Posted: June 19, 2012 at 6:14 am
Rick Hill’s Entire Campaign Doesn’t Amount to Anything–Except A Bullet Ridden Obama Outhouse
Rick Hill’s entire campaign consists of stomping about the state muttering about the supposed burdens being put on business and the economy. All of this is pure fiction.
Here’s Hill’s basic stump speech: the economy is terrible in Montana because of too much regulation, to many taxes, spiraling work comp costs, and assorted other liberal evils. There is simply too much government, in effect, and thus no jobs can be created any time soon, until these shackles are cast off, and business is out from under this terrible yolk.
Take a look at a recent Missoulian article on Hill’s visit to Victor, Montana.
“We’re going through one of the toughest patches, economically, in the history of Montana,” Hill said.
Hill also pointed to the national debt and tried to make the false claim that Montana is in the same boat – even though we have a $400 million dollar surplus.
“We tend to look at Washington and say we’ve got this pyramiding of debt that is going to smother this country if we don’t do something about it,” Hill said. “But we have similar problems in Montana.”
It’s a rather sad strategy: he denigrates, derides and degrades (trashes, in essence) the state of Montana, the Montana economy, and state government–even though we have one of the best economies and most efficient state governments in America. He and his fellow GOP knuckle draggers tried to link Montana to the problems going on in Washington D.C.–and to a demonized version of the President (since he can find no local democrats to get his base foaming mad about.) Mike Dennison writes about this in his column today.
Facts
1. Under Democrats, Montana has developed more energy (wind, coal, oil, gas) than at any time in history.
2. For the last several years Montana has been ranked consistently among the top ten states in America for our tax climate and our business climate. We are one of the best places in America to start a business, across the board–the 8th best in the nation.
3. We have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation. This month, Montana’s economy added 1,300 new jobs-8,600 for the year. This is the greatest amount added in a month since before 2008.
4. This has not gone unnoticed by Montana voters, for when asked, 55% of them recently said in a survey that the state economy is on the right track as opposed to the wrong track. In only three other states in America did voters respond so positively to that question. In most states, voters think their state economy sucks.
5. Finally, Montana was recently rated as the best fiscally managed state in America. Eighty-three percent of Montanans think that state government is managing taxpayer money wisely. No other state came even close.
6. And why shouldn’t they feel this way? Montana has a $400 million surplus. In fact, for the last five years Montana has had a record sized surplus. And only a handful of states have surpluses right now. Most are in financial crisis. And Dems have cut more taxes than Republicans ever did.
7. Don’t just take my (liberal) word for it. Ask FoxNews or the Wall Street Journal, both of whom recently editorialized about the spectacular fiscal shape the state is in. For that matter, so did Denny Rehberg and Newt Gingrich. And so has every major newspaper in Montana.
8. The extra dough that Democrats have saved taxpayers has been (1) returned in the form of a rebate (the largst taxpayer rebate ever in Montana) and (2) spent on education, a historic investment in schools.
These are important points that show that Rick Hill’s entire campaign amounts to stale hot air. The irony, of course, is the Rick Hill is a teat-sucker of major proportions. He sucked large at the government teat, earning almost a million bucks in taxpayer dollars as a landlord who rented property to the government. All while his wife was working in the governor’s office. And he’s complaining about “too much spending”?
Aside from being ineffective politically (because the polls show us that voters side with Democrats and like what they are seeing out of state government), it’s very unpatriotic and a truly awful dereliction of one’s civic duty, to throw your state under the bus, tell lies about it, in order to win an election. Democrats like Schweitzer try to recruit businesses and market the state’s assets, and the GOP undercuts the whole effort by telling the whole world how bad Montana is for business, when nothing could be further from the truth.
And remember, there is a reason you see the GOP demonize President Obama, as we saw this weekend in Missoula and last night on the Rachel Maddow show (clip below). It’s because they need to present voters with a Democratic boogeyman, and they can’t find one in in Montana. You can watch last night’s Maddow clip here:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT! Dopey Ducks Debate! Claims Terrible Industrial Accident Forces Him to Duck It and Chuck It!
Yes, the AP is reporting that Dopey Reeburp will NOT attend the next scheduled debate in Helena as a result of a terrible accident. Seems that like Tester who is missing fingers, Dopey recently lost body parts too. He lost his ASS in the first debate!
Doctors are furiously trying to re-atTACH Dopey’s ass using the latest in Kockh bros. talking points. They hope to have Dopey’s ass working again at some point in the future so that Dopey can continue losing his ass again. That is if Dopey is even WILLING to show up at any more debates!
