And we thought Montanans were finished with robber barons

By the slimmest of majorities, Republicans of the 119th Congress just rammed through their Big Ugly Bill, a regressive tax-and-spending blueprint that redistributes wealth from the poorest to the richest Americans over the next decade.

Montana’s entire GOP delegation voted for this atrocity. They’re good with $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, a program that covers 71 million low-income, disabled, and elderly U.S. residents, half of all U.S. births, and two-thirds of all nursing home residents. They’re all in to strip $285 billion from SNAP, which provides nutritional assistance to 81,500 Montanans. They’re a-okay with destabilizing rural hospitals and health-care providers’ bottom line. They’re good with cuts to public education, regulations to protect us from polluters, and tanking renewable energy programs.

All this harm to working families, in order to deliver $4.5 trillion in tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. Per the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a whopping 66 percent of the tax cuts will go to the richest 20 percent of Americans, those with incomes of $157,000 and above.

No surprise, this elite group includes Montana’s GOP delegation: Daines, with a net worth of $21.4M; Sheehy, net worth of $74-$260M; Zinke, net worth $24M; and Downing, net worth $7.5M. In fact, Daines, Sheehy and Zinke are among the top 25 richest Republican senators/representatives in Congress, yet they pushed for more tax cuts to line their own pockets as they cut tens of thousands of vulnerable Montanans off of critical safety net programs.

And here’s a cruel irony, in the same week Tim Sheehy voted to kick 17 million people off their health care, slash SNAP benefits, put long-term care at risk, and increase hunger and food insecurity for millions of Americans, he listed his exclusive property on Flathead Lake for $10.25 million.

And I thought Montanans put an end to electing robber barons to high office.

– Beth Waterbury, St. Ignatius