'They can't afford to live here': Deep red Montana town faces DOGE fallout

[justaprogressive]

Harsh DOGE-related cuts are endangering a research facility serving as a huge economic driver for in Montana’s town of Hamilton.

Built in the middle of a conservative, blue-collar community of 5,000, Rocky Mountain Laboratories generates hundreds of millions of dollars for the local economy through spillover to other industries and retail. But NPR reports Hamilton is “a prime example of how the Trump administration's mass federal layoffs and cancellation of research grants are being felt in communities far from Washington, D.C.”

Former Rocky Mountain Labs researcher Kim Hasenkrug said he despised President Donald Trump's vow to let Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. "go wild" on health issues.

"We're beginning to see what 'going wild' looks like," Hasenkrug said. "These cuts will not streamline research. They will throttle it."

Forty-one Rocky Mountain Labs workers were let go or told their contracts would end this summer, and nine more took advantage of time served to retire early. The departures come as the Trump administration slashed at least $29 million in grants to Montana recipients, from university scientists to the state health department. Research has slowed, and NPR’s local affiliate reports scientists have struggled to buy basic gear. Researcher say even more cuts are planned for workers who buy and deliver critical supplies such as antibodies.

https://www.alternet.org/doge-economy-layoffs/

[hatrack]

1. Ravalli County MT - 2024 General Election Results: Trump - 69% Harris 28%

https://electionresults.mt.gov/ResultsSW.aspx?type=CTYALL&cty=41&map=CTY

From the Alternet article above:

The conservative town contains a diverse assortment of ranchers, outdoor workers and scientists. Nearly 70% of county residents voted for Trump in 2024, but now NPR reports residents and leaders are worried about the economic consequences of an exodus of federal workers and their salaries.

Ernst told AlterNet the town is already reeling from earlier federal cuts to the U.S. Forest Service, which fired workers who cleared trails and maintained the government-managed public land that comprises “72 percent of the county.” He's not pleased to see that federal threat extend to Rocky Mountain Labs, which funds satellite contractors and suppliers. The company's well-paid employees also spend generously at local shops and businesses.

EDIT

So, yeah. Y'all fucked yourselves.

Start dealing with it, like big boys and girls do.

[Lokee11]

8. Someone call the Whaaaammmulance -

✊FDT!

[markodochartaigh]

28. Hopefully

some entrepreneur will open up a bootstrap shop soon.

/s

[mwmisses4289]

2. Yet another fafo story.

you were told, you didn't listen. If you want sympathy, go find a dictionary and look it up.

[DinahMoeHum]

4. "Sympathy" is between. . .

. . .the words "shit" and "syphilis"

[OMGWTF]

17. "Republican" is between 'reptile' and "repulsive" in the dictionary.

[Prairie Gates]

3. The "dirty" secret that Trump and his supporters fail to understand: the US is essentially a socialist economy

So much of the US economy is simply held up by government spending. Without a trillion dollars pumped into red states in the form of defense spending, they would have economies like many third world nations. Without various federal programs, some of our states would look like failed states in Africa and elsewhere. All these "blue collar" residents of Hamilton, Montana think they are rugged Western individualists and vote GOP every time, but their lives and economy are completely supported by federal tax dollars, most often yanked from New York City and Los Angeles and Chicago and other places they proclaim to hate. They are not self-sustaining places. They collapse without massive infusion of federal and state funds. The secret is this: capitalism has never worked, any more than communism has. All modern economies that are not utterly failed are some version of a mixed (socialist) economy. There are differences in degree, and differences in how they represent themselves (ideology - the imagined understanding of one's real material conditions), but they are all socialist in character.

The US has been seduced by its ideological illusions. It will now have to learn the hard way.

Hey, Hamilton, Montana. Welcome to the Desert of the Real.

[Bluethroughu]

20. Our Constitution is a socialist document.

It is WE THE PEOPLE and our country belongs to us! We are not a dictatorship with a daddy, or a monarchy. We are not an oligarchy or autocratic nation, this is OURS and we've neglected to act as such.

If this was a TV in somebody's garage and a criminal walked in to break it or steal it, people would put up a stink...we need MASS PROTEST, telling this administration to all resign immediately and be held CRIMINALLY ACCOUTABLE FOR ATTACKING OUR COUNTRY.

[RobinA]

29. How Are You

defining socialist?

[haele]

30. Socializing both risks and profit.

Look, the US military and Federal Government Workforce are socialist systems. They're Hierarchal Authoritarian styles of Socialism, but there's a floor that sustains and incentives the workforce, and benefits are commiserate to the task being done. Funding for everything comes from a common pool where each organization plans it's expenditures, and all "profit" goes back to that common pool where it can be spent on maintenance, training, improvements to the organization, and new services or innovations.
Organizations exist for the customer or service provided, not for a single benefactor or small group of investor/benefactors.
And the system works just fine - it's scalable as necessary.
You tell me what that system of economics is is.

[NBachers]

5. Tripped over their own bootstraps and they can't get up

[Autumn]

6. Join the 61 % of america that can't afford the basic necessities.

You got what you voted for.

[BoRaGard]

7. "Ha ha. Montana suckers. Ha ha." - Krasnov (R-Felon/Rapist)

Sooner or later, the republicon casino hustler SUCKERS everyone.

