MISSOULA — "Smoke and Mirrors" is what former Montana Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer calls current Gov. Greg Gianforte’s tax plan.
Schweitzer, along with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ryan Busse and his running mate Raph Graybill spoke with the media in a Zoom news conference on Thursday.
Busse says his plan is simple: reduce taxes, reduce red tape, and roll back the tax rate.
Schweitzer says they're blaming county commissions for the property tax increases while giving big corporations including NorthWestern Energy multi-million-dollar tax cuts.
They also see Gianforte’s Property Tax Task Force as a waste of taxpayer dollars to fix something that's not that complicated and is something that other administrations have been able to figure out.
"This was really an easy problem to fix. There was no reason for this to be controversial. This is not the first time that home values have gone up in Montana. We've got precedent and a proven path of fixing exactly this kind of problem.” Graybill said. “In fact, it was so obvious, I think state law requires the Department of Revenue to come out and tell the governor, hey, here's how you avoid the obvious problem, and he was told the proverbial oven was hot — for whatever reason he just really wanted to touch it.”
“I'm telling you, these 31 pages, there are some decent ideas in there. But the Legislature meets 90 days every other year. What they need to do is use the multiplier that we've used for the past 40 years and say to every homeowner in Montana we're not going to increase your taxes. That was pretty simple to do,” Schweitzer said.
“A dangerous plan to strip local governments, and municipalities from being able to do things in their own community. I get it that apparently the party of local control, the party that likes to say they're for local control. Governor Gianforte's party is not ardently anti-local control. It needs to be pointed out. It's dangerous,” Busse said.
All say while there are some new ideas in the tax plan, it doesn't reverse the bad decisions of the past that created higher property taxes for Montanans.
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