montana- fight or hang your head in shame
by problembear
the following bill was tabled yesterday. a blast vote was attempted to get it to the floor. it failed 35-58. it was a very modest bill which would have helped our neighbors struggling with the ongoing effects of a very cruel and long recession.
the Montana republican party should hang it’s collective head in shame for this vote.
surely, most montanans would have wanted this legislature to spend this relatively small amount of money to at least make a gesture toward helping those coping with job loss and poverty so that we might at least make sure they and their children not go to bed hungry.
thanks to some oblivious mean-spirited people who have plenty to eat every day, this meannness won the day for now. let’s all hope someone in helena regains some sense of decency and reinstates this modest bill. otherwise, thanks to these so-called leaders, montana is not a state we can be proud of anymore.
HOUSE BILL NO. 221
INTRODUCED BY DICK BARRETT
A BILL FOR AN ACT ENTITLED: “AN ACT APPROPRIATING FUNDS FOR THE EMERGENCY FOOD SYSTEM; AND PROVIDING AN EFFECTIVE DATE.”
WHEREAS, unemployment and increased housing, fuel, and food costs have made it more difficult for low-income Montanans to feed their families; and
WHEREAS, Montana’s emergency food assistance programs have seen first-hand the effect of these increasing costs, documenting 909,430 total client visits in 2009; and
WHEREAS, the number of client visits includes repeat visits, with an average of 8.3 repeat visits in 2009, representing 109,681 individual Montana households; and
WHEREAS, the number of repeat visits to food banks, soup kitchens, rescue missions, faith-based pantries, and other providers reflects a chronic need in the emergency food system.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MONTANA:
NEW SECTION. Section 1. Appropriation. (1) There is appropriated from the general fund to the department of public health and human services $1 million a year in each year of the biennium beginning July 1, 2011, to obtain and distribute food to Montanans and to strengthen the emergency food system by contracting with emergency food assistance programs that have experience distributing food on a statewide basis. The funds must be used as follows:
(a) $150,000 in each year of the biennium for operational and administrative costs to transport food to Montana communities; and
(b) $850,000 in each year of the biennium to purchase additional food for the emergency food system. Of this amount, $25,000 must be used each year to buy or process Montana food products.
(2) The department may not use the appropriation to cover any of the department’s administrative costs.
NEW SECTION. Section 2. Effective date. [This act] is effective July 1, 2011.
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Recent Comments
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March 24, 2011 at 10:50 pm
Thanks for highlighting this. It’s precisely during challenging times that government can do so much to alleviate suffering. How perverse is it that the GOP is cutting assistance when it is most desperately needed?
March 24, 2011 at 10:58 pm
and thanks for all you do don. let’s hope schools are not decimated also this session in the republican majority’s frenzy of mean-spirited and illogical governance.
public school teachers are the last beacon of hope for many of montana’s most vulnerable and hungry children in this state- 49th in the nation in income.
March 25, 2011 at 7:42 am
“It’s precisely during challenging times that government can do so much to alleviate suffering.”
You really believe your own flowery ramblings, don’t you?
March 25, 2011 at 9:33 am
Not a “cut” Pogie.
March 24, 2011 at 11:45 pm
“WHEREAS, unemployment and increased housing, fuel, and food costs have made it more difficult for low-income Montanans to feed their families…”
Maybe they should halt the gas tax for a while. I’m just sayin’….
March 25, 2011 at 12:01 am
What? No LOL???
March 25, 2011 at 12:56 am
Yeah, that’ll really help everybody who is too poor to buy gas.
I’d call your plan the traveling salesman and trucker bailout act of 2011.
Also, I guess you’d eliminate the $16.7 million per year the state distributes, out of gas tax revenues, back to local governments for road maintenance.
So, I guess I add to the title of your bill: “a roast in every pot and a pot hole in every road”.
Actually, now you’re talking some economic development. Just think of all those tire shops and frontend/suspension shops whose business will be booming!
LOLZ!!!
March 26, 2011 at 6:19 am
More effective, really, would be to make DIESEL cheaper, because the cost of diesel effects the cost of everything that isn’t manufactured in the same building that it’s sold. Gasoline only effects people who drive cars.
And giving the working poor an alternative to driving cars, and encouraging them to take it, is a key to alleviating their poverty, because the cost of insurance, gas, and maintenance on a car means that most low-income people who rely on personal vehicles spend far more of their income on transportation than those who us public transportation. But two things stand in the way – the lack of investment in public transportation, and the American belief that not having a car is a great dishonor.
