Montana 2025: A Broad Scope of Chaos and Carnage
- Reilly Neill
- May 31
- 25 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
Across Montana, the damage is piling up.
From the Rocky Mountains to the rolling plains of the Hi-Line, federal funding is the backbone of our communities with basic services that keep small towns running. Montana depends on federal tax dollars for nearly half of our state’s revenue, over $14.1 billion annually in federal support.
In 2025, under the Trump administration’s budget policies, that support is being pulled out from under us. Steve Daines is doing nothing to stop it.
These cuts are causing real harm. When Meals on Wheels can’t afford to deliver food to seniors, when veterans are waiting months for care, when small farmers can’t build a grain mill because their grant vanished overnight, Montanans are no more than pawns in political games.
This is what happens when our senator follows orders from the president instead of fighting for Montana.
The Rocky Mountain Laboratories, one of the most respected bioscience facilities in the world, is located right here in Hamilton, Montana. They've already laid off at least 25 employees with more departures expected. These aren’t bureaucrats. They’re virologists, lab techs, and support staff, some of whom have lived in the Bitterroot for decades. The work at the Rocky Mountain Lab has helped develop vaccines, study respiratory diseases, and track emerging health threats. Now, because of a $29 million reduction in federal research grants across Montana, their future is uncertain.
Steve Daines didn’t lift a finger to save jobs at the lab. He didn’t fight for these jobs. He didn’t speak out. He just did what he was told.
Montana is now losing ground. The worst part? It’s avoidable.
When no one in Washington is fighting for Montana, we see how much damage is done. In just a few short months, the list of what Daines has allowed to happen in our state is devastating and endless.
Due to the nature of these cuts, much of the information remains hidden, evolving, or caught in legal limbo. Court orders have delayed some terminations; others, like the full extent of U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service layoffs, remain obscured by D.C. Even with incomplete data, the picture is clear.
Click below for a list of federal programs, services, and jobs being lost across Montana while our senator looks the other way.
Hundreds of specific cuts, freezes, non-reimbursements and pauses are happening across every region of our state, across every economic and social sector. We’ve compiled a long list here but even this exhaustive compilation is not comprehensive. The scope of these sweeping, indiscriminate cuts is nearly too broad to imagine.
We’re a big state with a small population. We feed the world and maintain and manage vast natural resources. Like any other Americans, we deserve our fair share of federal resources. Federal funding supports nearly half of Montana’s state budget. Our tax dollars power schools, clinics, housing programs, fire prevention, Veteran services, research facilities and countless community resources.
Not any more.
Our tax dollars have been hijacked and sent to Mar-a-Lago for a bloated security detail while the president plays golf. Our representatives in Congress voted to allocate funds for essential services in Montana. These funds, diverted by the president, have never made it to the ground here. Daines sits and watches, doing nothing, uninterested the welfare of our state.
The damage to Montana is now widespread and extensive.
Cutting Off Montana’s Future
Education is the foundation of any thriving state. In Montana, it’s what gives kids in rural schools a shot at opportunity, helps low-income students afford college, and funds research that puts our universities on the national map.
Under the Trump administration’s 2025 budget policies, that foundation is being eroded as Steve Daines remains silent.
In January 2025, a freeze on federal education grant disbursements hit Montana hard. It disrupted Head Start centers, university research projects, and health service providers across the state, triggering a wave of uncertainty. Then came deeper cuts: a proposed 14% reduction to the U.S. Department of Education’s budget that targeted after-school programs and federal support for low-income students.
The consequences were swift and devastating.
K–12 schools across Montana are staring down long-term uncertainty as programs like GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs), TRIO (a set of federally funded college access and support programs in the United States), and Perkins career and technical education grants all face budget cuts. These federally funded initiatives are lifelines for disadvantaged and rural students:
GEAR UP supports college readiness for low-income students in grades 7–12.
TRIO Programs provide academic support and mentoring for first-generation and underrepresented students.
Perkins Grants sustain career and technical training across the state.
Meanwhile, schools that rely on Title I funds, targeted at high-poverty districts, have received no long-term guarantees, even though the 2025–26 school year is fast approaching.
The Rural Education Achievement Program (REAP), designed to help smaller districts compete for federal dollars, is also threatened by Department of Education staffing cuts that could delay or disrupt fund distribution.
