According to the Lee Poll released over the weekend, 55% of respondents thought that Gov. Schweitzer's $400/household tax refund was "sufficient" and only 33% thought the state should have refunded more.  Based on that result, it could be said that a majority of Montana's supported Schweitzer's one-time tax rebate over the alternate Republican proposal to permanently reduce property tax rates.

We have here an example of how a poll question can be worded to produce a desired result.  Lee didn't give the exact wording of their question, but based on news accounts, we can guess that it went something like: "Do you think the $400 property tax rebate was sufficient, or should have been larger?"

Rewind to January when the Montana Chamber of Commerce released the results of a poll with a similar question.  However, the Chamber's poll question asked for a preference between a $400 rebate and permanent property tax relief; 75% of respondents said they'd prefer the permanent relief.

The Lee poll also indicated that 63% of respondents approved the largest ever budget increases pushed through by Democrats.  January's Chamber poll had the opposite, respondents preferred tax relief over new spending by a 70% to 16% margin.  The difference in this question was that Lee simply asked whether respondents approved of the spending increases, and the Chamber's question gave respondents a choice between tax relief and spending.

Pollsters found 63 percent approved of the Legislature having allocated nearly three-fourths of the state's projected, $1 billion surplus to public schools, prisons, human services, state colleges and buildings. Twenty-six percent said more of the surplus should have been returned to taxpayers. Eleven percent were undecided.

It just goes to show how similar questions can get opposing results just in the way the questions are asked.

This information may not be as relevant now as it was at during the legislative session, but it's interesting, and it serves the purpose of correcting one of the many misperceptions surrounding the budget debate during the Montana legislature.  That misperception is that Montana's revenue surplus is much the result of the oil and gas activity in eastern Montana.

According to the Legislative Fiscal Report for the 2009 Biennium, released last week by the Legislative Fiscal Division, only 12.7% of the general fund increase from 2007 to 2009 was due to natural resource taxes.  Individual income taxes were by far the biggest reason for the revenue surge in Montana, accounting for 44.2% of the increase.  If you include corporate income taxes and property taxes with individual income taxes, you account for 68.1% of that increase.

Of course, the jobs produced by oil and gas activity have an impact on individual income taxes, as well as property and corporate income taxes.  However, the misperception that Montana's coffers are overflowing as a result of the taxes placed on production are just plain wrong.

Consider that next time you're considering whether Montana taxpayers deserve a break. 

A Lee Newspaper poll released over the weekend shows that voters are evenly divided between Republican and Democratic legislative candidates.  According to the poll, 41% of voters prefer Republicans and 40% Democrats, which is within the poll's 4% margin of error.

These Lee polls, conducted by Mason-Dixon, appear from time to time and are typically skewed to Democrats.  This is likely because the Lee poll surveys all voters, not likely voters.  A previous Lee poll, released in early October 2006, had similar numbers for legislative candidates: 45% Republican, 42% Democratic - a three point spread.

However, it's rightly said that the only poll that matters is the one that occurs on Election Day.  One month after the October Lee poll, Republicans cruised to a 53.5% to 46.5% victory over Democrats in contested legislative elections - a seven point spread.  However, due to partisan gerrymandering perpetrated by the Democrats in 2001, that seven-point advantage didn't translate into an appreciable majority.

The point is that you have to take these Lee polls with a grain of salt.

The chairman of the interim legislative Revenue and Transportation Committee (RAT) has traditionally switched from party to party and chamber to chamber.  The last chairman was a Senate Democrat, so this interim's chairman should be a House Republican.  House Taxation Committee Chairman Bob Lake (R-Hamilton) was in line to take over as chairman, but at RAT's June 21 meeting, Democrats blocked his election to the chair.

It's no surprise that Democrats would transition their partisan gamesmanship from the session to the interim, but the whole scheme smacks of pettiness.  Legislative Democrats launched an unprecedented assault on taxpayer rights during the last session, much of it coordinated by the state Department of Revenue, and all indications point to this antagonistic attitude continuing into the election cycle.  But for them to use a usually diplomatic interim committee as a platform to make a political stand is an indication that all the talk of bipartisanship is just empty rhetoric.