Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen joined a bipartisan 13-state coalition in filing suit Wednesday, March 31, to protect the well-established authority of states to lower taxes for their citizens from being violated by the “American Rescue Plan Act of 2021”. U.S. Treasury officials cannot force states to relinquish control of their taxing authority in return for the federal dollars

The CDC reported that according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, kids ages 8-18 now spend, on average, a whopping 7.5 hours in front of a screen for entertainment each day, 4.5 hours of which are spent watching TV. Over a year, that adds up to 114 full days watching a screen for fun. That’s just the time they spend in front of a screen for entertainment. It doesn’t include the time they spend

The Montana VA Health Care System is starting to administer COVID-19 vaccines to all veterans, spouses and caregivers this week as a result of bipartisan legislation championed by Senate Veterans’ Affairs committee chairman U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont.. President Joe Biden signed the Strengthening and Amplifying Vaccination Efforts to Locally Immunize all Veterans and Every Spouse Act (SAVE LIVES

Choteau Acantha The Montana Legislature is working this week on plans to appropriate the nearly $3 billion American Rescue Plan Act funding package that Montana will receive from the federal government. Unfortunately, the Legislature is entertaining a controversial amendment in the bill to cut federal aid funds by 20 percent to local government entities that have imposed public health directives

As part of his efforts to prevent significant financial losses for Montana electric co-ops and rural telecom providers due to the coronavirus pandemic, U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont.,introduced his bipartisan Flexibility for Rural America Act to give co-ops the option to refinance Rural Utilities Service debt at market rates, making it easier to deliver their critical services to rural America.