At the University of Montana in Missoula, a $385,000 federal grant for vaccine research was canceled in March 2025. The university also faces an annual loss of $2.6 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), jeopardizing ongoing research into cancer, respiratory disease, and addiction. Cuts to the National Science Foundation (NSF) put further strain on Montana’s research institutions, with more than 100 faculty and 500 staff members potentially affected. As a result, UM laid off at least 42 employees. These were not duplicative positions or bloated bureaucracy, they were researchers, faculty, and staff supporting real innovation and education.
Montana State University has also seen its future clouded by instability. Grant-supported programs through the College of Education, Health & Human Development like “Preparing and Sustaining the Next Generation of Rural Educators” and the development of an Education Innovation Center are now stalled or defunded, leaving educators scrambling to plan for the fall semester.
This is just a fraction of the cuts affecting higher ed.
On tribal lands, the situation is even more dire. Schools in places like Arlee and St. Ignatius are experiencing delays in receiving Impact Aid, a critical funding stream for districts that educate students living on non-taxable federal land. Without it, these schools are forced to do more with less, widening the equity gap for Indigenous students.
Montana’s tribal colleges and universities, institutions that serve as cultural, educational, and economic anchors for Native communities, are being threatened and strained by cuts. These schools receive roughly 70% of their funding from the federal government. Cuts to that funding have already hit hard across Indian Country.
Among the institutions at risk:
Salish Kootenai College (Pablo)
Chief Dull Knife College (Lame Deer)
Aaniiih Nakoda College (Harlem)
Blackfeet Community College (Browning)
Fort Peck Community College (Poplar)
Little Big Horn College (Crow Agency)
Stone Child College (Box Elder)
Federal grants through the USDA, approximately $7 million worth, have been suspended, putting construction projects, faculty positions, and student services at risk. While not in Montana, Haskell Indian Nations University lost 23% of its workforce to similar cuts, an alarming indicator of what Montana’s TCUs could face next.
The Native American Rights Fund has since filed a lawsuit against the federal government, arguing that the funding cuts violate treaty obligations. But litigation takes time. Meanwhile, Montana’s tribal students are left waiting, wondering if they’ll be able to finish their education or even afford to stay enrolled.
The cuts haven’t stopped at school doors.
In spring 2025, Montana lawmakers refused to accept $20 million in federal funding for the Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) Program, which had provided over 76,000 children with $120 in grocery assistance during the summer months when school meals weren’t available. The program, administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, was designed to fight child hunger in rural and tribal communities. Montana declined to participate, leaving tens of thousands of kids more vulnerable at a time when food insecurity is rising across the state.
Steve Daines could have stood up and fought for these students, these educators, these institutions. He didn’t.
He said nothing when the University of Montana lost 42 jobs. He said nothing when federal grant programs were frozen. He said nothing when low-income kids lost access to summer food. He said nothing when tribal colleges were left out to dry.
Daines didn’t fight for Montana’s future. He abandoned it.
Housing on the Brink
Rising costs, stagnant wages, and limited inventory make it difficult for working families, seniors, and low-income residents to find stable, affordable places to live in one of the most expensive markets in the country. Federal rental assistance and rural housing programs are so critical to the well-being of our communities.
In 2025, these programs are under threat while Senator Steve Daines stands by in silence.
Proposed federal budget cuts under the Trump administration would eliminate up to $95 million in rental assistance funding for Montana. That includes Housing Choice Vouchers (commonly known as Section 8), public housing operating funds, and project-based rental assistance. Altogether, more than 24,000 Montanans could see their housing put at risk.
That’s not a statistic; that’s thousands of families, veterans, single parents, and seniors who could be one missed paycheck or one missed voucher away from homelessness.
In Helena, the Rose Hills housing development, led by Habitat for Humanity of the Helena Area, was designed to ease some of that burden. The project planned to build 1,500 homes, including 400 designated affordable units. But delays in federal disbursements from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural
Development Housing Programs have put construction on hold. The project is now facing logistical and financial strain that could threaten $60 million in long-term housing equity.
Cuts aren’t just affecting Helena.
In Miles City, the Custer County Senior Center is trying to modernize its facility through a $750,000 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG). Under the new federal policies, CDBG grants are now reimbursable rather than directly funded, meaning local governments must front the money and hope the federal government eventually pays them back. That kind of financial uncertainty places enormous stress on rural counties with limited tax bases. It forces them to choose between taking on risk or walking away from critical infrastructure improvements.
