Final countdown: Democratic Congress, Senate candidates debate one last time before primary

Each Montana Democratic U.S. congressional and Senate candidate tried to stand out Thursday at the final local debate before the June 2 primary at the Crawford Theater on Thursday.

All four Democrat 1st Congressional District candidates were on hand: Matt Rains, a rancher, veteran, and international photographer; Russell Cleveland, a rancher, Navy veteran and former Colorado childcare owner; smokejumper and union leader Sam Forstag; and Ryan Busse, the former firearms executive, author and 2024 gubernatorial candidate.

“This feels a little bit to us like we’ve been on the road as a band,” Busse said, pointing out familiar faces at the outset to laughter from the audience. “We’ve done like 15 (debate) dates. Several of you have been to these. You are like Deadheads.”

The nearly 2 1/2-hour event, hosted by the Gallatin County Democrats, drew approximately 200 patrons in the 735-seat theater. The balmy outside weather could have influenced the overall turnout.

After a pre-debate reception and post-debate social hour, former Montana Supreme Court Justice Mike Wheat moderated candidate questions on issues, including energy, housing, healthcare and childcare affordability.

Candidates vying to succeed sitting Sen. Steve Daines participated as well: Veteran Air Force commander, special agent, and leadership coach Alani Bankhead; tribal historic preservation officer Michael Black Wolf; Navy veteran and businessman Michael Hummer; former state Representative Reilly Neill; and actor, director, arts administrator and teacher Christopher Kehoe.

Congressional candidates answered the following questions after introductions. Their responses are edited for clarity and brevity. The Chronicle will have follow-up story on the Senate portion of the debate.

How could you lower high fuel costs and stabilizing the energy marketplace?

Rains: “$130 to fill up my truck to come here, bull---t and complain about what’s going on, it sucks.

“There is not a product that you’re going to go to the store and buy or get delivered to your house not touched by fuel. Inflation is hitting us hard. With the war, we all saw this coming. I’ve served in Iraq. Tactically, operationally, strategically, this was horrible in the way it was executed.

“We must put in checks and balances, so this doesn’t happen. We can make sure congress takes back the power to declare war.”

Cleveland: “We can start with more of those stickers saying ‘I did that’ with Trump pointing on the gas pump. That’s what they did to Biden, swaying so many peoples’ opinion.

“Unlike that situation, this is not an Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries issue. This is truly one man driving the cost for all of us. The core issue in this country that we don’t talk about enough is money in politics.

“When we look at the overwhelming power that our petroleum industry has on Capitol Hill, that is the reason we get into these situations. Companies like British Petroleum, ConocoPhillips are doing fine because the price per barrel is through the roof.

“You and I pay more at the pump. We can’t afford it. We are getting stretched on energy, housing, healthcare, and childcare costs. So many people in this state voted because they wanted a lower gasoline cost. They wanted us to stop being the country of ‘forever wars’.

“You’ve been fooled. It’s OK. It’s time to come back and start fixing these issues. We need to limit executive overreach. We need to reel in that power and push those decisions back to Congress.

“We need to cut money out of politics once and for all so that corporations no longer control our political system. It starts with people like me who are individual contributions only. I’m not beholden to these corporations.

Forstag: “We are told we can afford billions of dollars daily to rain down chaos and cruelty overseas in a war that none of us asked for or wanted, but we ‘cannot’ afford basic public services like Medicaid, to maintain Supplemental Nutrition Assistance benefits.

“I refuse to vote for any appropriations package that continues to fund this needless war in Iran. I would work to repeal the authorization for use of military force that has been on the books for more than two decades. There are far more important places to spend our money. Every time we have a budget shortfall, at the state or federal level, (Republicans) cut federal services.”

“Years when we had budget surpluses, do you think they reinvested that money? No. What they did was invest that money into tax cuts for the richest people year after year.

