrats for the downfall of the world anytime Democrats actually behave in a way that contradicts the media's false archetypes of the two parties. This may be an update to my Montana-specific story earlier this week, but there's no doubt anyone who reads anything about politics in their own state knows this kind of ramrodding of stories into a set, inaccurate frame happens all the time everywhere - and it must be exposed whenever it occurs.
The story by Mike Dennison - who is usually a really solid, accurate reporter - reviews how the Montana legislature closed up shop without a budget, thus forcing an emergency special session sometime in the coming weeks in order to avoid a Gingrich-Clinton-style government shutdown. Dennison's piece is the typical, hackneyed review of any legislative crisis, offering up the mind-numbing "pox on both their houses" media harrumphing and stereotypical attacks on Democrats known as "High Broderism," thanks to Washington Post pundit David Broder's mastery of the deceptive craft. Such stories are so tired and so scripted they almost write themselves these days - even as the actual reporting contradicts the narrative itself. And I'll tell you from my firsthand experience this morning, few things spur indigestion quicker than happily being thousands of miles away from the Beltway and nonetheless finding a local outbreak of High Broderism.
Who's fault is this at the end of the day? Who do we have to blame for the fact that there is no budget resolution? From what I can tell, there are a few arguments, let's evaluate 'em.
Update -- By the way, Republicans, you might want to check out the folks who should be your base. They think you're now trying to intentionally lose the next election. That's a bad sign.
Twomore must-reads. The Senate has adjourned for good, leaving the House the option of embracing the last Senate-adopted budget or adjourning and forcing a special session.
Republicans are decrying this, even though it is precisely the strategy they were thinking about launching.
This is just insanity. I'm not even really sure what I think of the Senate Democrats' move. To be sure, their hand was forced. When it becomes absolutely clear that the other side won't deal in good faith, it becomes damn difficult to keep trying.
Bottom line: A special session is basically inevitable. The Republicans just keep saying no one will negotiate with them. I don't buy it. They keep getting offers and then saying no one will compromise. Here's an idea, Mr. Confuse Negotiations With Bribery and the rest of your party: make a damn counter-offer. Start acting like adults. Stop crying. Stop cussing. Start working.
Update -- The session is over. There is no budget.
After watching Representatives bicker over procedural matters in the House Appropriations Committee, Sen. John Cobb, R-Augusta, told reporters he was disgusted with House Republican leadership and compared them to third-world dictators.
"You gotta a couple of thugs that are just taking it over," said Cobb, a moderate Republican who often votes with Democrats.
Thanks for the sanity, Senator. This session is a giant black eye on the state.
Lee Newspapers is reporting that the Republicans may revive HB 2, strip out full-time kindergarten, and pass it, then adjourn sine die.
Based on Sideshow Scott Sales' discussion of the possibility, it certainly seems well within the realm of the possible. In other words, the entire sixeightsixty-seven four bill approach was, um, just a giant damn game for no purpose.
I don't know how else to put it, Republican leadership in the House hasn't done a constructive thing all session. Every big decision has been made behind closed doors. Every public pronouncement has been vitriolic and divisive. Every move ill-considered.
The good news is that will only take a swing of a couple thousand votes to massively alter the playing field for next session.
Well, this is a good sign: Scott Sales is "holding out an olive branch" (his words, not mine) to Democrats and inviting them to work together to build an HHS budget. It's a great idea -- so great, in fact, that it sounds almost suspiciously like the way the budget process was supposed to work before the Republicans threw out HB 2.
But what's most shocking about this is that the Republicans are looking to be seen as reasonable folks for basically admitting that their fifth punch to the gut was uncalled for and now offering to cut a deal with their victim.
Thanks, guys.
Honestly, when "Sideshow" Scott Sales and "Madman" Mike Lange won their leadership races, they did it by declaring war on the Governor and promising to obstruct everything he wanted. Sorry we took that at face value.
When it came time to appoint committee members, they stacked committees to be roughly 55%-60% Republican/Constitutionalist in a chamber 51% Republican/Constitutionalist.
When they didn't like the Governor's budget numbers, they didn't try to line up votes on committee to amend the budget, they threw the whole thing out and replaced it with sixeight budgets drafted by one man in a process that no one seems to fully understand yet.
When people turned out in droves to oppose their foolhardy process and their atrocious budget -- and very, very few people came to support it -- they accused their political opponents of behaviors reminiscent of Stalin and Nixon.
And when they couldn't marshall their own caucus to agree on a budget number, they threatened to cut all but $300 from the HHS budget, effectively eliminating health insurance for thousands of Montanans, plus a whole host of other services that are essential to Montanans.
I'm out of state right now, but I'm actually getting phone calls from incredulous people back home who simply can't believe that this is actually happening. Folks in D.C. simply don't believe it. I'd love to stick it to the Republicans with these facts. The problem is that they've passed the believability threshold. The attacks wouldn't be effective because the public at large simply will not accept that they are true -- never, they would think, would such cruel, stupid, and bullheaded people actually comprise a majority of a legislative chamber, especially given that much of the public voted for these people.
You can actually see this refusal to accept reality in letters to the editor. Twoletters in today's Gazette bemoan what the impact of the legislature's actions will be for Montanans, but go on to blame "partisanship" rather than the GOP for what is happening.
At the end of the day, what is happening in the Montana House is the result of a series of decisions by Republican leadership, who decided to go into the session with an attitude more fixated on confrontation than on results, led by a bunch of legislators who would rather declare war on their opposition than find common ground.