Across the state, USDA Rural Housing Programs, which provide low-interest loans and grants for everything from home repairs to affordable rental housing, are facing internal slowdowns due to staff shortages and suspended funding. With federal staff buyouts and budget cuts hollowing out local USDA offices, rural residents are reporting longer wait times, stalled loan approvals, and reduced access to technical assistance. Meanwhile, delays in USDA Rural Development disbursements have put dozens of Montana housing and infrastructure projects at risk.
The ripple effects are far-reaching.
When federal housing dollars vanish or stall, local economies suffer. Construction projects are delayed or canceled. Property managers lose reliable tenants. Seniors face longer waiting lists for accessible housing. Families on the brink of poverty have nowhere left to turn.
Steve Daines could have demanded better. He could have demanded full funding for rural housing programs, reliable disbursements for CDBG grants, and the restoration of rental assistance to keep roofs over people's heads.
He didn’t. Once again, he did nothing.
Now Montanans are the ones paying the price with their homes, their stability, and their future.
We Needed a Farm Bill Yesterday
From dryland wheat in the Golden Triangle to cattle operations in the Yellowstone Valley, farming and ranching shape how we live, work, and raise our families in Montana. These operations depend on predictable markets, resilient infrastructure, and federal support programs built over decades through the Farm Bill and other USDA initiatives.
In 2025, that foundation began to crumble. Not because of market forces or drought but because of deliberate political choices made in Washington.
The Trump administration’s ongoing budget and administrative freezes have gutted agricultural investment in Montana. The failure to renew the Farm Bill, combined with suspended USDA programs and proposed slashes to food and nutrition support, has created financial chaos in every corner of the state.
Again, Steve Daines does nothing.
In Belgrade, a $648,000 USDA grant intended to build a regional feed mill was frozen in early 2025. That grant wasn’t just funding, it was the cornerstone of a project that would serve over 150 organic grain farmers, helping them reduce costs, increase margins, and stay competitive in the marketplace. Without it, construction stopped. Farmers are now stuck waiting or scaling back operations.
The cuts don’t stop at production; they’re also hitting our food systems.
Programs like the Local Food Purchase Assistance (LFPA) and Local Food for Schools (LFS), designed to connect Montana farmers to nearby schools, food banks, and institutions, have been eliminated. These USDA programs supported small, beginning, and disadvantaged producers, helping keep dollars circulating locally. Without them, supply chains are breaking, and food insecurity is growing.
It gets worse.
If the Trump-backed budget proposal passed by the House of Representative becomes law, it includes up to $300 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). More than 15% of Montana’s rural families rely on SNAP, and for many of them, it's the only way to keep food on the table during tight years. These cuts would devastate our small towns, not just by taking food away from struggling families but by cutting revenue from local grocers, co-ops, and corner stores that rely on consistent demand.
The elimination of FoodCorps and AgCorps placements under AmeriCorps defunded school garden programs, nutrition education, and local food system initiatives that reached thousands of Montana students. These grassroots efforts not only fed kids, they taught them how to grow and prepare food in rural areas where hunger is rising.
Montana’s climate-smart agriculture programs, many of which were funded through the Inflation Reduction Act, have also been frozen or defunded. These included grants to improve soil health, expand water conservation, and reward carbon-smart practices. Their cancellation undercuts the future of agriculture in a state already facing longer droughts and more unpredictable weather.
This isn't fiscal responsibility. It's sabotage.
Behind the scenes, the Farm Service Agency (FSA), the federal office that handles disaster assistance, conservation payments, and farm operating loans has also been hollowed out. In 2025, Montana’s FSA offices reported staff shortages, delayed loan processing, and slowed enrollment in support programs. Farmers trying to recover from last year’s drought have been left waiting for critical assistance. With fewer staff available to handle claims, administer relief, or process USDA applications, producers are being forced to shoulder risk with no safety net.
Where is Steve Daines in all of this? Standing by and watching it happen. He didn’t fight for a real Farm Bill. He didn’t push to protect Montana’s ag economy or working producers. He just kept quiet and followed Trump’s orders.
From Missoula to Malta, our producers are still working hard, doing their jobs. We need elected officials willing to do the same before more farms close, more communities hollow out, and more Montana families are forced off the land.
Public Health Gutted
In a state where rural hospitals are few and far between, and where weather, distance, and poverty can all stand between a person and care, public health systems are essential. They are Montana’s quiet safety net: vaccine clinics, mental health lines, community health workers, emergency managers, and county response teams.
