by Ken Toole | Sep 12, 2026 | Republicans, Taxes, Taxpayers
Do You Make Less Than $91,000 a Year?
With great fanfare, Governor Gianforte announced a “public engagement campaign” to promote a “flat income tax” in Montana. The idea is simple: Republicans want to eliminate our current multi-tiered income tax and replace it with one 4.7% rate for everyone, regardless of their income.
The result of this proposal is a big income-tax break for wealthy taxpayers and a big, fat nothing for you if you make less than $91,000 per year. Same old trickle-down BS.
Understanding the Relative Value of a Dollar
The concept of a flat tax sounds good. Everyone ends up paying the same rate regardless of their income. Sounds fair, right?
It’s not.
Economists use the term “marginal utility” to explain the fact that one dollar is worth more or less to individuals depending on their income. Put bluntly, it refers to the fact that very wealthy people do not value a dollar the same way a person farther down the income scale does.
Business Insider actually crunched the numbers and found that the value of one dollar for an average American equates to $1,355 for the average billionaire.
Most people understand that wealthy people often don’t count their pennies like the rest of us. Of course not. They don’t have to worry about it.
Think about the last time you made a major purchase. Most of us start by deciding what we can afford. Imagine how different it would be if you didn’t have to worry about the price.
Outside Groups to Run the Montana “Public Engagement Campaign” for a Flat Tax
Standing next to Governor Gianforte at the press event announcing the campaign to promote the flat tax were Jack Baum from the D.C.-based group Americans for Tax Reform and Chris Cargill, president of the Idaho-based group Mountain States Policy Center. Both groups are part of a national network of right-wing organizations promoting a menu of “economic reforms.”
Americans for Tax Reform was founded by Grover Norquist, who is currently president of the group. Norquist is probably best known for a comment he made in 2001. He told a reporter, “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”
Mountain States Policy Center is based in Idaho. It is a member of a national group called the State Policy Network (SPN). A report by the Center for Media and Democracy found that the group had a budget of $152 million in 2022.
The State Policy Network claims to be nonpartisan and independent. But it is funded by the Koch brothers and other right-wing funders. The group is also a major driver of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which develops model legislation to implement right-wing policies and disseminates them to state legislators and lobbyists.
(See “EXPOSED: The State Policy Network — The Powerful Right-Wing Network Helping to Hijack State Politics and Government”)
The Mountain States Policy Center appears occasionally on Montana editorial pages, promoting its version of free-market economics and public policy.
Former Montana Law School professor Rob Natelson is listed as one of the organization’s “research fellows.” He authored a report recommending that Montana hold a constitutional convention because he believes there are flaws in our current constitution.
Natelson has a long and controversial history in Montana. He left the University of Montana Law School under a cloud of controversy. He was unpopular with his colleagues, who voted to deny him emeritus status. He also sued the law school, alleging that he had been discriminated against because of his conservative views.
In 1996, Natelson ran for governor against Marc Racicot in the Republican primary. He received less than 25% of the vote. In 2000, he ran again and was defeated by Judy Martz in the Republican primary.
Flat Tax Likely to Be Center Stage in the Next Legislature
The Gianforte administration and its out-of-state hired guns are clearly setting the stage for the next legislature.
If you make less than $91,000 a year, the proposal offers you nothing but the continued shoveling of money into the pockets of the people at the top of the income ladder.
by Helena Lovick | Feb 13, 2026 | Contamination, Corporations, Protests, Taxes, Taxpayers
Photo credit David Saslav
Great Falls, MT
A couple of hardy protesters have been protesting outside of the Calumet Montana Refinery every first and third Monday at 7:30 AM. Why are they doing that?
Fair Taxes
We’ve talked before about how Calumet and politicians in Calumet’s pocket are screwing you. Let’s talk about what happened recently with Calumet’s tax protest.
Every year, Calumet pays all of their required taxes into an escrow account because they concurrently protest the tax valuation. The money is then held in that escrow account and not released for use until the tax protest is settled. Calumet’s goal is to make maximum profits by minimizing the amount of tax they are required to pay. Historically, Calumet “wins” in their tax protest and the actual amount of tax they have to pay is dramatically reduced. Meaning they claw back a portion of the amount sitting in that escrow account.
According to the Electric, Calumet will get $1.4 million tax dollars back after they reached a settlement on their tax protest for tax years 2022 to 2024. Another example of how Calumet protests their taxes was a settlement in 2025. As reported in the Electric, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality and Montana Renewables (the biofuel side of Calumet) settled to increase the tax exempt portion of the refinery and Cascade County will have to pay back the overcharges since the tax exempt adjustment was backdated a few years.
