Sunday roundup and branding -- the Gazette, and beyond...

How low can you go?: Republicans have always been used to making compromises in order to get spending bills through, but it seems that this year, those compromises may have to go in the opposite from the direction those compromises usually go.

The overall spending increases proposed by the Republicans in their 6 separate bills is about 13% -- which is fairly hefty. The thought is that these should be able to garner enough Republican and Democrat support to pass.

Republicans have 51 votes in theory, but the problem is that some Republicans won't vote for any spending increases at all. Mike Lange tells us that if he can't get enough Democratic votes to pass these bills as written, he'll have no choice but to start cutting the spending in those bills. "If I go low enough, I can get 51 votes," Lange said.

Rather than coming to some sort of an idea of what levels of spending they can live with and making these bills work, Democrats appear to be choosing an even more hard-ball approach masquerading as a sort of Fantasy Island:

"I think (the governor's budget) is going to come back,'' (Senate President) Cooney said. ''I honestly do believe that in the end, the House is going to have to go back to House Bill 2."

"Big-wigs" coming to Butte: Those are the words of Sen. Baucus's e-mail press release -- not ours.

Missoulian: why buck the "right track?": In Steve Woodruff's piece, he points out that Montanans last spring said, when polled, that they thought Montana was on the right track. So, why should Republicans be bucking the governor's plans? His answer is that it is raw partisanship on the part of the Republicans.

We're not so sure. In his one meeting with Speaker Scott Sales towards the start of the session, Gov. Schweitzer reportedly told him about the budget, "I'm not married to any of this." And yet, there have been no indications on the part of Democrats that they were willing to make significant compromises on the governor's budget, which left Republicans having to use the political process (imagine that?) to attempt to force compromises.

What if Montanans had been told last spring that Democrats were going to increase spending by a minimum of 23% in one year -- is Woodruff confident that Montanans would have responded by saying that this was the "right track" for Montana?

City Lights: It seems that Ed Kemmick is about as taken with the legislative Democrats' response to recent events in Helena as we are:

Democrats might have been able to make a case that the Republicans weren't playing the game by the rules, or they could have swallowed their pride and complained that the Republicans were playing the game better. But when they accused Republicans of treating politics like a game, they sounded as whiny as the Republicans grousing that the governor shouldn't wear jeans and should leave his dog at home.

He also notes the fact that Mike Lange obviously enjoys the battle:

The game-like nature of politics would explain why Rep. Mike Lange, a Billings Republican and the House majority leader, seems to be having so much fun in Helena. The beefy pipefitter with the boyish grin played football for Rocky Mountain College, and you can tell that Helena politicking perfectly suits his competitive spirit....

And why not? Very few politicians who rank as great achieved that status without being expert gamesmen. If politics is a sport, LBJ was a Super Bowl quarterback. If politics is like chess, Lincoln was a Kasparov.

Economic patriotism for Montana -- part II

Ed Kemmick put simultaneous responses on Mark Tokarski's website as well as on Montana Headlines, pointing out that our two sites had addressed the same Billings Gazette article on Gov. Schweitzer's and Corey Stapleton's comments about our tax and business climate.

Kemmick correctly pointed out that our views of these remarks were "180 degrees" apart, and expressed an interest in hearing our comments on the other's posts.

One can read Tokarski's post by clicking on the above link, and the Montana Headlines post with Tokarski's response in the comments section is just below, or here.

We were not capable of being as concise as was Tokarski, so are replying as a separate post here.

First, Mr. Tokarski mixes up two things that are intertwined but separate: indicators of economic prosperity (such as incomes and unemployment rates) and state government revenues.

What is at issue in this current legislative session is state government revenues, so that is what should be concentrated on.

There is no question, for instance, that energy prices and demand account for some of our current high tax revenues. But this is a separate issue from our economy. Are we to assume that a booming energy production industry is the reason that unemployment rates are low in Whitefish as well as in Sidney? Or that incomes have risen in places west of the Bighorn River?

Second, Tokarski, using a common Democratic argument, implies that the only reasons for Montana’s cyclical revenue collections are things like energy or commodity prices. It is true that commodity prices have a cyclical impact on our economy, but it cannot be avoided that what grossly magnifies the effects of these economic cycles on Montana’s tax revenues is our dependence on an income tax – something over which we do have control.

States without income taxes do not go through the kinds of cyclical crises that Montana does. The bottom line is that incomes (and hence income tax revenues) vary with broader economic cycles, but citizens own property and spend money at far more constant rates.

There are good reasons to avoid a sales tax (for instance, Billings draws a lot of income out of Wyoming because Montana doesn't have one) -- but if we insist on avoiding one, we'd better stay used to wide fluctuations in tax revenues.

As has been stated on Montana Headlines before, more is accomplished (including scoring political points) when there aren’t arguments over who gets credit for what. The main point to our previous post was not to claim sole Republican credit for favorable economic conditions or high tax revenues. It was rather to question whether the governor was attempting to use appeals to “helpfulness” as a way to silence Republicans who believe that lowering tax burdens yet more will help the state’s economy even more.

And as has also been stated on Montana Headlines before, Republican policies at the very least did not hurt the economy or hurt tax revenues. Republicans certainly can’t prove that it was only their policies, and not factors like energy prices and demand, that were responsible for Montana’s current favorable economic and revenue situation. But then, we’ve never heard them claim that they were.

Neither, though, can Democrats prove that Republican policies did absolutely nothing to help our economy or revenues, but yet we certainly hear Democrats making that assertion.

There is one point on which we would agree – namely that a good use of excess tax revenue is to plan ahead for days when revenues will be lean.

Democrats could propose that ongoing state spending rise only with inflation, and that no new employees or programs would be added. They could furthermore propose saving most excess revenues for a rainy day. With such a combination, a future Montana on the cyclical economic downswing wouldn't have to struggle to fund them.

While Republicans wouldn't share their economic pessimism, we would still probably find consensus on that plan. As long as Democrats continue to propose massive increases in government spending, however, we will assume that they aren't as worried about a future bust as they say they are.