Senate hopefuls in District 4 offer voters clear choice

By JIM MANN

The Daily Inter Lake

Senate District 4 voters have a clear choice with considerable philosophical contrasts between incumbent Sen. Greg Barkus, R-Kalispell, and Democratic challenger Jerry Reckin.

"There's a new wind blowing and I feel it as I go door-to-door," said Reckin, who is running for office for the first time. "I just feel the middle class is underrepresented, both in state and federal governments."

Topping his list of concerns are property taxes, education and energy costs.

Reckin said property taxes are probably one of the biggest concerns among voters he's met. To provide relief, he favors Gov. Brian Schweitzer's "Square Deal" approach of giving Montana residential property taxpayers a rebate of $400.

And he opposes the Republican approach of providing an 8 percent, across-the-board cut in property taxes.

"Eight percent on a million-dollar home is a lot of money, but to people who live in Evergreen it's nothing," he said. "Those at the top shouldn't get the lion's share of that."

The state is expected to have a general fund surplus easily in excess of $500 million. Asked how that money should be managed, Reckin said it should not be considered a surplus, for starters.

"We need to pay our bills first," Reckin said, referring specifically to the state's constitutional obligations to make public employee and teacher retirement programs fiscally sound.

And the state has needs to address ongoing funding problems in K-12 education.

But Reckin stresses that he does not believe that "throwing money" at any problem will solve it. He believes there should be adequate supervision and evaluation to determine whether spending is effective and deficiencies in education are being addressed.

Drawing on his experience as a teacher and school administrator in the San Diego area and as a school board member in Libby, Reckin says it's getting more difficult to recruit teachers in Montana schools, particularly in rural areas.

"We are approaching 48th in the nation for teacher pay," Reckin said. "Now we have schools around the state scrambling to find teachers who are qualified to teach."

Reckin maintains that Montana education "suffered mightily" during more than a decade of complete Republican control in Helena.

"The Republicans can say all they want about education, but they have not funded it for all these years," he said.

Reckin also questions Republican resistance to a program that allowed small businesses to "pool" for health insurance purchasing. The number of businesses allowed to participate in the state-subsidized program was limited.

"Now there's a waiting list," Reckin said. "I think we need to expand that program."

Reckin was once a bonafide Republican, campaigning for Ronald Reagan in California. But he became disillusioned with the party years ago.

"I realize now that trickle-down [economics] didn't work then and it won't work now," he said.

Reagan's supply-side economics primarily benefited the wealthiest Americans, and it plunged the federal government deeply into debt, Reckin said.

That's just one position about which Reckin and Barkus have striking philosophical differences.

Barkus, the senior vice president at D.A. Davidson in Kalispell, contends the virtues of supply-side economics isn't even worthy of debate anymore, because tax cuts under presidents Kennedy, Reagan and Bush were all successful in stimulating tremendous economic growth. While tax cuts often lead to debt, Barkus said, treasury revenues eventually increase as a result of economic growth.

"That's what happened in Montana," he said, referring to Republican tax cuts in 2003, when the state was faced with a $200 million deficit.

"The biggest thing I think we did was take the income tax rate from a maximum of 11 percent to 6.7 percent," he said. "The bottom line is that it stimulated the economy."

Montana's economic growth is what created a surplus that's expected to exceed $500 million.

"One of the unfortunate things coming out of that … is that it could come into the hands of the Democrats," said Barkus, who believes Democrats will have a far greater tendency than Republicans to increase state spending.

"I think we need to give some money back to the people who are creating this surplus," he said.

He favors a percentage reduction in property taxes and capping future tax increases in line with inflation rates.

"I think property tax relief needs to be permanent to all Montana residents," said Barkus, who sits on the Senate Finance Committee.

Barkus rejects the Democrats' $400 rebate as an inadequate, one-time measure that fails to provide meaningful relief to people who pay the most, including middle class property owners.

And Barkus resents any insinuation that he does not represent the middle class.

He questions whether the single $400 rebate would pass constitutional muster because of equity issues: there would be widely varying percentage reductions for property owners.

Barkus challenges Democratic claims that they delivered tax cuts for 13,000 businesses in 2005. What they did was provide an exemption for the first $20,000 in business equipment, while freezing the business equipment tax at 3 percent.

Under previous Republican legislation, he said, that tax was scheduled to be phased out. Now many Democrats want the tax eliminated.

On education, Barkus said Montana plainly should not have 460 school districts. Just in Flathead County there are 23, creating cost redundancies as well as costly and unnecessary curriculum restrictions.

If there were one school district, he suggests, programs for special needs or talented and gifted students could be consolidated at one or two schools rather than trying to provide those services at every school. Payroll, equipment purchasing and insurance could be consolidated.

And Barkus believes that local influence and representation can be maintained, and he believes salaries for lower-paid teachers in rural school districts would be raised on par with teachers in Kalispell.

"I think we need to take a good hard look at our education system," resulting in fundamental changes, said Barkus, who sits on the Senate Education Committee.

Barkus summed up his priorities as a state senator: "My major focus is I really believe in strong families, a better business climate for better jobs and smaller government."

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com.