Cap Government Growth.
Refund the Rest.
Montana families live within their means.
Government should too.
How it works ⇓
Montana taxpayers are getting squeezed
Your taxes keep climbing — not because you’re getting more, but because government keeps growing. State, school, and local budgets expand faster than the cost of living, year after year, and the gap comes out of your pocket. When governments take in more than they need, they don’t give it back. They keep it, spend it, and build next year’s budget on top of it.
$6.85 Billion
collected by state and local governments beyond what inflation-paced growth would have required.
Why it keeps happening
Montana makes governments balance their budgets — but nothing limits how fast those budgets grow. Politicians won’t restrain themselves when no rule requires it. Until one does, the squeeze just continues.
The Solution: Taxpayer Protections
We are calling for real taxpayer protections — voluntary, statutory, or constitutional — that cap government budget growth at inflation and automatically return over-collections to taxpayers.
Cap at Inflation
Government grows no faster than the cost of living — the same limit your household lives under.
Refund the Rest
Collect more than the cap allows and the extra goes back to taxpayers automatically — not into new spending.
Lower the Burden Over Time
Hold growth to inflation and government’s share of your paycheck shrinks year over year.
We’ll back these protections in whatever form Montana can adopt — but writing them into the state constitution is the most durable protection of all.
It has to apply at every level — state, schools, and local — because capping one just shifts the bill to another.
How the Cap Lowers Each Tax You Pay
One limit, applied at every level of government, works through each kind of tax — because all of it ultimately comes from the same place: you.
Property Taxes
Schools and local government drive most of your property tax bill. Cap their revenue growth and the bill stops outrunning your income.
Income Taxes
The state runs largely on income tax. Cap it, and surpluses get returned instead of spent — protecting room for real cuts.
Other Taxes
When the state can’t grow without limit, it stops leaning on a patchwork of small excise and business taxes to fill the gaps.
Protections from new taxes
A cap means no new tax can simply be stacked on top of the old ones.
A future statewide sales tax for instance could only ever replace existing income or property taxes within the limit — never add to your total bill. #NoSwapNoTax
This protects taxpayers from harmful sales tax schemes like the CAMPS sales tax plan which divert hundreds of millions of sales tax revenues towards new government spending which increases our overall tax burden.
Become a Montana Budget Watchdog
Politicians won’t limit themselves. Real change starts when citizens pay attention — all year, not just at election time. Watchdogs show up, read the budgets almost nobody reads, and ask the hard questions on the record.
What Watchdogs Do:
- Show up to meetings
- Read the budgets
- Ask hard questions
- Spread the word
- Hold government accountable
What We Provide:
- Local budget alerts
- Plain-English data
- Talking points
- A statewide network
- Opportunities to engage
Ready to be a Montana Budget Watchdog?
No expertise required. Be as involved as you want. Just alerts, research, and real ways to hold your government accountable.
Taxpayer Protection Now Form
Key Facts
State and local governments collected a cumulative $6.85 billion more than inflation-paced growth would have allowed over the last decade.
State government own-source revenues totaled $6.04 billion more than inflation-paced growth would have allowed from FY2016 to FY2025.
County own-source revenues totaled $520.8 million more than inflation-paced growth would have allowed from FY2018 to FY2024.
Municipal own-source revenues totaled $286.6 million more than inflation-paced growth would have allowed from FY2018 to FY2024.
School district per-pupil own-source revenues were $24.1 million less than inflation-paced growth from FY2015 to FY2024.
Montana state government has taken and kept $3.41 billion in surplus revenues over the last five years rather than returning the money to taxpayers.
The Coalition
See The Numbers For Yourself
State and local government revenues have grown $6.85 billion faster than inflation over the last decade.
– 2026 Real Government Budgets Report
FAQ
Common Questions
What Are You Trying to accomplish?
We are calling for taxpayer protections — whether voluntary, statutory, or constitutional — which cap state, school, and local government budget growth and automatically return overcollections to taxpayers. We are building a statewide network of citizen budget watchdogs to advocate for taxpayer protections at the state and local level.
The principle is simple: Cap government growth. Refund the rest. Permanently reduce the tax burden.
How do you want this to be achieved?
We aren’t proposing any specific amendment or legislation at this time. We are building this movement to support taxpayer protections in any form Montana can adopt them. Constitutional is most durable, but voluntary local commitments and statutory caps matter too. The principle is the same regardless of vehicle used to achieve it.
Why are you launching this now?
We’re launching this campaign after listening to Montanans tell us they are frustrated that leaders have failed to adequately address unsustainable property tax growth, and now some even want to add a statewide sales tax on top of existing taxes.
They aren’t addressing the root of our tax problem: growth in government.
Why cap at inflation?
Montana family budgets respond to inflation cost pressures. Capping government budgets at inflation keeps government growth in line with Montana families’ ability to pay for it through wages and economic growth.
Most government costs also don’t scale with population, so inflation is an even better benchmark for conservative growth than adding population into the cap.
