Freedom--Montana's True Endangered Species
Krayton Kerns
5.16.07
It is hard to believe that a patriot for freedom is now in the minority in this country, but such it is. Socialism is replacing liberty.
We began the 60th Montana Legislature with fewer than 30 conservatives on the Republican side in the House of Representatives. (Conservative Democrats are extinct in Montana.) Along with our Constitutionalist colleague, we held the balance of the House Republicans to freedom’s principles during the regular session.
For 90 days I watched the Governor’s staff and other House Democrats probe my side of the aisle looking for weak-kneed moderate Republicans to join their socialist cause. As we held a 51-49 majority they only needed to convert a couple to advance their agenda. (Governor Schweitzer had used this “divide and conquer” technique masterfully in the ’05 session.)
Seven days after we adjourned the regular session and once safely outside conservative influence, 13 members of our caucus and the Governor’s staff launched the “Log Cabin Rebellion”. Several attended under false information but, in the end at least four moderate Republicans were sucked into the socialist movement. They traded our freedom for the illusion of security offered by a historic expansion of state government.
Our surplus is between $1.2 and $1.8 billion dollars. Virtually none of it will be returned in the form of permanent tax relief. The logic of the left is that to return the surplus to the taxpayer is unsustainable, but somehow spending it on new government programs is sustainable. So they spent it…nearly all of it…and we no longer held the 51 votes to stop it. The new or expanded programs now become the base from which to establish the new budget in the next session. The state government never has and never will get smaller, only your wallet is asked to do that.
For months now I have listened to the compassionate Democrats pound the table and scream “we must do this for the children!” Folks, they are using the wrong preposition. They are not doing this “for” the children; they are doing this “to” the children. It is our children and grandchildren who will carry the burden of paying for the programs compassionately dumped on them by a liberal Governor and liberal legislators.
Winston Churchill, in reference to Hitler appeasers prior to WWII, is quoted as saying: “To hope that someday, someone will fix the problem is to go on feeding the crocodile hoping he eats you last. But eat you he will.” Obviously the 60th Montana legislature wasn’t brave enough to fix the problem. Instead, we fed the crocodile. 