We will update as soon as more info is available!
I report, you decide!
BWWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/news/ap/politics/2012/Jun/18/citizens_united_divide_highlights_montana_debate.html
I believe that this remark by Dopey corresponds to the EXACT moment that his ass hit the floor! You just KNOW that you’ve lost your ass when you have to hide behind ALL women!
“He added that his wife, Jan, runs the family real estate business and said Tester “just attacked all women who run their own businesses.”
KerPLUNK!
Seriously, I can’t blame Dopey for running from debates. I mean, the man IS an idiot after all. He has NEVER uttered anything that wasn’t a talking point!
How embarrassing that Rehberg is trying to blame everything on his wife. Rehberg is not a rancher, he’s a subdivider. You can’t try to say that your subdivision is your wifes when you list it as a joint asset. Also, even if it weren’t a joint asset, Rehberg’s still not doing any ranching. What an idiot.
Denny did not get/read the memo that said the Rethugs are no longer for full disclouse of campaign contributions
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fred-hiatt-a-gop-bait-and-switch-on-disclosure/2012/06/17/gJQATPS2jV_print.html
http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/rehberg-won-t-be-at-u-s-senate-debate-in/article_83317d68-b98c-11e1-b28b-0019bb2963f4.html
The 8 points listed by Cowgirl should be the talking points that every Democratic candidate, especially those running for the Legislature, takes to the stump. Hopefully all candidates will be very vocal in defense of our state economy and along with just a few other facts about how tax cuts affect income disparity, will stand up and take it to the R’s this fall.
We can’t simply denigrate the extremists and hope to win this fall. We need to offer something. These talking points are a good start.
So much for Obama and Dems “destorying” the Coal industry
http://www.wvgazette.com/News/201111180224
“destroying” oops
destorying is the better descriptor, woman: you rock!
credit should go to Randi Rhodes, she talked about and I googled to check it out and found this
These are exactly the types of facts and articles that candidates need to have in their back pockets. Those of us that are on the “tubes” pretty regularly need to get this info into our local candidates hands so they can mount a vocal and spirited defense. As the saying goes “if you don’t stand for something, you stand for nothing”. Candidates need to show that they stand for something. Thanks!
First Report from Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201206_cfpb_shapshot_complaints-received.pdf
via Randi Rhodes http://www.randirhodes.com/pages/homework.html?feed=364336&article=10211674
Dallas is right. The legislative candidates are going to say the same thing as Rick Hill, since they can’t run on their legislative records. The dems should run on their record of smart economic policies.
Anybody else catch the subtle pot shot Rick Hill took at the Montana legislature in that Dennison piece?
Hill said if Montana wants its economy to thrive, the three branches of government need to work together more closely to create a more predictable and stable legal and political climate for the state.
http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/column-montana-republicans-point-to-obama-to-bring-down-democrats/article_d5730652-b9b2-11e1-bd37-0019bb2963f4.html
He tried to clarify later to say he was talking about the Governor, but what he said was “the three branches need to work together more closely”
Does he mean to politicize the judicial branch? Does he think he can force them to work with the Bat Crap legislature by forcing them to uphold their unconstitutional laws? Seems he has a poor understanding of the system of checks and balances set up by the founding fathers.
Regarding the fictionalized facts, I suggest Point 1 be revised to say, “In spite of Democrat effort to derail development efforts Montana has developed more energy (wind, coal, oil, gas) than at any time in history.” Bullock certainly wasn’t pro coal.
As to Point 3, it fails to mention that Montana’s unemployment rate moved up as more people are actively looking for work. Touting the number as a success disregards the misery of those that had dropped out of pursuing work.
As with any mindless chanting of talking points, the truth can bite the jaw jacker in the ass. Stay tuned.
Um…how is more people actively looking for work a bad thing. I clicked that link and it led to a story that made the exact point that we want more people looking for work. Think of it this way, isn’t less people looking for work bad? Jesus.
If Craig were right that resources were developed “in spite” of dems in charnge–why isn’t it the case that record development didn’t happen under GOP rule?
Here’s what the Republican legislative platform is gonna be for 2012.
They basically take their regular Bat Crap legislation, include provisions to give money to Exxon, PPL and rich people, then add “jobs” to the title. Then they’ll tell you this is to improve the economy.
Since we’re talking outhouses here, this image from a Montana Republican Party event is indicative of the stink that a lot of independent voters are starting to associate with the GOP.