In 2025, that net was ripped apart in Montana.
The Trump administration’s budget policies triggered deep cuts across nearly every arm of Montana’s public health and emergency infrastructure. Instead of standing up for the health and safety of Montanans, Steve Daines looked the other way.
One of the biggest blows came when the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services (DPHHS) was forced to return over $28 million in federal grants due to across-the-board health funding reductions. These grants were critical for local health departments to run vaccine clinics, maintain disease surveillance labs, support maternal and child health programs, and operate public health emergency response systems.
In Yellowstone County, the public health department lost $180,000 earmarked for community health workers. These workers are often the front lines in underserved neighborhoods, connecting people with care, monitoring chronic conditions, and assisting during outbreaks. The loss of that funding set back both COVID-19 response and broader public health preparedness.
The crisis didn’t stop at staffing.
In addition to direct staff layoffs, the termination of AmeriCorps funding led to the loss of critical service placements across Montana. These volunteers supported community health education, mental health outreach, and emergency preparedness efforts, particularly in underserved rural and tribal areas. Their absence further strained local agencies already reeling from budget cuts and staff shortages.
The state’s food distribution network was hit just as hard. A 40% cut to Montana’s allocation under The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) resulted in the loss of nearly $2.5 million worth of food, impacting 73 partner organizations across 35 counties. In Missoula alone, the food bank reported losing over 91,000 pounds of food, just as need reached record levels.
The cuts kept coming.
In Cascade County, Disaster and Emergency Services (DES) saw their funding from the Emergency Management Performance Grant (EMPG) slashed from $131,000 to just $47,000. That funding supports county emergency managers—those responsible for disaster planning, training, and coordination when wildfires, floods, or hazardous spills hit. To make matters worse, reimbursements under existing contracts were suspended during a federal audit, leaving local agencies in the lurch.
Statewide, core public health initiatives were either reduced, paused, or left scrambling to find alternative funding:
Chronic Disease Prevention Programs saw their outreach and education efforts scaled back.
The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, supported by federal grants, faced budget uncertainty just as mental health needs surged.
Immunization and Vaccines for Children Programs experienced funding reductions, threatening access to free vaccines for low-income families.
Programs training new public health directors and emergency response coordinators were curtailed.
State lab services, which perform diagnostic testing and outbreak tracking, saw staff hours and capacity reduced.
Each of these programs represents a layer of protection, one that Montanans rely on whether they live in Miles City, Hamilton, or the Flathead. Strip that away and communities are left exposed.
Steve Daines had a choice. He could have demanded the restoration of public health funding. He could have fought for Montana’s emergency response readiness. He could have stood up for the health workers in Billings, the lab techs in Helena, and the volunteers at rural food banks across the state.
He didn’t.
He grinned for the cameras. He did the president's bidding. He left Montanans to fend for themselves.
Tribal Colleges and Treaties Ignored
Montana’s tribal communities have long carried the burden of federal promises broken. In 2025, those broken promises became outright betrayals that were budgeted, signed, and executed by the Trump administration, with Steve Daines offering no resistance at all.
The federal government has a legal and moral obligation to support Indigenous education, healthcare, and infrastructure through its trust and treaty responsibilities. That support is not charity; it’s the fulfillment of agreements enshrined in law.
Yet in 2025, those obligations were slashed.
Montana’s seven Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), from Browning to Harlem, depend on federal funding for up to 70% of their operating budgets. These institutions don’t just provide degrees; they preserve languages, train future leaders, and offer workforce programs in some of the most remote regions of the state.
In early 2025, approximately $7 million in U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) grants designated for tribal colleges were suspended without warning. The consequences were immediate. Programs halted. Construction delayed. Staff positions left vacant. Blackfeet Community College, for example, had to freeze workforce development and construction projects critical to local job creation.
Meanwhile, a federal lawsuit filed by the Native American Rights Fund challenged the constitutionality of these cuts, arguing that they violate treaty obligations. While the case moves slowly through the courts, students and faculty are left without answers and without support.
It wasn’t just colleges. K–12 tribal schools, like those in Arlee and St. Ignatius, reported delays in receiving Impact Aid, which compensates districts that educate students on tax-exempt federal lands. Without timely disbursement, these schools are forced to cut corners in staffing, support services, and extracurricular programs, deepening education disparities that already exist.