“The biggest priority the people in control could find was the Big Beautiful Bill, with $3 trillion of tax cuts to the highest earners in this country and to cut the corporate tax rate again. Let’s reform our tax system, making sure no one making more than one million dollars annually is paying a lower share of their income in taxes than someone making $80,000 per year and barely getting by.”

Busse: “This was not a meteor that fell from space. This thing that we’re experiencing that’s making us hard for us to afford to live here, making our fuel prices go up, is a choice that we made as a country because we put the wrong people in office.

“When this administration says, ‘we’re going to rush off into war’, even if we don’t have a plan, if we know Iran will shut down the Strait of Hormuz, damaging fuel prices, does your representative stand up and say ‘don’t do that’? No. He claps.

“When power bills are going up daily, does your representative say ’don’t pull the incentives for wind and solar, because wind and solar are the cheapest form’? No. He claps.

“We don’t have to have more expensive gasoline or electricity. We don’t have to make choices pulling the cheapest forms of energy off the grid.”

What can solve housing un-affordability?

Rains: “Montana wasn’t ready for COVID. The influx of people rapidly coming into a place that had been too hard to get to, too far away. Pandora’s box is open. People are going to keep coming. We are not going to stop that.

“We must federally fund buildup of our infrastructure, to build the roads, electric, septic, wells, and water as needed to build more supply out there. We must find incentives through the tax system so contractors don’t cherry pick building mansions.

“Corporations don’t care. They bought up a whole crapload of our houses and they are Airbnb-Ing them. We need to put Montana names on Montana mortgages. That will help bring the home prices back down to where they should be without that false appreciation corporations are putting in.”

Cleveland: “The only reason I was able to buy my first home as a veteran is because the Veterans Affairs loans were no money down. The only reason my 200 employees when I was running Rocky Mountain Kids were able to afford their cost of living and housing was because I paid them 30% more than the competition.

“The only reason teachers in my community when I moved home were able to find housing, and the school was able to actually recruit teachers, was because we built an affordable housing seven-plex dedicated to teacher housing.

“We haven’t seen wages increase in this country for nearly 50 years in line with inflation and productivity. I propose a 50:1 cap on executive to frontline worker wages, so the working-class creating productivity starts making a livable wage.

“If we stayed in-line with that from 1968, the minimum wage would be $25 per hour right now. We can’t turn that on overnight because we would cripple small businesses.

“We also need to get these tariffs out of here driving up lumber costs from Canada. There’s massive lending reform we can do to get more people into homes with no money down.

“The average cost of a home in Montana is more than $600,000 right now. With a 20% down payment you are boxing most people out with a down payment of more than $120,000 just to get considered for a loan. We can fix this issue in places like Bozeman.”

Forstag: “We are in a housing crisis right now. For the past five or 10 years, most of the folks I know, anytime I go to a bar, we’re talking about the fact our rent has doubled, tripled, or worse.

“There is a whole generation in this state who cannot conceive of ever owning a home because of how quickly property values have risen. The three levers we can pull when it comes to fixing a broken housing market are supply, subsidy and stability.

“When it comes to supply, we need to make upstream investments, ensuring there are more apprenticeship slots available for people ready to go into the trades. When it comes to subsidy, we have programs like the community Development Block Grant, where we build affordable housing, in which we have not increased investment.

“If we can afford $3 trillion in tax cuts for the richest people in this country and for large corporations, we can afford to repeal those and invest some of that money. Private equity firms should not be allowed to buy up the last affordable housing options.

“Let’s ban large corporations from owning residential homes, let’s ban private equity from buying up our mobile home parks.”

Busse: “If anyone tells you they can fix the housing market by pressing a single button, that’s a lie, it can’t be fixed that easily. We have the wrong priorities.

“We’re spending $191 billion on Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That’s more than all but four militaries on the planet. That’s more than the U.S. Marine Corps.

“Why don’t we have stronger, more aggressive first-time home buyer systems? Why don’t we have a federal program guaranteeing low interest payments? Why don’t we have more federal assistance for building out infrastructure for new affordable housing units?

