West
This state is debt free. Why isn't Washington?
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“To preserve our independence,” Thomas Jefferson once said, “we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.” Or, as Benjamin Franklin said, in his everyman style, “those who go a-borrowing, go a-sorrowing.”
The warning from our founders has fallen by the wayside. Reckless spending by career politicians in Washington has left our nation and future generations saddled with $35 trillion in debt, as was recently noted by the Department of Treasury.
It does not have to be this way. In Montana, we chose a different path. Our state is debt-free.
President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris (Getty Images)
Thanks to good fiscal discipline and strong budget management, we had a budget surplus of $2.5 billion in 2023. While some in Washington might look at a surplus of that size and be tempted to expand government, we resisted. Instead, we allocated the surplus as any family would.
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First, we returned over $1 billion to taxpayers through tax cuts and reductions. As a general principle, I believe hardworking Montanans deserve to keep more of what they earn. It’s their money, not the government’s. That’s why we delivered the largest property tax and income tax rebates in state history.
We also provided the biggest income tax cut in state history. These supplements are especially vital as hardworking Montanans, like all Americans, face the affordability and inflationary crisis created by President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’s spending spree.
Second, we stopped kicking the can down the road and fixed what was broken. Just like a family would make needed repairs to their home, we made one-time capital investments to address deferred building maintenance, improvements to our prisons, building and repairing roads and bridges, and providing historic investments into our behavioral health system.
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But I was clear: We should not plant acorns that would grow into mighty oaks in perpetual need of constant watering, trimming and feeding.
Third, we doubled our rainy day fund and other reserves to secure our strong future.
After all that, we still had money left over. So, we paid off all our outstanding general obligation debt.
Montana is now debt-free.
As a result, our economy has responded with record job creation and business growth. In fact, as of yesterday, we have more Montanans working than ever before.
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But more work remains to fight back against the affordability crisis that Biden and Harris have created. Since Biden took office, his failed policies have forced Montana families to pay more from gas to groceries. It’s more difficult to purchase a home. The debt we have has burdened our children and grandchildren.
I ran for governor to leave this state better than I found it, allowing the next generation of Montanans to thrive. I have tremendous hope for our country and my state that our best days are ahead.
Working with the legislature, I’ll continue to be focused on making life more affordable for hardworking Montanans using the blueprint we have laid out over the last four years, cutting taxes and implementing permanent reforms.
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It’s my hope that Montana can serve as an example to federal, state and local leaders as they work to find bipartisan solutions to secure their financial futures.
What we need in Washington is the political will to lead with the same fiscal discipline we have in Montana to ensure a stable and prosperous future for our great nation.
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KALISPELL, Mont. — Two app development teams from Code Girls United won the Congressional App Challenge in both Montana districts.
A team with Lily Kirkaldie, Charlie Kotthoff, and Danica Sabo from Great Falls won with their app ‘Cursive Create’.
The app helps teach cursive writing, which the team said is important since cursive is no longer taught in schools.
Three senior students from Browning High School, Aiyahna Green, Kalani Sun Rhodes, and Keesha Guerrero-Gobert, won with their app ‘Sspomo’.
This app provides awareness and resources for people facing mental health challenges, and was inspired by the Blackfeet tribe.
“They were really thoughtful about their community and what was affecting the people that they knew on the reservation, and what they could actually do to help them,” said Code Girls United CEO Marianne Smith.
“What they were seeing in the community was depression and other mental health issues, so they specifically wanted to create an app that would be able to help people that were in that same situation,” said Smith.
Both teams will travel to Washington D.C. for the National Science Fair’s ‘House of Code’, where they will showcase their apps in the U.S. Capitol.
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The event is scheduled for April 21 and 22.
Nevada’s population growth slowed dramatically last year, according to new statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau.
New figures from the government agency showed Nevada grew 0.9 percent, which put it in the top 10 states for percentage growth (9th) from July 2024 to July 2025. However, this is down from July 2023 to July 2024 when the state grew by 1.7 percent.
In July 2024, Nevada had 3,253,543 residents, and in July of last year it had 3,282,188. From July 2023 to July 2024, Nevada was the sixth fastest-growing state in the country, which meant it dropped three spots for the time period of July 2024 to July 2025.
Nevada expanded from 3,214,363 residents in July 2023 to 3,267,467 in July 2024, which turned out to be the fastest year-over-year growth rate, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, since before the pandemic in 2019. However, all of these growth rates are below the time frame of 2015 to 2018 when the state saw unprecedented population growth.
Overall, U.S. population growth slowed “significantly” from July 2024 to July of last year with an increase of only 1.8 million people, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau. This was the lowest population growth for the country since the early days of the pandemic when the population grew only 0.2 percent in 2021 year-over-year.
This population slowdown across the country follows a “sizeable” uptick in the growth rate in 2024 when the U.S. added 3.2 million people and grew 1 percent, the fastest annual population growth rate since all the way back in 2006.
“The slowdown in U.S. population growth is largely due to a historic decline in net international migration, which dropped from 2.7 million to 1.3 million in the period from July 2024 through June 2025,” said Christine Hartley, the assistant division chief for Estimates and Projections at the U.S. Census Bureau. “With births and deaths remaining relatively stable compared to the prior year, the sharp decline in net international migration is the main reason for the slower growth rate we see today.”
The population growth drop was felt across the country as all four census regions (West, Midwest, Northeast and the South) and every state except Montana and West Virginia saw growth slow or a decline in acceleration.
Five U.S. states experienced population decline from July 2024 to July 2025: California, Hawaii, New Mexico, Vermont and West Virginia.
Contact Patrick Blennerhassett at pblennerhassett@reviewjournal.com.
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