From Head Start disruptions to the elimination of summer food programs, the blow to tribal education is compounded by a long history of neglect. In 2025, that neglect turned into a full-scale retreat.
Healthcare is no exception.
Though Medicaid expansion remains temporarily intact in Montana, the Trump-aligned “Big Beautiful Bill” passed by the House includes changes that could devastate Native health systems. The bill proposes adding harsh work requirements, cutting federal reimbursements, and banning coverage for specific services, including gender-affirming care, all of which could activate Montana’s Medicaid “trigger law” and unravel expansion altogether.
If that happens, Native communities across Montana, where Medicaid has significantly expanded access to care, will once again be left without the support they were promised.
Steve Daines could have used his platform to defend tribal sovereignty. He could have demanded that treaty obligations be honored. He could have stood up for the students in Lame Deer, the teachers in Crow Agency, the nurses in Harlem, and the elders who depend on Medicaid and trust-based health services.
He didn’t. He was silent.
Veterans Deserve Respect
In Montana, honoring veterans isn’t just about symbolism. It’s about showing up. It’s about ensuring rural Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) clinics are staffed, mental health care is accessible, and veterans get timely treatment after serving their country.
In 2025, while Steve Daines held photo ops at ribbon-cuttings and named buildings after war heroes, the system those heroes rely on was quietly being gutted behind the scenes.
Under Trump’s 2025 federal budget plan, the VA is facing the elimination of up to 80,000 jobs nationwide. Those cuts aren’t theoretical; they’re already being felt in Montana.
At the VA facility in Miles City, reports from veterans and staff indicate a 10–15% reduction in clinical personnel, including primary care providers and mental health specialists. The impact? Longer waits for appointments, delays in routine care, and reduced access to counseling and psychiatric services.
Primary care: Fewer providers means fewer available appointment slots. Veterans are waiting weeks, sometimes months, for routine visits.
Mental health services: Cuts have forced the facility to scale back counseling hours and psychiatric coverage at a time when suicide prevention and PTSD support are more critical than ever.
Rehabilitation and telehealth support: Ancillary services have also been reduced, forcing some rural veterans to travel long distances or go without care.
These are not isolated incidents. They’re part of a broader pattern of federal disinvestment that’s hitting rural veterans the hardest, especially in areas where the VA is often the only available health provider within driving distance.
The result? Reports from veterans’ groups in eastern Montana suggest wait times for telehealth and in-person care have increased by over 30% and claims processing has slowed due to short-staffed administrative teams.
Steve Daines has said a lot about "supporting our veterans."
Where was he when the Trump administration proposed slashing tens of thousands of VA jobs? Where was he when clinics like Miles City started losing staff and patients started losing access?
He didn’t oppose the cuts. He didn’t file legislation to restore funding. He didn’t even speak out.
He did nothing.
Montana has one of the highest rates of military service per capita in the nation. These are our neighbors, friends, and family members. They deserve more than a photo op. Veterans deserve care, respect, and real representation.
Montana’s Elders Deserve Better
Montana is one of the oldest states in the nation by median age and one of the most rural. That means thousands of seniors rely on community-based services not just for meals, but for social connection, safety checks, and the dignity of aging at home.
Those services are now unraveling. Not because the need has gone away but because the funding has.
In 2025, federal cuts to senior nutrition programs, aging services, and local infrastructure grants created a crisis for Montana’s older residents and the consequences are landing hardest in the places with the fewest resources.
The Bozeman Senior Center, a hub for older adults across Gallatin County, faced a $711,000 budget shortfall due to reductions in state grants funded through the Older Americans Act (OAA). To keep their Meals on Wheels program running, the center had no choice but to raise the suggested donation per meal from $5 to $7, reduce staff hours, and rely more heavily on proceeds from its thrift store to close the gap.
In 2024 alone, the Bozeman center delivered 33,000 home meals and served 22,000 congregate meals on site. Now, every dollar cut threatens those numbers and the vulnerable people behind them.
In Butte, the Belmont Senior Center is teetering on the edge. Daily home meal delivery routes, the lifeline for isolated seniors, are at risk of shutting down entirely. Staff and volunteers have spoken out publicly, warning that if funding isn’t restored, they may have to stop delivering meals to some of Butte’s most at-risk residents.
These aren’t just meals. They’re safety visits. They’re community. They’re how we make sure elders don’t fall through the cracks.