March 25, 2011 at 6:17 am
When poor people register and vote, Republicans will no longer control our legislature. There are consequences to staying at home, even if home is the street.
March 25, 2011 at 5:20 pm
Right. People staying home and not voting brought this sad state of affairs around. Despite what some say, there IS a difference between the parties. In 2012 there needs to be a massive GOTV effort to counter Tea Baggers and other older, whiter, and dumber people who vote every election.
March 25, 2011 at 7:27 pm
difference at the local/state level? yes. nationally? not so much.
March 27, 2011 at 1:34 pm
There’s a big difference nationally, too. For all my disappointment with Obama et al, they’re way, way better than McCain-Palin would’ve been.
If McCain had won, you could kiss off changing Don’t Ask and we’d have probably bombed Iran by now. Democracy movements in the Middle East, which grew out of Obama’s new tone toward the Muslim world, wouldn’t be happening now.
The auto companies wouldn’t have been rescued and hundreds of thousands more would’ve been out of work.
The small improvements in health insurance (“Obamacare”) wouldn’t have occurred. Social security might’ve been on the way to privatization.
Gay marriage wouldn’t even be under discussion.
There are several other horrors that might’ve come about by now if McCain had won.
Obama isn’t Dennis Kucinich, that’s for sure. He needs to do a lot more about torture, civil rights, and the corrupt bankers (if that’s not a tautology) in his administration.
But he’s not a dangerous, irrational old white man.
March 27, 2011 at 1:53 pm
that is total bullshit. the arab spring has nothing to do with any perceived shift in “tone”. the people who suffer under dictators supported by America know the score.
different packaging, but the same corporate pandering war-mongering imperialism.
March 27, 2011 at 2:26 pm
OK, I get it. You’re an anti-imperialist. In 2008 Obama became president of an imperialist nation dominated by corporations.
What did you expect him to do in less than 3 years? Turned us into Norway?
The Democrats are our best hope to gradually loosen the death grip of the corporations. This cannot be done quickly.
You don’t think Obama as president hasn’t inspired ME democracy movements?
I just returned from London where I spoke with a number of Middle Eastern emigrants who told me how much they love Obama. They are inspired by him and see him (and Democrats by extension) as on their side against the despots they fled.
It’s not bullshit. You just don’t want to give him any credit for anything.
And that’s the kind of message that wins elections for Republicans.
March 25, 2011 at 7:40 am
I wonder how many Montanans have too much pride to accept a handout from their fellow Montanans?
March 25, 2011 at 7:56 am
Your mean-spirited comments serve to highlight just how far the right wing has drifted from mainstream montana values rusty.
Such disgusting indifference to the plight of your neighbors reflects poorly on the MT GOP party. I know many republicans who would be sickened by your words and flippant attitude toward hunger.
March 25, 2011 at 9:44 am
You do it every day, Rusty. How much pride you got?
March 25, 2011 at 8:48 am
Here’s the money quote from this Bozeman article.
“State public pensions have a 3.3 BILLION unfunded liability”.
Meaning of course that state pensions like SS is just a promise to pay.
http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/article_5c3616ee-527a-11e0-8cd4-001cc4c03286.html
On a scale of ” states most likely to go bankrupt we’re #11.
And frankly I’d like the teachers and state workers to be a higher priority than the non-workers.
March 25, 2011 at 9:01 am
you, like so many of your ilk, assume those who need food assistance are “non-workers”. that is simply not true, and is further evidence of your ignorance about issues surrounding poverty and food insecurity.
March 25, 2011 at 9:04 am
I am sure the majority of public employees would consider one dollar per household per year served by our foodbanks a higher priority right now swede. They are not so mean-spirited as the MT GOP.
March 25, 2011 at 9:50 am
“non-workers.”
NOthing like a slam against those whom our economic system has failed to prove viable enough to be able to employ.
Nothing like a “let’s blame the non-workers” for their own unemployment attitude. That’s the heart of tea=party mentality:
Let’s find some victims and then scapegoat them until people forget about the real root of their problems: failed conservative and loony fight-wing politics and policies.
Thanks for your careful choice of words, Big Ingy. It’s oh, so revealing.
March 25, 2011 at 9:13 am
Over 50 per cent of food bank visits are households with one or more employed
60 per cent have children at home.
