“I checked online right when [the bill] came out and went, ‘holy crap—there it is!'” Deborah Newville says in an emotional video released today by the gubernatorial campaign of Ryan Busse and Raph Graybill. “At this time in my life, I’m on a pension. I’ve retired and my husband is on Social Security.”
The new video is online at youtube.com/watch?v=
“Deborah is like so many Montanans who’ve been hurt and forced to make painful decisions by New Jersey Gianforte’s record property tax hike on homeowners,” Busse said. “Billionaires like Gianforte may not feel a tax hike like this, but ordinary families do. He raised taxes on people like Deborah in order to let big corporations off the hook—turning Montana into a playground for the wealthy and giving people like Deborah the middle finger.”
Newville recently moved back into her modest family home in Bozeman, directly across Manley Road from one of Gianforte’s mansions. Public records show Newville’s property taxes increased $4,835 in 2023, bringing her total property tax bill to a staggering $11,683.81. This is 70.6 percent more than the $6,848.47 Newville paid in 2022.
Gianforte’s taxes, however, increased only 19 percent last year, even less than the median residential property tax increase of 21 percent. Public records show Gianforte paid $5,947.63 in property taxes in 2022, and $7,088.91 in 2023.
“The current property tax is certainly unfair,” Newville says in the video. Her late parents bought the property in 1968. Her father was a professor at Montana State University. Purchasing the property, Newville says, was her parents’ “dream.”
“Dad’s wishes—and my mother—was to keep it in the family and to have them inherit it,” Newville adds. “It would make me very sad to sell it. Not just me, but my whole family…It’s not the outcome—”
Newville pauses to wipe away tears before adding, “it’s a lot of pressure to try to keep it right now.”
The video ends with a clip of Gianforte saying, in 2016: “The fairest tax is the one you pay and I don’t.“
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.