Meanwhile, in Custer County, the Council on Aging is caught in bureaucratic limbo after receiving a $750,000 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) to renovate its senior center in Miles City. Because of new rules under the Trump administration, the county must spend the money up front and hope for timely federal reimbursement.
In small counties with tight budgets, that’s a dangerous gamble. If federal payments are delayed, local governments may be forced to pull the plug entirely or take out short-term loans they can’t afford. In the meantime, the senior center, the beating heart of the community, is left waiting.
Federal cuts to AmeriCorps and senior service corps programs eliminated a key layer of support for aging Montanans. In many counties, these service members helped deliver meals, provide transportation, and check in on homebound seniors, services now left undone due to staffing gaps and lost volunteer corps placements.
All of this is happening while the need continues to grow. Montana’s senior population is rising. Rural elders face increased risk of social isolation, food insecurity, and health complications. Programs like Meals on Wheels, senior center lunches, and home care services are not luxuries; they’re lifelines.
Steve Daines knows this but when the budget cuts came down, he didn’t push back. He didn’t fight to restore Older Americans Act funding. He didn’t advocate for direct-pay CDBG grants to rural counties. He didn’t even speak up for Montana’s seniors.
He did what he always does: nothing.
Now our elders are the ones paying the price with fewer meals, reduced services, and more days spent alone. Montana’s elders deserve better. They deserve a Senator who shows up and never backs down from a fight to protect them.
A Looming Hunger Crisis
In a state where the growing season is short and grocery stores are often miles apart, food security isn’t just a question of dignity, it’s a matter of survival. Montana’s families, food banks, schools, and senior centers rely on a patchwork of federal nutrition programs to keep people fed.
In 2025, that patchwork was torn apart.
Under Trump administration budget actions, enabled by a silent Steve Daines, vital food assistance programs have been frozen, slashed, or outright eliminated. The result? Thousands of Montanans now face reduced access to food, rising grocery bills, and empty pantry shelves.
One of the hardest-hit programs was The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), which distributes surplus USDA food to local pantries, shelters, and food banks. A nationwide funding cut of $500 million slashed Montana’s allocation by 40%, wiping out approximately $2.5 million in food assistance.
In Missoula, the local food bank lost 91,000 pounds of food, valued at $180,000, right as demand hit record levels.
Statewide, 73 partner organizations in 35 counties lost access to food supplies they depend on.
This is only the beginning.
The Montana WIC Program (Women, Infants, and Children), which serves more than 12,000 families, faced a near-crisis. In early 2025, during the grant freeze, the WIC office was instructed not to issue benefits beyond May, throwing families into panic. A temporary congressional resolution restored funding through September but the damage was done. Families across the state went weeks unsure if they could afford formula, baby food, or milk.
While these programs were being defunded, another threat loomed: a House-passed budget reconciliation bill proposing nearly $300 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). No matter what version of that bill becomes law, the warning has been made clear: food aid is on the chopping block, and Montana’s rural families are at risk.
Over 15% of rural Montana families rely on SNAP.
In some counties, SNAP use is twice the state average.
Local grocery stores and co-ops depend on that economic activity to stay afloat.
Still, Steve Daines has said nothing.
He’s offered no plan to restore food assistance. No public statement defending hungry kids or rural seniors. No pressure on USDA to continue local food grants. No action at all.
Even local food systems are unraveling. USDA programs like the Local Food Purchase Assistance (LFPA) and Local Food for Schools (LFS), which helped Montana’s small farmers sell produce directly to schools and food banks, were canceled. That disrupted a growing network of farm-to-community supply chains that supported both growers and eaters.
This is abandoning the most basic responsibility of government: making sure people don’t go hungry in one of the wealthiest nations in the world.
Steve Daines could have fought to protect Montana’s nutrition programs. He could have stood up for food banks, low-income families, and small farmers. He didn’t.
Now, thousands of Montanans are paying for that failure every time they open an empty fridge or turn away a child asking for more.
Exploiting Public Lands
In Montana, public lands are more than a place for recreation, they’re economy, heritage, and identity. They support hunting and fishing, timber and grazing, tourism and clean water. Our trails, forests, ranger districts, and research stations depend on federal stewardship and boots-on-the-ground staffing.
In 2025, those boots were pulled off the ground.