Schools costs aren’t necessarily driven by population growth, but their funding levels are driven by enrollment in addition to inflation. For this reason, we do recommend that school budget caps be indexed to per-pupil revenue so it keeps pace with both inflation and enrollment.
How do we know government has been growing too fast?
The 2026 Real Government Budgets report shows that state and local government own-source revenues in Montana collectively grew $6.85 billion faster than inflation over the last decade.
This figure is based on actual revenues that Montana governments collected directly from taxpayers — not federal money, bond proceeds, or internal transfers. By focusing on own-source revenues and using a conservative inflation measure (Chained CPI), the report gives a clear picture of how much faster government has been growing compared to what Montana families can afford.
What is wrong with excess government growth?
As Milton Friedman put it, nobody spends somebody else’s money as carefully as he spends his own.
Excess collections that aren’t returned to taxpayers ultimately get kept and wasted by the government, which creates pressure for new taxes, which becomes the next squeeze on Montana families.
Examples of wasteful spending by Montana governments abound:
Local governments use your tax dollars to lobby for higher taxes and bigger government.
Counties racking up fines for failing to file the financial reports state law requires.
State and Local governments directing taxpayer dollars towards woke DEI programs
When government revenue grows $6.85 billion above inflation in a decade, this is what it buys.
But didn't state spending only grow 0.7%
That 0.7% figure comes from the Legislative Fiscal Division’s Biennial Comparison, which narrowly measures immediate appropriations using budgetary accounting. It does not capture the full amount of taxpayer money the state is using.
The state’s FY 25 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR) uses accrual accounting and shows a much different picture. It reveals that the state accumulated an additional $3.41 billion in committed fund balances over the last five years.
We focus on how much the government collects because official measures of appropriations or expenditures can significantly understate the growth of government by excluding this balance sheet accumulation (see The Real Growth of State Government and Addressing the State Budget Debate).
but I thought local government budgets were already capped at half the rate of inflation?
County and city budget growth has been restricted to the average rate of inflation over a 3-year period, but that law only applies to property taxes. In our research on government budget growth, we measure all own-source revenues. Our 2026 Real Government Budgets report explains the differences and lays out our full methodology.
You say budgets grew, but aren't you actually measuring revenue?
The 2026 Real Government Budgets Report measures actual own-source revenue — what taxpayers are directly sending to government.
Actual collections are the direct result of real government policy choices made: setting tax rates and bases, imposing fees, adjusting assessments, and enforcing collection.
Measuring only formal appropriations understates the real growth in government size and taxpayer burden by ignoring accumulated surpluses and the ongoing decisions that drive collections.
What About Emergencies?
The caps would limit overall revenue growth at inflation, but they would not restrict emergency spending authority. Governments could still respond to natural disasters, recessions, or other crises when needed.
Just like they do today, governments would be able to responsibly save during good years within the cap and make emergency appropriations when real crises hit.
Why only cap future growth? government is already too big!
We agree that government is already too big!
But we have to start somewhere. Without a limit going forward, government will keep collecting and spending more than families can afford.
But Montana cut income taxes - Isn't relief already happening?
State government has cut income taxes, but our data shows collections are still far outpacing inflation. In fact, we’ve shown that the state has taken and kept $3.41 billion in surplus revenues over the last five years rather than returning the money to taxpayers. Overcollections that grow faster than inflation should be returned to taxpayers in the form of even larger income tax cuts.
Will this lead to service cuts?
Budget caps don’t cut spending — they limit future growth. Governments still receive all current revenues plus inflation-adjusted growth. They are simply required to prioritize within that constraint, as Montana families must do.
What if politicians find workarounds?
Capping government revenue growth at inflation directly addresses the problem of government using creative taxation. When overall revenue is limited, new fees, special assessments, and other workarounds lose their effectiveness as tools to grow government beyond the cap.
The network of Budget Watchdogs adds another layer of accountability. An engaged citizenry that attends meetings, reads budgets, and asks hard questions makes it much more difficult for politicians to quietly evade the caps.
Where can I learn more about government spending in Montana?
The 2026 Real Government Budgets Report is the foundation of this campaign, but the Frontier Institute has been tracking government growth in Montana for years. For a deeper look:
The 2026 Real Government Budgets Report is the foundation of this campaign, but the Frontier Institute has been tracking government growth in Montana for years. For a deeper look:
- 2026 Real Government Budgets Report — the full report dives into budgets of the state, city, county, and schools
- The Real Growth of State Government — shows how Montana’s state government is bigger, financially, than ever before
- Montana’s Self-Inflicted Budget Crunch — explains how the state converts taxpayer surpluses into permanent government spending, then uses the resulting budget crunch to block tax relief
- Addressing the State Budget Debate — provides context on the recent debate over property tax reforms
- The 2025 Real Local Budgets — unpacks local government spending trends for 2025
- The 2024 Real Local Budgets — unpacks local government spending trends for 2024
- The 2023 Real Local Budgets — unpacks local government spending trends for 2023