Support I-155 and 6-mill levy

Inter Lake editorial

This year's election lineup is mercifully uncluttered by initiatives and ballot measures.

Only three statewide ballot issues face voters, and they are pretty straightforward and simple to understand.

Initiative 155, for example (also known as the Healthy Montana Kids plan) aims to provide insurance to an additional 30,000 children in Montana.

The initiative would set aside $22 million in state funding to significantly expand the Children's Health Insurance Program. It also would provide help for families to be able to add children to employer-sponsored health plans.

There are no new taxes involved with this plan - the money would come from a tax that insurance companies pay on insurance premiums. That money currently goes to the state's general fund, where the projected surplus means it wouldn't be missed in the short term.

Money raised through Initiative 155 would be matched 3-to-1 by federal money, giving Montana an even bigger fund to help insure children.

This pool of money, plus changes in eligibility requirements, would allow the current health insurance program for children to be expanded.

Initiative 155, in short, has the laudable prospect of providing affordable health coverage to nearly every uninsured child in Montana.

That's a noble goal and one worthy of supporting.

Another ballot measure with a noble goal is Constitutional Amendment 44, which is intended to increase state coffers by allowing state trust funds to invest in the stock market.

Unfortunately, the timing of the amendment is very poor.

CA-44 would allow up to 25 percent of all state trust fund assets to be invested in private corporate stock instead of bonds. No one can argue with the desire to see taxpayers benefit from the kind of choices that have made millionaires out of many investors.

But trust funds are just what they say - money that has been entrusted to the state's care to ensure a source of funding for a variety of programs through the years.

Investing in the stock market works almost universally in the long-term, but trust funds need money available now and tomorrow. The current stock-market malaise probably makes this amendment a moot point anyway, since voters are unlikely to take the chance that short-term losses might become a problem for state trust funds.

Despite our desire to see the state's nest egg grow, most prudent voters will probably vote no on CA-144 and stick with the tried-and-true investments that have proved safe in the past.

FINALLY, Legislative Referendum No. 118, more commonly known as the 6-mill levy, is an easy choice for most Montanans.

This levy came about in 1920 to support higher education, and has been renewed by the voters in every decade since then. It is not a tax increase, but the continuation of a longstanding tradition that pays for educational programs for nearly 42,000 students.

The cost is modest - only $24 on a $200,000 house - and accounts for 9 percent of total state support for higher education. A vote for LR-118 just renews a commitment to education that Montana made years ago.