You can smell it from the endless Koch-financed TV attack ads against Tester, which probably smell great to K-Street lobbyists in D.C. but seem pretty foul to people out here, especially compared to what most people know about Rehberg.
And most don’t hold with the attack on the womenfolk, no matter the motive.
The reason there’s a surplus is because the Republican legislature wouldn’t let Schweitzer go on a spree. Period. Schweitzer could not veto everything….he had to pass a budget and it was primarily Republican in outlook.
Actually, Schweitzer did veto the budget. Which forced the TEA Party to walk back from most of their most outrageous cuts. He then signed the amendatory veto of the budget which the legislature voted to approve.
I would point out that one of the reasons Montana was one of 7 states to have a shrinking economy in 2011 was the loss of public sector jobs. This was the outcome of a Republican legislature. Thanks a lot. I am sure those unemployed people are also thanking you for your “help”.
I wrote, “could not veto everything.”
As for the public sector jobs, those are financed by taxes from private sector profit, right? When the private sector shrinks, then maybe its a good idea to match that in the public sector. Sharing the pain, so to speak. Shared mutual prosperity? Lifting all boats?
Public sector workers need to see themselves as facilitators and partners, not jail wardens.
Your reply was completely unintellegable. Public sector jobs are financed by the public sector – including the tax money paid by those public sector employees. Now, those public sector employees that are out of a job are likely collecting unemployment while they look for new jobs in a market that is failing to provide them.
No, and may I add, what a fricking idiotic thing to say in the state of Montana. Most public sector jobs in this state are financed through property and income taxes, the very taxes that ‘public sector’ workers pay just like you and me. Employing people in either sector ‘lifts all boats’, Skinner. The sooner you and your Republicant liars get that through that thick melon on top of your neck the better off we’ll all be in this state.
Consider this, Skinner. The whole point and purpose of American governance has been and remains the protection, defense and support of private property. Those who ‘profit’ do so because the rest of us have helped their efforts to the best of our ability. We pay for roads, schools, utilities, the police and military protection racket, and all the bells and whistles that make profit possible. And dinks like you (most TEA peeps actually) resent the rest of us for our role in your fantasy of ‘personal’ victories. I hate to break this awfully surprising news to you, little camper, but we’re all in this together. The people who fix your city water pipes? Yup, they pay just like you. The ones who answer your stupid complaints about loud neighbors, or come to save your property when it’s on fire? You guessed it. They pay for service just like you do. And now you, just like Lawsuit Dennis, want to think these people owe you slavery because you pay their wages? You don’t. You’re acting like an idiot.
Stop it.
Ken and Rob, you are both wrong.
Now, who pays you an income? And how much of an income do you need to scrape together in order to acquire property upon which to pay taxes?
To say public money comes from the public sector utterly ignores where and how the public sector gets any money at all. There needs to be some kind of wealth created in order to pay the service sector, whether its cops or firemen or teachers.
Certainly, public sector employees pay taxes and stuff, but the nature of the job is inherently different — and the work is financed by a coercive rather than a strictly-voluntary arrangement.
I suppose you could argue the MSU bookstore is a voluntary thing, I mean, nobody HAS to go to college, but then the bookstore is a de-facto monopoly inasmuch as it’s tough to get your textbooks elsewhere fast enough when you don’t know if you actually got the class you wanted until the first day of the session.
There are some common-good roles played, and there are other situations where the “free rider” issue must be dealt with, but when it all settles down, the public sector cannot exist without a private sector to pay the bills through generation of added value.
And you just said yourself, we are all in “this” together. Yet public sector people should be isolated from “this?”
That sort of “logic” is hypocritical and fallacious. Shame on you both.
Neither of us said that, dumbass. Your argument is invalid. You’re arguing the ‘chicken comes before the egg’. No, it really doesn’t. Eggs existed long before chickens, and public need existed long before your fantasy of ‘profit’. “Added value”, as you put it, is only possible because the public supports it with infrastructure. Perhaps you fantasize we live in feudalism?
And, as I’ve explained to people *WAY* smarter than you, I don’t work for the government. The MSU Bookstore is not a governmental run agency. It is a private corporation. We don’t have a monopoly at all. If we have a favored status, it’s because we offer the best value to our owners. Please, little camper, pursue this line of argument. You will end up looking like more of an idiot than you already do.
Sure eggs existed before chickens….but what laid the first chicken egg? And “public” needs always existed, satisfied either voluntarily or coerced after private needs had first been satisfied — altruism aside.
You are in fact putting the cart before the horse, Rob, but that’s your right to be delusional — and to vote your delusions, of course. Just like the Greeks.