March 25, 2011 at 9:35 am
And the majority are on food stamps and their kids eat free at school cafeterias.
March 25, 2011 at 9:54 am
You’d rather the kids go through the school day hungry? That really adds to their ability to learn and compete in the workforce.
And you’re slam on Food Bank clients? Either put up a statistic showing that the majority also get food stamps, or STFU.
You’re really showing how heartless you are today, BS.
March 25, 2011 at 8:53 pm
BS. I read that I said to myself “Really?”
You and I have agreed on a thing or two. I know you can be civil. Too often – and this truly is a shame – you revert to MAD magazine/MASH sitcom-like one-liners.
But I am going to ask you sincerely and respectfully if you think that a government is better when it cuts business taxes while cutting aid to food banks?
I want you to look, again, at the statistic pb put above your comment.
Are you really a person who would say that (given the current economic situation and the tremendous strains on these agencies that assist people with a basic like “food”) government should decrease its revenues (i.e., reduce or eliminate a tax) while cutting and reducing a bare-bones assistance program for food?
I ask that sincerely and respectfully, BS/IS.
March 25, 2011 at 9:42 am
This issue highlights something that people are just not getting. It used to be just the “non-working”poor that needed this kind of assistance. The rest of the country was (supposedly) chasing the “American Dream” of working for a better life. That is a dead idea anymore. Even those people making a median wage are struggling to survive and those in the lower tax brackets are NOT surviving. Many families with two incomes are barely scraping by (or not scraping by) and when you make comments like “they should get a job” or “they are jsut homeless/jobless leeches” you are ignoring the reality of the times.
I think it quite possible (if not probable) that the money could be found in the budget to fund this program – even if means that the government subsidy of big business is reduced a little.
March 25, 2011 at 8:54 pm
People are getting it – it’s the MTGOP and the Tea Party that isn’t.
March 25, 2011 at 11:23 pm
Sadly, that isn’t even close to being a true representation. The current budget proposed by Obama will INCREASE the deficit over 10 years and 2.3 trillion of that increase is due to tax CUTS. The democrats are just as guilty of this as the republicans.
March 26, 2011 at 4:49 am
Priorities, moorcat. We’ re rebuilding nations like Iran and Afghanistan that aren’t even feigning a secular nature or one that wants to work with the west, while kids in Kentucky go without breakfast and children in Pine Hills share school books.
So you can say we are increasing the deficit because of healthcare, and I can say that we are increasing the budget over our false quest and continued defense of weapons of mass destruction.
March 26, 2011 at 6:26 am
Those two wars, in their entirety over the last ten years, have cost roughly half of what the tax cuts will cost, if Moorcat’s numbers are right. Not that they aren’t way too expensive, and in the case of Iraq, entirely unprovoked, but even that gargantuan cost is dwarfed by the cost of these tax cuts.
Even if Afghan children aren’t going to grow up in a secular, West-leaning nation, I’m willing to pay a little extra for them to get the opportunity to grow up at all. It’s not really the rebuilding of Afghanistan that bothers me – it’s the entirely senseless destruction of Iraq.
March 26, 2011 at 6:34 pm
Don’t take my word for it.. read it yourself.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/03/18/news/economy/obama_budget_cbo/index.htm
This is the type of thinking that will bankrupt this country by 2020. Unfortunately, both Republicans and Democrats are guilty of this blind spot and it is simply because they are more concerned about getting elected (“Read my lips, no new taxes”) than they are about actually addressing the problem. The problem seems so elemental to me as to be laughable when someone suggests that revenues aren’t an issue but maybe it is because I am pretty good with math…
March 25, 2011 at 10:00 am
First of all the “cardboard beggars” that have invaded this state are most likely freeloaders that stand on street corners by day and drink beer in a local tavern by night.
Ever offered them food? Chances they’ll pass or toss it while you’re out of view.
And the “starving children”. Any pictures please? Our local school has it’s share of needy children. Quite frankly they tend to be obese rather than peaked.
March 25, 2011 at 10:17 am
Let us not forget rusty that the GOP has severely slashed all those programs: food stamps (now called SNAP) school children’s nutrition programs and meals on wheels programs for all those “nonworking” seniors.
Rusty and swede and the MT GOP are truly disgusting and shameless in their unrelenting war on our poor
March 25, 2011 at 8:56 pm
Isn’t Ingemar Big Swede…and Rusty is Rusty?