Under Trump administration cuts, and with no resistance from Senator Steve Daines, Montana has seen its public lands workforce gutted. As of mid-2025, more than 5,400 federal jobs were lost statewide:
Over 1,000 positions from the National Park Service (NPS)
More than 4,400 from the U.S. Forest Service (USFS)
These weren’t administrative cuts. They were the frontline jobs that keep our lands accessible, safe, and sustainable: trail crews, wildfire responders, campground stewards, fisheries biologists, and historic preservation staff.
Montana has borne the brunt of these federal workforce reductions.
Based on staffing patterns from previous years and regional agency reporting, it’s estimated that approximately 400 public lands workers in Montana have already lost their jobs in 2025. These include employees with the USFS, the NPS, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), and research stations tied to wildfire preparedness and conservation science.
These are trail crews in the Bitterroot, fire scientists in Missoula, campground managers in the Custer Gallatin National Forest, rangers in Glacier. Without them, our public lands, along with the rural communities that depend on them, are left more vulnerable than ever.
The Custer Gallatin National Forest now has just five full-time employees covering over 1 million acres, 19 rental cabins, 60 public bathrooms, 21 campgrounds, and hundreds of miles of trails. In the Bozeman and Yellowstone Ranger Districts, only three full-time staff remain to manage vast, heavily visited landscapes.
Seasonal hiring was delayed, then capped. Initially, only 5,000 seasonal workers were authorized nationwide (down from 6,300 in 2024), and though the cap was later raised to 7,700, it was too late. Training windows had closed. Positions went unfilled. Entire trail systems across the state remain unmanned.
Montana’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) operations have also been quietly hollowed out. BLM manages nearly 8 million acres in Montana, about one-eighth of the state’s land base, including grazing allotments, recreational areas, and fire-prone landscapes. In 2025, staffing cuts hit BLM field offices across eastern and central Montana, delaying grazing permit processing, weed control operations, fire mitigation work, and public access maintenance.
With fewer range conservationists, fire technicians, and field staff, landowners and ranchers who rely on BLM coordination are being forced to navigate longer delays, degraded land health, and growing uncertainty, especially as fire season approaches.
Meanwhile, the Rocky Mountain Research Station in Missoula and the Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory, both critical hubs for wildfire modeling and forest management, faced research interruptions and staff attrition due to stalled funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Interior.
These cuts aren’t just environmental; they’re economic.
Rural towns like Hamilton, West Yellowstone, Libby, and Eureka depend on federal land jobs to fuel their local economies. When those jobs disappear, so do wages, service contracts, and tourism support. Trail maintenance backlogs grow. Campgrounds go unstaffed. Fire mitigation work is delayed.
When wildfires strike, as they inevitably do, response teams are spread thin.
Montana also saw conservation funding freeze midstream. Watershed restoration, reforestation, and road repair grants across Flathead County, Lewis and Clark County, and beyond were paused, leaving local contractors in limbo. Conservation districts that rely on NRCS technical support saw staffing cut and programs suspended.
While public lands are neglected, private extractive interests are quietly empowered. The president's allies in Congress continue pushing to lease or privatize public resources under the guise of “efficiency,” even as management agencies are starved of the funds needed to operate.
Daines claims to care about Montana’s outdoors. He posts pictures in camo. He talks about elk season. When the federal government laid off trail crews, closed ranger offices, and dismantled conservation partnerships, he said nothing.
When wildfire season approached with fewer firefighters on the ground, Daines offered no plan. When public land agencies sound the alarm, he looks away.
Montana’s public lands are being stripped of the people and resources that protect them and Steve Daines helped make it happen by doing nothing to stop it.
Arts and Culture Left to Wither
Montana’s culture isn’t confined to galleries or stages. Our cultural legacy lives in community centers, school gyms, museum basements, public parks, and town libraries. We celebrate the storytellers who travel from town to town. We support the local symphony and the children’s science exhibit. Montanans support the preservation of our history, the sharing of our voices, and the celebration of who we are.
In 2025, that culture came under attack.
The Trump administration’s decision to terminate federal arts and humanities funding, and Steve Daines’ silence in the face of it, has devastated Montana’s creative and educational infrastructure.
In April, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) pulled $900,000 in annual funding from Humanities Montana, a move that gutted 90% of the organization’s budget. The result? Immediate suspension of beloved programs like Montana Conversations, Speakers in the Schools, and Community Project Grants, which served every one of Montana’s 56 counties.