Skinner, your responses here have shown you to be pretty stupid, but I didn’t think you *that* stupid until now. Humans are social creatures. That is true whether you believe that Dog made us that way, or you’re smart enough to understand our evolution. The short-bus version, specifically for people like you, Skinner, is that we satisfy personal need (what you stupidly call ‘private’) by satisfying public need. If you would actually bother to read the Constitution, state or federal, you’d see that support and protection of property is exactly what was intended as purpose for our governments.
These are facts, Skinner. Public workers are paid by voluntary arraignment, every bit the same as private ones. If want your bridges built correctly, you pay enough to employ good engineers. If you employ poor ones, people die. So it behooves everyone seeking to fulfill personal need to employ good engineers. But wait, Skinner the Wise tells us that there is a difference between a public engineer building bridge and a private engineer building a bridge. Please do tell us all what that difference is. The only difference I see is that if the ‘public’ isn’t willing to pay for good engineers, they still need the bridges. So, they hire bad ones on the cheap, and people die. Funny that. Everyone loses money. There is no difference between public employees and private ones, Skinner. None. You simply want there to be one because *you* feel entitled to their employment. You’re not, kitten. You never have been. If you want good public service, be willing to pay, or STFU when it isn’t there.
Since it’s now obvious that you are too dim to understand any of that, let’s reboot the discussion that’s beyond you with something a little more in your range. Just answer a simple question. What taxes do you pay, journalist wannabe, that state public workers don’t?
None,
I’m sorry you’re so smart that you no longer think sequentially or with any form of logic, that you are too smart to understand the issue, or are hardwired not to.
But for the people too stupid to rise to Me. Kailey’s lofty intellect, let me expound some more: The issue is not whether workers pay taxes, but where the income workers get comes from and under what circumstances.
I’m paid directly for my work by a client who hires me, or an editor who thinks my words will attract enough eyes to the ad space he or she want to sell. Or when I build stuff, someone thinks I build a fair product for a good price that leaves them better off.
My hope is that after my “profit” and after I’ve paid my taxes, I have enough left over to eat and pay for stuff I want to buy.
There’s no intermediary that says Thou Shalt Pay For This Service Indirectly.
In the public sector, there’s no direct consumer/buyer connection, no haggling on price or quality. The law determines what I pay, and what I actually get is secondary. And, we all pay for services whether we use them or not. Sometimes we pay a tax or fee directly, other times the funds are re-allocated with or without our consent.
An example might be military services, the common defense. Peaceniks hate paying for the army but love the freedoms the army defends, right? And always try to defund the defenders and the corporate military-industrial complex.
Which brings me to a cart and horse sort of thing — how do you get an army raised if nobody — nobody has the money for ammo and guns, much less to pay professional soldiers? Ya don’t. You have to generate some basic wealth to even begin having an army, or a militia, or a sheriff, or a teacher. You can’t tax people who have nothing to tax.
Governments by nature do not originate wealth, but simply allocate it, away from private uses to “public,” common good sort of things. Why the heck do you think communist nations tend to be dirt poor, horribly polluted or totalitarian — or all at the same time?
And when it comes to the sort of common goods you allude to, too often the common good really isn’t — but is rather concentrated good at the expense of the many. It’s called “political economics” and the “green energy” rent-seeking that Obama rewarded is a perfect example. The Wall Street bailouts are another.
And finally, you still haven’t explained why public sector employees should be immune to the downturns that have hit us “stupid” private workers. Tell me, why should the staties get a raise when I haven’t seen a “raise” in over five years?
Yes, there is. And that is why your entire argument fails. That you can’t see that is your fault, and not of anyone elses.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-nothing-sweet-about-heckling-obama-in-the-rose-garden/2012/06/19/gJQAHgs1oV_story.html
Milbank mentions Montana outhouse.
Montana Republicans, setting the standard for terrible behavior across America.
Milbank was desperate for a hook. O, it’s so UNCIVIL. You’d be amazed at the nasty comments about Montana there on the comments.
That said, that Munro guy was out of bounds.
The 400 million dollar surplus is only an estimate. I don’t think we know how much money we have? The estimates keep changing from time to time.
No Dave, that’s cash in the bank. The Republicans would like you to believe otherwise, but shouldn’t you get the facts? http://governor.mt.gov/news/pr.asp?ID=1045
@ Skinner- Rob is right… you’ve never heard of an RFP process, or how a government board reviews those responses and chooses the best one? a government board elected by the people to make those decisons?
