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Shredding the interconnected web of government • Daily Montanan [1]

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Date: 2025-03-28

It surely isn’t rare to hear people gripe about the government. Ronald Reagan, infamously claimed “the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Strange thing for a guy who wanted to run government to say, but nothing compared to where we are now with the Trump/Musk/GOP wholesale dismantling of the federal government.

But the federal government is not as simple as those Republican presidents or their latest hatchetmen claim. Truth is it’s much more like a web intricately interwoven with state and local governments. So when you start whacking the strands, the entire structure becomes unstable, ceases to function, and might well collapse — quite the opposite of the “make government more efficient” or “get government out of the way” lines government-hating politicians love to spew.

When the St. Mary’s Milk River pipeline catastrophically failed last year, leaving Montana’s entire Hi-Line facing a growing season with no irrigation water, those farmers and ranchers surely weren’t howling to “getting government out of the way.” Simply put, the irrigators who use that water to make their living can not and will not come up with the $80 million or more the repairs will cost.

So who did they turn to, and who actually has the ability to provide the considerable funding necessary to repair the blowout? Yep, the federal government. And of course the same goes for natural disasters and infrastructure failures nationwide. When you’re standing in the rubble of your flooded, blown apart, or burned down home, somehow hating the federal government isn’t the first thing that likely comes to mind.

Out of the entire nation, Montana is number two in the recipient of federal funds as part of the state budget — a whopping 43 percent of the state’s total government expenditures. Back in February this column raised the very real question of how the Legislature is going to meet Montana’s constitutional mandate to produce a balanced budget if the amount of federal funds the state will receive cannot be guaranteed.

That question has not been answered as the Legislature heads into its last month in session. The general expectation is that there will likely be a series of special legislative sessions called to somehow deal with the federal funds that have been cut. Our all-Republican Congressional delegation doesn’t seem to have any answers on how this is all going to shake out either…not that anyone would know since they’re mighty gun shy of town halls these days.

Fact is: Special legislative sessions are no way to run a state. Why? Because much like our benighted Congressional delegation, special sessions basically leave the public out of the discussion. They are generally very short, a couple days or a week — and they move quickly. So by the time the public might even get an idea of what’s going on it’s too late to voice our opinion to those who are supposed to be representing “we, the people.”

The government haters might hail the tens of thousands of federal employees, 2,000 of which are in Montana, that have been or expected to be cut. But if you’ve tried to contact a federal government agency for something you want or need since the hatchet job began, you might have a different opinion. Please hold…for eternity.

“You don’t miss the water ’til the well runs dry” seems a particularly apt warning these days as more federal taps go dry every week. The good news? People are increasingly fighting back as the vast interconnected web of federal, state, and local government continues to unravel — and the personal impacts increase.

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[1] Url: https://dailymontanan.com/2025/03/28/shredding-the-interconnected-web-of-government/

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