While it may be legal to protest taxes, it hurts our community. It makes it impossible for our schools and city and county governments to budget not knowing how much of the taxes they will ultimately receive. Every dollar Calumet gets out of paying, has to be made up by the rest of the tax payers.
Most taxpayers pay their taxes on time and without protest. Then those same taxpayers give even more back to their community, by contributing to good causes like school PTAs, food banks, and more. Meanwhile, we continue to supply Calumet with roads, bridges, rail access, water, and more. We’re not expecting Calumet to do more than we do ourselves. We’re asking them to be good neighbors and give back to a community that gives so much to them.
If not the tax stuff, what else are they protesting?
This might surprise you but…Calumet could be doing more to respect our environment.
In January 2025, Montana Renewables publicly committed to building an on-site water treatment facility. This would prevent their wastewater from being trucked out and dumped elsewhere. Instead, Montana Renewables is still carrying their pollution down the road with no plans in site for the water cleaning facility. That transportation costs money too, and Montana Renewables is looking at alternative ways to dispose of the waste. One potential pathway for this mystery waste water is a proposed permit to allow wastewater to be injected into inactive oil wells such as by Lake Frances in Montana. The actual chemical composition of the wastewater is unknown and the proposed wells may lead to contamination of the Madison Aquifer, a source of drinking water for hundreds of wells in Montana. Yikes!!
One of the protesters, Donna Williams, pointed out “We’re not protesting; we’re rallying behind our refinery to get it right. Most other SAF [Sustainable Aviation Fuel] facilities have wastewater treatment and we want ours to have it, too.”
As reported in the Montana Free Press, “Montana Renewables’ environmental assessment estimates that its pretreatment unit will produce as much as 232,000 gallons of wastewater each day.” That’s a lot of waste. It’s the right thing to do to process that waste to prevent a bigger problem down the road (literally). Let’s not risk polluting our ground water. Montana Renewables can do the right thing and treat their wastewater.
Sounds like good reasons to protest to me!
Upcoming Protests on the corner of 10 St NE and Smelter Ave NE
1st and 3rd Mondays, 7:30-8:00 AM
- February 16th
- March 2nd
- March 16th
by Helena Lovick | Feb 3, 2026 | Money, Republicans, Taxpayers, Vote
A couple of weeks ago, Montana’s Republican Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen sent out a mailer with a picture of herself standing next to a constipated-looking, photoshopped image of dTrump. I was an unlucky recipient of said postcard along with about 467,000 other Montana households.
$200,000 Price Tag for Taxpayers
The postcard bragged about how the Secretary of State office is using a program to verify that only U.S. citizens are voting. It has come to light, thanks to Democratic Representative Kelly Kortum (D-Bozeman), that it cost taxpayers around $200,000 dollars to mail that dumbassery.
Privacy Violating Voter Program
The program SoS Jacobsen was bragging about is the “SAVE tool” and comes “free” from the MAGA Administration. In an underwhelming rollout, the SAVE tool managed to flag 23 potential non-citizen voters in all of Montana. Wow…..23! That’s….not a lot. But remember, we must threaten you with the terrifying possibility that a couple non-citizens voted out of 785,000+ total Montana voters. That sounds terrifying.
As more icing on the cake, the privacy violating SAVE tool may also erroneously flag voters and disenfranchise eligible voters.
Partisan Shmartisan
Aside from its naked partisanship, the postcard clearly served a political purpose. But the Gianforte-appointed Commissioner of Political Practices, Chris Gallus, disagreed and found that the postcard did not serve a political purpose in a complaint dismissal.
In response to the complaint dismissal by the CoPP, Christi Jacobsen posted a Facebook post on January 21st saying, “The lyrics that come to mind are: “You’re mad, I’m back, big mad. He’s mad, she’s mad, big sad – Haha, don’t care, stay mad” – 6ix9ine.”
Aside from the complete detachment from professional norms and civility, the quoting of 6ix9ine was quite the choice. If you’re going to quote a person as a public official, wouldn’t you want to do some minimal vetting so you don’t accidently quote a criminal? 6ix9ine is a felon with multiple felonies, including use of a child in a sexual performance, racketeering, gun charges, and drug offenses. But I guess Republicans have become more and more comfortable with felons thanks to felon-in-chief dTrump.
Hey! What About Our Money?
There remain unanswered questions about the postcard costs ($200,000+!?) and if the SoS office has turned over voter records to the federal government.
These shady actions are unsurprising from SoS Jacobsen. She has a long history of ignoring norms and illegal actions. Some of her greatest hits also include:
