Covering Montana’s economy (and more) in 2023

This year started for me, as it did for the rest of the MTFP newsroom, with a hectic winter in the Capitol, covering this year’s session of the Montana Legislature — especially the various ideas lawmakers had for the state’s $2.5 billion budget surplus. Republican lawmakers and Gov. Greg Gianforte spent the biggest chunk of that surplus, about $899 million in total, on income and property tax rebates, fending off efforts by minority-party Democrats to channel massive spending into efforts to tackle the state’s housing affordability crunch. (The Legislature did pass a compromise bill that spen