Campaign also releases audio clips of Governor lying to Montanans about his tax hike mess
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RED LODGE, Mont. – Since when do Republican leaders advocate for more government red tape as a solution to their higher taxes? Since Governor Greg Gianforte proposed creating a taxpayer-funded task force “to address rising property taxes” that he imposed on all Montana homeowners.
Ryan Busse, the former firearms executive gunning to show Gianforte the door in 2024, blasted the Governor’s non-solution as Montana homeowners are paying hundreds or thousands of dollars more in Gianforte’s residential property taxes this year.
“Greg Gianforte gave the green light to higher property taxes for hundreds of thousands of Montana homeowners, and now his only plan is to just talk about it more?” Busse said of the proposed task force. “Why not just lower our taxes? This is akin to an arsonist asking you to pay for a task force to figure out how fires get started.”
Busse’s campaign, meanwhile, is fact-checking several of Gianforte’s repeated lies about his unpopular property tax hike from recent media interviews:
- GIANFORTE: “As everybody knows, we sent $675 this year to every Montana homeowner.” [1, 2, 3, 4]
- THIS IS A LIE. Not every homeowner got a rebate. Montana Free Press reports only 226,600 of 292,200 households applied for rebates, meaning a staggering 65,600 Montana households, roughly a quarter, did not. And while this rebate was available to tech-savvy homeowners, Gianforte made the application process unnecessarily difficult on purpose. Getting a $675 rebate required taxpayers to look up their geocodes on Cadastral, then they had to navigate a clunky website with a specific code from a snail-mail letter from the Department of Revenue–all within a brief time period. Gianforte could have just issued automatic rebates to homeowners, but instead, he chose red tape.
- GIANFORTE: “We need to bring accountability to property taxes and work with these local communities to rein in spending, because that’s where it’s coming from.” [5, 6, 7, 8]
- THIS IS ALSO A LIE. Municipal and county spending at the municipal and county levels does not result in higher property taxes. Property tax rates are set by the Governor and his supermajority in the Montana Legislature. As The Daily Montanan‘s Darrell Ehrlick wrote on Nov. 30: “Blaming this on local entities, like city council members or county commissioners, is the political equivalent of farting in an elevator and pointing at someone else. It’s embarrassing, and it’s a lie.” And Republican Mayor Chris Hindoien of Choteau wrote of Gianforte’s claim, in capital letters, in an open letter: “THAT IS SIMPLY NOT TRUE.”
- GIANFORTE: “We put $120 million into permanent property tax relief this last session.” [9, 10, 11, 12]
- THIS IS A DISHONEST SPIN. While Gianforte loves to use this talking point, he fails to mention that this $120 million in permanent property tax relief benefits corporations, not homeowners, even though he uses this talking point when talking about homeowners. Gianforte is relying on public confusion to make it seem like he took some sort of action to lower residential property taxes. The opposite is true.
Here are audio clips of Gianforte’s recent media interviews, in which he repeats various versions of these lies:
- Nov. 20: KGVO’s Talk Back (Missoula radio program)
- Nov. 16: KGVO’s Talk Back
- Nov. 9: Montana Talks (statewide radio program)
- Nov. 8: KTVQ’s Montana This Morning (Billings TV newscast)
Oct. 6: The KGEZ Good Morning Show (Kalispell radio program)
QUICK FACTS:
- Pronunciation: Ryan BUSS’-ee
- Home: Kalispell, Mont.
- Office Sought: Governor of Montana
- Affiliation: Democrat
- Website: busseformontana.com
- X (Twitter): @ryandbusse
- DOB: 2/23/70 (53)
- Occupation: Writer, Consultant, Firearms Expert and Former Executive (Vice President of Sales, Kimber America: 1995-2020)
- Family: Married to Sara for 24 years; two sons: Lander (18) and Badge (15)
- Alma Mater: Bethany College (Kansas)
- Chevy Odometer: 280,000 miles
- Hunting Dogs: Aldo and Teddy
- Bio: Ryan Busse is an author and former firearms executive who helped build the gun company Kimber from Kalispell between 1995 and 2020. Over his 25-year career Busse directed the sales of nearly three million Kimber firearms. His memoir, Gunfight: My Battle Against the Industry that Radicalized America, was published by PublicAffairs (Hachette) in 2021. Busse was born near the Kansas cattle ranch homesteaded by his great-grandfather. He is an avid hunter, angler and champion of public lands, and has held leadership positions with Backcountry Hunters and Anglers and Montana Conservation Voters. Busse and his wife Sara live in Kalispell and have two teenage sons.