Kalispell House candidates differ on budget cuts

Both Democrats vying for the right to represent Kalispell’s House District 8 say the state’s budget is in a precarious position.

But while Bryan Schutt would find a way to pay for commitments already made, Dane Clark would slice away the excess.

The winner of the June 8 Democratic primary advances to the November general election to face Independent Bill Jones and the victor of the Republican primary contest between Steve Lavin and Carl Glimm.

Early voting began Monday for the primary election.

“We need to cut back the deadwood in government and relieve the burden off the people.” Clark said.

“We’re in a bad, bad situation. We weren’t in the red last year but we probably will be this year. The only way we get out of that is to get money from the feds, and they get that money by working the printing presses overtime and putting in regulations.

“I’m against that,” he said. “What we need to do is develop our resources in an environmentally friendly way — timber, coal, gas.”

Schutt noted that the upcoming budget cycle is going to be a lean one.

“We’re in the midst of a recession,” Schutt said. “In the same way a family needs to postpone purchases or a business watches expenses, the state needs to do the same thing. We spend $2 billion annually; we are going to find ways to cut.”

Still, Schutt said he feels it’s important to carry through with funding for programs.

“When we make commitments as a government for a certain time, we need to find a way to fund those things,” he said. “I want to make sure we are taxing in ways that don’t hurt our economic development and at the same time being fair. Because we make these commitments that we are going to fund X, Y, Z programs, at the same time we need to come up with ways to fund X, Y, Z.”

He said he thinks Gov. Brian Schweitzer is doing a good job in that department.

“The governor made [across the board] percentage cuts; those were fair,” he said. “In general those were done right. When he directs an entire department to cut costs that’s more fair than nitpicking separate line items.”

Clark doesn’t support the governor’s budgetary decisions.

“Schweitzer has expanded the government. It’s a bloated bureaucracy now,” he said. “Are we all going to end up working for the government? Who’s going to pay for this?”

To cut back on what he sees as “supervisors supervising supervisors,” Clark would “get rid of a lot of these positions that are not really necessary. That’s the way any CEO would do it.”

He said Montanans are paying for the excess by being over-taxed through property, income and excise taxes.

“I will be working on a way to reduce property taxes by 60 percent-plus,” he said, “plus open up school choice. People who don’t use the public school system won’t have to pay that portion of taxes that goes to schools.”

But revenue needs to increase, Clark said, so he advocates opening up state school trust lands to economically friendly resource development.

Legislators will face more than just budget decisions. One of the tasks they already face is straightening out the state’s medical marijuana law.

“It was thinly written legislation,” Schutt said. “We need to fill in the holes. There is potential harm in this … How do we address this with legislation? Signage, hours, locations, no minors on site, no consumption on site — those are legitimate local regulations of that activity. To just do a blanket ban on it doesn’t give us that regulatory leverage.”

Just as fire and health inspections cover construction and restaurants, he said, “the same type of inspections should be put in place for medical marijuana.”

Clark said the government should “leave it up to the free market and get their hands out of it.” But he doesn’t expect that to happen because of the potential for taxing medical marijuana.

“We don’t have a free market right now. It’s all about the money,” Clark said. He took issue with the Kalispell City Council’s decision to ban new commercial medical marijuana land uses on the basis that not doing so could jeopardize federal grant money for the city.

“They were concerned that if they didn’t do something they would not get federal funding,” he said, “and that twists everybody’s arms.”

He’s running as a statesman, Clark said, not a politician.

“I believe in states’ rights. I believe in the sovereignty of the states which comes from the states’ people,” he said. “We created the states which created the federal government. Now it seems we are being controlled by the creation.”

Schutt said he’s taking the middle ground.

“We’ve got a political system that really pushes people to extremes. I don’t think that’s where the people are at. That’s not where I’m at,” Schutt said. “I think a lot of the good answers come out of the middle … I want to compromise, I want to negotiate, I want to come up with the best answers.”

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com