I am seriously confused anymore.
Big Swede can’t for some reason comment under his name and I do not know how to fix that…
Rusty can, can’t he?
March 25, 2011 at 10:21 am
As usual, you ignore what you can’t answer and build strawmen out of thin air. I made no mention of “cardboard beggers”. I was actually pretty clear in who I was talking about and nothing you have said has answered that.
March 25, 2011 at 10:26 am
Actually I wasn’t responding to you.
And the cardboard beggar is at the top of the post.
March 25, 2011 at 11:10 am
My apology. I thought you were responding to me. Carry on.
March 25, 2011 at 7:25 pm
And the “starving children”. Any pictures please?
I could share some, but I’m pretty sure that’d be close to 100% illegal. Some are skinny from not eating enough, others are overweight from eating the high-fat food they serve at the school cafeteria – or at the fast food restaurants where they work.
March 25, 2011 at 10:12 am
And wouldn’t ya think this would be a time to introduce some natural selection into the process?
Oh, has a few nasty words. NSFW
March 25, 2011 at 11:26 am
hitler would endorse your sentiment swede
March 25, 2011 at 11:33 am
Have many creative thoughts?
March 25, 2011 at 12:30 pm
have any decent fair-minded thoughts swede?
or is it all just selfish arrogance?
March 25, 2011 at 7:08 pm
Godwins law proved.
March 25, 2011 at 3:15 pm
I support the food banks but think we need an all out effort to pay for relocation help for folks that don’t have a job in Missoula or that are stuck at the Quickee Mart for 7 bucks an hour.
I just got back from a quick trip to Williston and Sidney where I am doing some business. There are more jobs available then ever over that way , even for unskilled workers. Housing is tough but some companies are providing 60 to 90 days of motel housing for a single person.
15 to 20 bucks and hour to start and they learn some skills. Is there any agency or non profit in Missoula that will relocate folks and if not why?
March 25, 2011 at 3:33 pm
Thanks chuck for supporting food banks. I am not aware of any relocation programs in montana. Maybe someone else? The Flathead has been hard hit by this recession. Might be good to start something up that way first if anyone is interested.
March 25, 2011 at 9:05 pm
Wow. All they’d have to do would be to put an ad in the paper down these ways…and you’d think with the logging industry lagging, they’d do it given the Stimson and Smurfit closure (just to name a few).
There is to any housing up there. Roughnecks are up there with trailers and diesel generators and little else. Many are living in the cab of their trucks. If there was housing, they might be drilling more…..and that’s as much of the problem with the so-called lack of drilling as any number of other significant factors.
Oil companies were up there whining today how they can’t drill because the roads are so rutted they can’t run their equipment and how the poor counties shouldn’t have their funding cut in Richland and Fallon Counties (who – by the way – have absolutely no school levy and I’m pretty sure Richland was so fat with cash that it built itself a new county fairgrounds / concert arts facility)…..
Now, call me crazy – but I’d think that those oil companies have the equipment out there to blade grade and perhaps even fill their potholed road that won’t run their big rig equipment.
And if there isn’t enough housing up there, why don’t they invest in a little surface rights and local property and build themselves some pre-fab apartments of something?
Know why? They know they aren’t here for the long term..only til the oil or gas is gone – and they are going to do it as cheaply as possible with as minimal infrastructure to leave behind.
March 26, 2011 at 6:38 am
Well this is a sociological question. Missoula has a cultural draw that for many outweighs its barren job market. The Missoula economy, though large by Montana standards, cannot support the last several years worth of unemployed graduates AND all the college kids AND the people who live there for the culture and general ‘vibe’.
Even in Helena I found a job the day after arriving – $10 bucks an hour and no special skills needed except the ability to pass a background check (that in itself is probably an obstacle for a lot of people). But Missoula is different because unlike Helena, more people want to live there than are needed to work there.
March 26, 2011 at 7:32 pm
did you get healthcare and at least an employer-contributing 401K w/that $10/hr?
March 26, 2011 at 8:28 pm
No, although thankfully I did get promoted to a job that provided me that within a few months. That, however, required a college degree.
I’m not saying it’s easy to get a job that can support a person who is older or with poor health, much less a family. But from what I’ve heard from friends there, even $10/hr and no benefits is better than most people can find in Missoula, because there are pull factors in Missoula that make up for the lack of economic opportunities for certain segments.