The ripple effects were swift.
In Helena, The Myrna Loy, a historic arts venue that served over 17,000 people in 2024, lost $80,000 in federal grants and was forced to cancel performances, delay outreach programs, and dip into operations funding just to keep the lights on.
In the Seeley-Swan and Blackfoot Valleys, Alpine Artisans, Inc. lost $15,000 in 2025 and is bracing for a $36,000 shortfall next year. That puts the Norman Maclean Literary Festival and free Shakespeare in the Parks performances at risk, cultural touchstones for the region.
In Missoula, the spectrUM Discovery Area, a hands-on STEM museum, lost $500,000 in federal grant funding over three years, slashing its ability to deliver science education to rural and tribal communities across the state.
In Butte, an entire ecosystem of cultural institutions felt the blow:
The Mai Wah Society Museum, which preserves Montana’s Asian-American history, received only a fraction of its grant request.
The Butte Symphony Association, Butte-Silver Bow Archives, and Historic Clark Chateau all saw funding reductions.
Preservation and revitalization efforts across the city were put on hold as grants evaporated.
The cuts weren’t limited to federal agencies. The Montana Arts Council was also undermined at the state level. In the 2025 legislative session, lawmakers stripped funding from 17 organizations that didn’t testify in person and reduced awards for ten others who submitted written comments. Dozens of groups were left without support to receive federal matching funds, including rural arts organizations and community theaters that depend on every dollar to stay alive.
In Hamilton, a grant awarded in 2024 to the Ravalli County Museum supported a documentary on local Vietnam veterans. That project moved forward but future grants are now uncertain. Planned stories, exhibitions, and preservation projects may never get off the ground.
In Billings, the Alberta Bair Theater, eastern Montana’s premier performing arts venue, faces rising costs and dwindling support as the federal dollars that helped sustain its operations have dried up.
This isn’t just cultural neglect. This is an erasure of community, heritage, and connection.
Steve Daines could have fought to preserve these programs. He could have defended Montana’s storytellers, historians, artists, and educators. He could have stood up for the music, the science, the literature, and the voices that define our shared identity.
He didn’t. He let them wither. He let them be cut off.
Now, across Montana, stages have gone dark, archives sit understaffed, festivals are canceled, and children in rural schools wait for speakers and programs that may never come.
Culture is not a luxury. It is how we remember, how we dream, and how we hold together as a people. When elected officials fail to defend it, they don’t just defund the arts, they diminish who we are.
Dismantling Montana, One Quiet Cut at a Time
Everything you’ve just read: the layoffs, the canceled grants, the shuttered programs, the delays, the lost opportunities, these reports represent only a fraction of what’s been done to Montana under the president's 2025 budget cuts. These are just the public examples we know about. Worse is to come in the “Big Beautiful Bill” that will wreak further havoc on our state.
Many more cuts are buried in bureaucratic silence, classified as “unfunded,” “paused,” or “delayed indefinitely.” These are taxpayer-funded services that Montanans built, supported, and rely on, programs that help us feed the world, educate the next generation, respond to disasters, care for our veterans and elders, and compete economically on a global scale.
These programs and staff were not cut because they failed. They were cut because someone in Washington decided they didn’t matter.
Steve Daines stood by and let it happen.
He didn’t hold hearings. He didn’t tour impacted communities. He didn’t raise his voice on the Senate floor. He didn’t demand answers. He followed orders from Trump and said nothing while Montana was dismantled piece by piece.
This is what abandonment looks like.
Montana has always been a place where people take care of each other, where neighbors pitch in, where we build together, and where we fight for what’s ours. We expect our elected officials to do the same. To work for us, not for donors, not for presidents, not for party bosses in Washington.
If Steve Daines won’t do that, he doesn’t deserve your trust or your vote.
What’s at stake now isn’t just a budget. It’s our schools. Our food systems. Our forests. Our future. The basic promise that if you work hard, raise your kids right, and care for your community, your government will have your back. That promise is being broken. Quietly. Relentlessly. Deliberately.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
We can fight for a government that works again, for a Montana that’s strong, self-reliant, and proud, not hollowed out and handed over.
We just need to choose it.
This is your call to action. Call Senator Steve Daines at (202) 224-2651. Tell him to stand up to the president and demand the executive branch unpause grants and funding for essential services in Montana and award federal funding allocated by Congress. Tell him to do his job and stand up for Montanans.
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