When budget cuts aren't really budget cuts

One of the things that has puzzled Montana Headlines for years is how easily fiscal conservatives can draw accusations of "budget cuts!"

The reality, more often than not, is that what is being cut is the amount of increase in a government program's budget.

Most Americans, when they think of spending cuts in their personal lives, think about, well -- cutting the amount that is being spent.

Today's Gazette headline, GOP plans more cuts to governor's budget plan, is certainly an accurate description of what Republicans have proposed.

It is still worth noting, however, that in case someone missed it, House Republicans are proposing spending increases pretty much across the board -- the increases just aren't as big as the ones the Democrats want.

The Ron Tussing saga -- part 3

Yesterday, Montana Headlines resisted the urge to comment on the front page Billings Gazette article on the mayor our our fair city and his anti-gun stance, as evidenced by his association with Mayor Bloomberg of NYC and his making one of the NRA's "bad lists."

It turns out to have been the most commented on story of the day on the Gazette online edition. So we seem to have missed all of the excitement while spending time writing a thoughtful piece on rural America's relationship to military service and wars.

After all, a self-proclaimed Gazette watchdog should have pointed out the oddity of running a big front-page spread on a public official who has largely ceremonial duties while we are in the midst of a legislative session -- a rather major and consequential event that happens for a mere 90 days every 2 years.

And as a website that pointed out the Gazette's seeming promotion of Ron Tussing's political career in one of our earliest posts, and again when the Gazette splashed him on the front page in January, it certainly was hard to resist.

Let's just say that Democrats in this state have figured out that in order to win state-wide races, they can't be perceived as anti-gun. They, unlike Republicans, have to be photographed with guns or on horseback. As our governor said in one of his more famous descriptions of the new campaign strategy, ""So, I started doing my ads while I was sitting on a horse or holding a gun. I spoke to men visually and showed them I am like them. Hell, I can be on a horse and talk about health care."

So, there is the huge front-page photo of Mayor Tussing with no fewer than 12 guns -- with a long-barelled pistol so far in the foreground that it's length appears three times bigger than the width of Tussing's head. Looks a bit like a campaign ad.

We know nothing of his personal life, and that is his own private business. In his public life, however, Tussing has been a dishonest man. No-one with a shred of integrity would have taken a healthy 6-figure payout from the city that stipulated that he not work for the city again -- and then turn around and run for mayor of that very city.

Consider: What if during the negotiations in which the city insisted that he not seek further employment with the city (in other words, "get out of our hair") he had asked the city "well, can I run for mayor or the city council?" -- does anyone actually think the city would have said, "sure, go ahead?" Of course not. That's why we learned about Tussing's plans only after he had pocketed the money.

So don't expect Montana Headlines to believe Tussing's protestations that he is really a strong supporter of 2nd Amendment rights, or trust anything else he says, for that matter.