There's still a chance that common ground can be found, but I'd caution progressives around the state to be too anxious to cut a deal with these guys. Apologizing for the fifth punch isn't enough. Restoring HB 2 would be a real action from the GOP to indicate a willingness to work together. Until then, any outreach from Dems to the Republicans is a real quick way to reward unacceptable behavior.
Big news today -- Rick Jore has announced he will not support the GOP budget package as it increases spending way too much.
"I don't like 13 percent increases in spending," Jore said. "The average Montanan is out there trying to make a living. They'd be in hog heaven if they had a 13 percent increase (in income). They're lucky if they get any increase."
Jore branded the proposed Republican budget increases "just outrageous."
Contrary to one legislative rumor, Jore said he won't leave the chamber to avoid voting, calling that tactic "an expression of a lack of integrity."
"I'm going to vote no," he said. "If they want to lower the budget down to a point, I'd consider voting for them."
The Dems, of course, are locked up (when someone pulls a gun on you during a political fight, you simply don't sit down at the table to negotiate -- apparently the GOP is pissed about this fact).
Now Republicans are threatening to make deeper cuts to pick up Jore's vote:
Interviewed separately, House Speaker Scott Sales, R-Bozeman, said, "If all 49 Democrats lock up, there's a good chance we're going to have to cut the budget to get Jore to vote for it."
Now, this is a fine threat, but it's really pretty damn hollow. Sure, they can keep cutting corrections further (note to GOP -- things like Jessica's Law that increase penalties also increase prison population; this isn't a complicated concept). They can take the long knife to higher education or K-12. They can destroy mental health funding.
There's two problems with this approach, though. They don't just need 51 votes in the House -- any bills that cut state spending that significantly and threaten public safety, public schools, and public health will be either changed significantly in the Senate or vetoed by the Governor. What's more -- the Dems' actions will be popular.
Beyond that, they'd lose their own caucus members. They can't keep their handful of moderates accepting these numbers. In the Senate, they'd lose even more.
The train has wrecked, Mike. I understand you're trying to get it back on the tracks, but doing that by running to the fringe rather than to the middle is an utter recipe for disaster.
Restore the process. Bring back HB 2.
Last tip -- Shane Mason points out that the Lange and the GOP -- in their arrogance and partisanship -- have brought this on themselves.
Is it just me or has Scott Sales kinda disappeared off the face of the planet? I don't mean in reality. I just mean I don't see his name any more at all in the media.
I'm also hearing that Mike Lange and John Sinrud are basically sidelining him in the decision-making process and I've been told there's no way he'd win his caucus's backing to be Speaker if they were reconsidering that decision these days.
Say it ain't so, sideshow. We hoped you'd be leading until the end.
I just got told about this story from the Great Falls Tribune concerning how the budgeting process is moving forward. Long story short -- the Republicans want to completely change the way the process has worked for the last forever.
Or maybe they don't.
It's also apparently premature to speculate.
Premature to speculate? We're in month two of a four-month session. They don't know what the Hell they're doing.
Honestly, 'Sideshow' Scott Sales is unfit for the sideshow.
I just got a copy of Walt Williams' write-up of Mike Lange's proposal to send every Montana college student a tuition rebate of $500. It'd be nice if the Speaker of the House understood the idea. Here's a summary:
A Republican plan to reduce tuition at the state's colleges and universities was unveiled Wednesday, winning the support of students who have also backed a Democratic plan to freeze tuition for the next two years.
The GOP proposal would transfer $500 to the university system for each resident student enrolled in the state's colleges.
[...]
The attractive part of the plan for House Speaker Scott Sales, R-Bozeman, is that the money bypasses the Board of Regents -- a largely autonomous body that sets tuition -- and goes directly to students to reduce tuition.
"The other thing I like is, to a certain extent, it provides a little bit more competitiveness within the system because that money follows the students," he said in an interview, "versus having it go through the Board of Regents and have them divvy it up, with no guarantee that it's actually going to get to the students."
This would make sense except that it doesn't go "to reduce tuition." See, if the Republicans start handing out checks to students, but don't adequately fund the higher education system, all that will happen is tuition will skyrocket and then students will also get a rebate check.
It does nothing except increase bureaucracy and inefficiency -- nice job. If, on the other hand, you acknowledge reality -- as Mike Lange has -- and cut a deal with the Regents over base funding and then appropriate above-and-beyond, you may be able to get a tuition reduction. That's good stuff for students (although possibly not sustainable for the state budget).
But here's the other thing -- without the CAP plan that supplements base college funding, there is no long-term promise to students. Let's say we use the Republican method of skirting the Regents to provide a rebate to students and tuition increases a bit. It looks OK on net b/c of the new bureaucracy cutting checks to students (question: why don't we just reduce the bill rather than having a bill from the university, a check from the student, and a rebate from the government?). But next year, what happens? Tight budget, the rebate disappears and the full impact of several years of tuition hikes is felt.
Unfortunately, Scott Sales either does not understand all of this, that costs can be shifted, that the Regents are autonomous, and that words mean thing. And Walt Williams, who has had reporting problems before.
But here's the final thing -- I've heard a lot about the Regents failing to work adequately with the legislature -- what about the reverse? Schweitzer and the Democrats negotiated a deal to freeze tuition. If Lange wants tuition cut, he should go negotiate a deeper deal with the Regents and respect the Montana Constitution's process.
That's a better idea than Scott Sales' attempted shredding of our state's basic document of governance.
It's also vastly more efficient -- since the reduction in tuition will just happen rather than adding a new layer of bureaucracy.
I am just back from my weekend in Montana's Paradise Valley (see the photo I snapped to the right to prove