“Many times, what slows down building and adding units in places like Bozeman, is water and sewer infrastructure is not there. Developers can’t afford to do it and they can’t wait on that.

“There are a few programs through the American Rescue Plan Act, through the Biden Administration, that did that. You are going to see the payoff in the next year or so in Bozeman with builds that are 150 to 190 units.

“We are less affordable than in the state of California. Let’s make better decisions.”

What can make healthcare more affordable?

Rains: “We must get the Affordable Care Act subsidies funded. We must fund our healthcare system, not just put Band-Aids on it, not just give it telehealth. We need to expand our system so Montanans can easily get to a facility and seek quality treatment.”

Cleveland: “How about Medicare for all? That’s what I’m supporting. I’m the dad who sat in a hospital room while my little girl was undergoing leukemia treatment.

“These insurance companies that I paid for, the best insurance I could find, were sending me $300,000 bills for a month of treatment for her. Madison lost her battle. That’s what brought us home to Montana. We realized we needed to slow down, be close to family, and appreciate the lifestyle Montana offers.

“A year after moving home, my youngest daughter was diagnosed with a rare lung disease called pulmonary capillaritis where your lungs slowly bleed out. There is only one medication that can fix it. Any guesses whether insurance covered that medication? No.

“That dose of medicine that she needed every three to four weeks costs $10,000, something that just costs a few hundred dollars to make. We should not accept having our medical system be part of Wall Street.

“We must get money out of politics. Healthcare is a human right.

Forstag: “How do we fix healthcare? We start by just acknowledging the truth: Our system is broken. If I tear my calf fighting a wildfire, limp off three days later, go to the one orthopedist in town, and learn I’m out of network, still paying out of pocket despite monthly insurance premiums, that is not a functioning healthcare system.

“How do we fix a broken system? We look at the part that works, Medicare. We give everyone in this country regardless of age the choice to join Medicare.

“If we can build and expand free healthcare for every working person in this country, not a lot of people like me are gonna decide to stay on United Health Insurance’s plan, because it ain’t working. If private health insurance corporations have a plan they think can outcompete Medicare, I would love to know where they’ve been keeping it for the last 30 years. I have not seen it.

Busse: “Congress is kicking kids off healthcare, elderly people. People are gonna die because we have reduced our Medicaid coverage. We’ve also cut back on our ACA tax credits.

“The Democratic Party needs to focus on someone who will attack big things. I’m running hard on universal healthcare. To fix this, it’s not just Republicans we’ve got to get out of the way, there are too many Democrats with their hands in the pocket of big health-insurance companies. It’s time for Democrats to stop talking about this and start delivering.”

How could you make childcare more affordable?

Rains: “It’s a state issue to me. They need to fund pre-K all the way up and make sure the education system is affordable and available. Having a kid should not be a limitation and a liability.

“Right now, because of the wages, the cost of living, the unaffordability, we are not set up to make sure parents have childcare options. We are debilitating our system. We absolutely need to find that funding.”

Cleveland: “I’m the one on this stage who built a childcare company, one that went on to serve more than 9,000 families, one that charged parents nearly 30% less than our competitors.

“Universal childcare is the option, the answer. It is not a welfare program, it’s an investment. Our kids, small businesses, and families benefit from multiplying their familial income. This is a net positive for everyone.”

Forstag: “How do we ensure working people in this country, in this state can afford childcare? We invest resources in universal childcare and pre-K for every single American. That is going to drive down costs.

“How do we pay for that? I propose a 30% minimum effective income tax rate on all forms of income for every dollar after $1 million made annually. If there is someone making $1 million per year, they shouldn’t be paying a lower income tax rate than someone who’s making $80,000 per year and struggling to afford childcare.”

Busse: “We’re supposed to have representatives who work for us and our government. That is what all this is about. We don’t have to give people like Congressman Ryan Zinke a $750,000 tax break while we refuse to help people who need childcare.

“It’s good business, it’s important for our state, towns and economy. We should demand childcare and not just let it pass, letting (Republicans) keep shoveling wealth upward.”