Maybe you could explain how you think government works? I don’t think you really know. If all you have to offer is repackaged Fox news nonsense, do you really have anything at all?
Expecting government to be ‘run like a business’ is like asking a man to ‘breathe like a fish’.
when a bridge fails, like the one in Livingston did a few years ago, it needs to be fixed immediatley, regardless of budget constraints. if there’s no money, you could tell the people that live on the island to swim, which sounds a whole lot more tyranical than borrowing some money to fix the bridge.
demonstrate some understanding please!
We weren’t talking infrastructure requirements or RFPs. We were bickering about how incomes for public sector workers are generated, where they originate, and whether or not public sector workers should expect pay increases or not being laid off when everyone around them is cutting back.
I don’t expect government to be run like a business, but I certainly should expect maximum return for “investment.” I would further expect the benefits to be connected with costs is some form.
Nor was I talking about buying a bridge, or putting out RFPs for same — and while we’re on that topic, it kind of strikes me that BNSFs Two Medicine Bridge is still going strong after a zillion years while the government bridge about half the age of the railroad bridge is being replaced.
As for borrowing, Creel, there’s the problem….the money gets borrowed but not paid back. If it was a railroad bridge, the railroad would cancel its order for shiny new locomotives and make do for a while. The government still buys the shiny new pickups AND a shiny new bridge.
As for whether or not I know how government works — am I wrong when I say government is all about John robbing Peter to pay Paul in exchange for Paul’s vote? Or, Max robbing the federal treasury to build a bridge in Montana?
Well, you’re half-right, Skinner, even as you dig yourself a deeper hole. We were indeed discussing where the money comes from to pay government workers, and your pants-on-fire lie that it comes from “private profits”. In Montana, it comes from property and payroll, which you still can’t wrap your head around.
At no point in any discussion that took place outside of your head have we written about raises or public worker expectation. That’s your panic and damage, not mine. But you jump right in with another pants-on-fire lie. Not “everyone” is “cutting back”, far from it in fact. But that’s a discussion of a whole different topic in economics that isn’t worth discussing with you, since you start with an ignorant lie. Don’t get me wrong, I know that’s a calculated lie; but it undercuts your earlier point, and one you further bit off here. You want “maximum return” on your investment, when you can’t define what that maximum is and stupidly think the investment is yours. That’s the whole point that started this, and you didn’t get it at all. If a public worker makes more than lowly little you, she probably owns more property and certainly pays more in payroll tax. Yet you drive on the roads she pays to build and send your kids to schools that she pays to staff. Well aren’t you just a leech, Skinner? (Are you getting the fricking point yet? No, probably not.)
You’d best learn your history, Skinner, and at least a modicum of accounting. No, to build a railroad bridge they borrow the money, if they can’t convince a government swayed by fools like you to pay for it. They do so in the expectation of further profit. The only reason companies ‘tighten their belts’ is because they can increase expected profit, like laying off American and shipping jobs overseas. It’s pretty despicable how little you actually know about business, Skinner. But it isn’t surprising, given that you’re a vacuous talking-head working in an industry that was birthed, suckled, payed for, underwritten and protected by the very government you fear from the get-go. And just as a little swipe, many of your ‘private rail bridges’ were built by union labor. Let’s be honest here. Your problem isn’t the amount you pay for government service. It’s that unions have clout, and your just jealous that you think you get nothing for what public employee unions get their people. You’re petty, Skinner. That’s all this about.
What has come out of our ‘conversation’ is this. There is only one way that the government makes money, and that is taxation. There is only way the money borrowed by government gets paid back. That by increasing tax revenue. That can be accomplished by a whole big bunch of methods. One is by simply increasing taxes on those who can afford it, and benefit most from public service. You’ve made it clear that you’re not a fan of that. Most of America is, so I guess you’re just too self-centered to recognize that your desire is met by what others want and see clearly as a great solution. Too bad. Another is to increase demand for market, increase stability in those markets and increase the revenue stream with which our debt gets paid by employing people, public and private. Borrow money at unbelievably low rates, and employ people. That’s where this discussion began, Skinner. You’re just too dumb to see how easy that would be.
Going back to the comment you made that started this discussion, prosperity is not being shared equally. You want the ‘pain’ that you never admit to feeling at all shared by people when you don’t even understand what role they play in all of this. You want to punish other people for being better organized against the very villains that pat you on the head for doing their dirty work. I don’t mind you being so stupid, Skinner; you probably can’t help that. But I do mind that you are so craven and destructive about it.