By Jim Burrill, Hamilton
Here is my open letter to Nancy Ballance:
In my short time involved in the local political scene, I have observed and learned a lot, not only about you but other players in the Republican party in Ravalli County. For the benefit of everyone, let’s review the Montana Republican platform in regard to taxation:
1. Tax Policy: Reduce taxes, eliminate corporate subsidies and enact a simplified tax code that is flat rate based.
2. Size of Government: Adopt a tax and expenditures limitation (TEL), adopt a more transparent and accountable zero-based budget, only allow the growth of government to match the growth of the private sector, and privatize public services when possible.
Let me remind you that you signed a pledge stating that you agreed to these principles and would back these principles in your campaign and representation in the Montana House of Representatives.
This morning, I read a quote from you stating just the opposite: You believe that growing government is the right thing to do and raising taxes and growing government is necessary in your mind “to do the right thing.”
Were you being deceitful when you agreed to support this platform or did you have a sudden “change of heart”? Either way, you violated the trust of the voters who voted for you believing that you supported the platform. I believe this leftward shift was premeditated on your part. I heard you give a speech about why you supported the gas tax. What we already knew was that you had the opportunity to kill this tax in committee but for some reason, you didn’t do that. I know that you gave an explanation for this vote in a meeting and it seemed very weak at best. This is not the first time you broke your promise to the voters while claiming “to do the right thing.”
And now a word about your supposed “conservative supporters.” I’m sure it was easy to convince them to back your move as most of your supporters in that group are very uninformed. Several of them rely on local printed media for information, unable to work the technology needed to communicate electronically. You know well to who I am referring. They claim to support you “for the good of the party” while denying the very platform they helped create. They will likely be unaware of the story that was written containing your quotes in the Billings Gazette. My guess is that your story will not be covered in the Ravalli Republic as the management of that publication agrees with socialistic policies.
Did you deliberately intend to deceive people to get elected? Certainly signing a pledge and accepting money for your campaign when you did not intend to follow through on that pledge is NOT the “right thing to do.”