Opinion

The “One Big Beautiful Bill” passed by Congress and signed by President Trump is a game changer that will benefit middle-income, working-class Montanans. Yet Montana Senate Minority Leader Pat Flowers (Montana’s top Democrat) said “I just think it is a betrayal of working Montanans and Americans,” mirroring national Democrats’ political talking points. One must wonder if elected Democrats even read or understand the bill.

Regarding Medicaid, it does not “gut” the program as Democrats claim. It will reduce Medicaid growth from 5 percent to 3 percent, remove illegal immigrants from participating and require work requirements, education, or community service of 80 hours per month for able bodied adults without young children. These common sense requirements encourage work, education, and community service and are already included in Montana law. Regarding tax changes, OBBB extends the Trump tax cuts from 2017 to avoid the biggest tax hike in American history. Without the bill, a working family of four making $75,000 per year would have faced tax increases of almost $1,500 per year.

Other provisions benefiting working class Montana families include: no taxes on tips and overtime for those making less than $150,000, a $1,000 per person charitable deduction even if you don’t itemize your deductions, a new $6,000 deduction for those 65 and older, a new deduction for $10,000 of automobile loan interest even if you do not itemize, increasing the standard deduction $750 for single taxpayers and $1,500 for married couples, and increasing the state and local tax deduction from $10,000 to $40,000. These provisions will save Montana taxpayers an estimated $114 million in taxes per year just in Montana income taxes. Federal tax savings will be much higher.

Montana small businesses will also benefit from the above changes in addition to numerous other tax reforms, including extending the 20 percent qualified business deduction and the ability to expense 100 percent of new equipment purchases.

Montana’s state government budget should not be harmed as it looks like we will be over-collecting close to $100 million more in tax revenue than estimated in Fiscal Year 2025. We also have over $1 billion in rainy day and other funds to stabilize any possible revenue shortfalls.

Once again, Montana Democrats are out of touch with working families, seniors, and middle-class taxpayers. Democrats have consistently and repeatedly voted against Montana income tax reductions. Do not fall for the Democrat talking points that OBBB will gut Medicaid, close hospitals and only benefit the rich.

Montana homeowners’ property taxes were complicated before the 2025 Legislature convened in January.

Now, they’re, according to one state senator, the “most complicated” in the nation.

Yep, you read that right: More — not less — complicated. (With taxes, most people prefer “less.”) To determine your residential property taxes, you’ll need a compass, protractor, sextant and slide rule to connect the dots to decipher what lawmakers did. If you do unlock that Da Vinci Code, you’ll need a lawyer and accountant to challenge your home’s rising taxable value and liability, a cardiologist to place a stent to reopen your coronary artery, and a priest to impose penance to absolve state sins.

Welcome to the Homeowner Property Tax Shell Game, hosted by Gov. Greg Gianforte and most legislators, led by the Pied Piper of Complicated Legislative Legerdemain, Rep. Llew Jones, the Conrad Republican who’s de-facto director of much of the Legislature’s Republican and Democratic caucuses.

In 2023, the Legislature and Gianforte raised the state portion of homeowners’ property taxes by about $219 million over two fiscal years. Then they spent your hardearned money.

Montanans expressed outrage. County commissioners sued Gianforte over a state tax hike as he tried to blame elected county officials for raising state property taxes.

Democrats and Republicans waited until the end of the 2025 Legislature to pass an even more complicated residential property tax system that requires more – not fewer — taxpayer dollars to hire new state employees to administer the program under a Republican administration. Some Democrats and Republicans have been crowing about this so-called residential property tax “relief.” Don’t believe them. It’s a way of saying, “We picked lots of cash out of your pocket in ‘23, passed legislation this year that gives you some dough back, and raises taxes on select Montana homeowners.”

A few Republicans and Democrats tried to call out the hypocrisy of the last-minute legislation that includes rebates that don’t necessarily pay you back for the built-in 2023 residential property tax hike. The new law, meanwhile, creates a tiered tax-rate system for residential property that likely will result in urban homeowners in high-growth areas paying more property taxes in coming years. Families that own a second home, like a family cabin, will pay even more in property taxes (an estimated 68 percent more by 2026) because socalled “second homes” are exempt from “relief.”

“The new law doesn’t distinguish between family cabins owned by Montana residents and luxury real estate owned by out-of-state residents,” the Montana Free Press noted.

The 2023 property tax hike socked homeowners while big corporations, railroads and utilities got tax breaks. Now, some lawmakers are complaining that some commercial and industrial businesses will see property tax hikes under the new system. But one lawmaker noted these business entities will just pass their tax increases on to consumers.

Montana voters didn’t think the 2025 Legislature addressed this issue well: In a May 2025 poll, 64 percent of Montanans told Middle Fork Strategies that lawmakers did “not well” in addressing property taxes; 25 percent said they did “well.”

Couple that with the biennial reappraisals that raise your home’s taxable value. Consequently, the 2025 Legislature gets low marks in addressing that issue. Seventy- four percent of Montana voters polled said legislators performed “not well” in addressing housing affordability; 14 percent said lawmakers did “well” — a negative 61-percentage point difference!

If lawmakers won’t fix the property tax system, citizens can pass a ballot initiative like the constitutional amendment (CI-130) being proposed by a former legislator that would cap increases in residential property assessed valuations to 2 percent annually. It’s time for legislators to overhaul this property tax system, bring it into the 21st century, and provide real tax relief to Montana homeowners. Leave code breaking to Morse.