Plenty of blame with session
f you're a hard-core Democrat, the story behind this week's legislative special session goes like this: Gov. Brian Schweitzer this year wisely tried to set aside an extra $19 million to combat wildfires, but Republicans in the Legislature cut out the money.
If you're a devoted Republican, the story reads like this: Republicans tried to budget an extra $10 million for firefighting during the Legislature, but Democrats diverted that money on the last day to hire more tax collectors.
As in all things political, neither narrative is exactly right - nor exactly wrong. The more pertinent question might be, "What difference does it make?" And the answer is, not much.
No matter which political side had its way on firefighting funds during the regular legislative session this spring, it's quite likely we'd still find ourselves in a special session.
As of last week, the state had already run up a $35 million bill for fighting fires just this year - way more than either side had proposed to set aside for the next two years.
So it turns our neither side budgeted enough so both are to blame. I know both the left and the right will argue with the above stated positions but it's the truth. Let's quit playing the blame game and get the job done. Everybody and their dog knows that fire seasons have been getting worse so why not try to budget enough for them instead of ignoring the situation in hopes it will go away. If both sides would have done the job right in the first place they wouldn't need to be spending my money for this special session to fix the problem.
Just so this is clear, the Republicans and the Democrats in the Legislature did not budget enough money for fire fighting and neither did Gov. Brian Schweitzer. The costs for this year are all ready higher than than all concerned budgeted for two years. Quit pointing fingers and fix the problem.
You don't fix the problem until you define it. John W. Snow