[Old Crank]

9. What they voted for.

They just thought the waste, fraud and abuse was not in their area.
They didn't realize that some one spending $24K per year in the community actually increases community business by 3-5 times as the money circulates.
That doesn't even count the extra money spent directly by the government to ancillary companies that support the government mission. No more government support for them.

[Chasstev365]

10. Awww That's a Shame!

Hey Dumbfucks: You reap what you sow.

We can only hope you learn to stop listening to Fox distractions such as transgender athletes, caravans on the march to the Texas border, and Democrats taking away your guns BEFORE the 2026 midterms.

What Democrats should be telling you is that you are chumps who fall for Republicans lies ever time!

[Clouds Passing]

11. Leopards are hungry

[Lokee11]

18. They are finding a lot of faces to eat though -

And getting fatter by the day



✊FDT!

[Clouds Passing]

22. And unhealthier due to the large amount of toxins ingested

[IronLionZion]

12. Yeah but think of the sweet tax cuts

Tax cuts can help unemployed people.

[erronis]

13. Full NPR article and Kaiser Health Network reporting

Just to cite the source and another article.

https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/05/26/g-s1-68777/nih-rocky-mountain-laboratories-montana-federal-cuts

https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/rocky-mountain-laboratories-hamilton-montana-nih-funding-research-rural/

[FakeNoose]

14. It's an economic fact of life ... it's never just about firing federal employees

It's also ending EVERYTHING those former federal employees were supporting with their paychecks: spouses, children, local schools and communities, local real estate, grocery stores where they shop, the gas stations, bakeries, dry cleaners and other local services they frequently support, and on and on.

Doesn't matter whether it's a red state or a blue state. When the federal paychecks stop, so does the money that flows through the local economy.

When will the MAGAs finally get it?

[OMGWTF]

19. MAGAts are S...L...O...W......L...E...A...R...N...E...R...S.

[patphil]

15. This is an article from a Montana newspaper.

https://dailymontanan.com/2023/11/29/rosendale-moves-to-strip-pathogen-research-funding-from-rocky-mountain-laboratories/

Willful stupidity, and an anti-science mentality are working overtime with Montana Republicans.
With a little luck they could probably succeed in closing down Rocky Mountain Laboratories.

[DBoon]

27. key summary

...
Earlier this month, eastern Montana’s Republican U.S. Rep. Matt Rosendale included an amendment in a federal appropriations bill to strip research funding from Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, a key U.S. pathogen research facility, because of its prior work researching coronaviruses.
...
While groups of right-wingers have for years now blamed China and some U.S. officials for purposely releasing the virus on the public, the fervor over Rocky Mountain Laboratories and Rosendale’s subsequent amendment appear to stem from an article published Oct. 31 by the Daily Mail, a British tabloid, with the headline: “REVEALED: Anthony Fauci-run lab in MONTANA experimented with coronavirus strain shipped in from Wuhan a year BEFORE Covid pandemic began.”

Their own rep wanted the lab shut down, based on an absurd conspiracy theory pushed by a British tabloid and echoed by Fox news.

[patphil]

31. DFSOB'S

They don't get any stupider than this guy.

[Wonder Why]

16. Awww! They can always self-deport and collect $1,000

[Blue Owl]

21. This is what happens when you elect an asshole

[wolfie001]

23. Pretty sure Montana's property tax rate laws were written to keep the state white

They've always been astronomical. Maybe it's the local rates but I remember insane taxes 15-20 years ago. All rich corporate white folks who own ranches as 2nd, 3rd or 4th homes, take a flight there and go fly-fishing. Have immigrants run the farms, milk the cows. Sell their "grass-fed beef and dairy" products at a premium. Slap a fancy "all-natural" label on it.

[peggysue2]

24. Perfect!

Agent Orange and his Flying Monkey Brigade up-turn jobs, uproot families, destroy local economies and in this example halt medical research because . . .

Chaos and cruelty and destruction is the point.

Welcome to the world of Trump and the oligarchs where the basic ethos is:

Enough is never enough. We want everything.

[ananda]

25. But at least the border is safe...

and uppity women are being put in their place.

[Midnight Writer]

26. "generates hundreds of millions of dollars for the local economy"

That is why these DOGE cuts are so ridiculous.

So far, under Trump, federal spending is UP over the same period last year.

Federal spending stimulates the economy. The better the economy, the more tax revenue is collected. Killing programs that stimulate the economy not only affects the livelihoods of individuals, families, and communities, it hurts our overall Federal budget.

There are no "savings" here, just deprivation of services that we as taxpayers are paying for. That we as taxpayers deserve. That we as taxpayers would have if our government was working for the people.

[Ford_Prefect]

32. Not to defend my foolish neighbors but: None of them knew how much DOGE and Congress would gut the economy before the

election. The wholesale firings and agency destruction was not expected to apply so quickly. IMO most thought it would occur through congressional action in the usual if politically charged way of Trump1. I doubt my neighbors had any reason to think Elmo and DOGE would or could act so peremptorily. They have believed there was waste in government but I doubt they had any idea how far DOGE or Trump intended to go.

To be fair they were given a false choice and expected more responsible decisions to be made. Yes, I hear you saying that you couldn't possibly believe that Trump would do so. I agree. But they were also lied to by our Governor, Montana Republicans in our legislature, our Congressmen and Senators about how Medicaid and Medicare, among other key programs wouldn't be touched.

I don't defend their poor judgement, nor their faith in a toxic cult, nor their willful condemnation of all kinds of fellow citizens, or the wanton desecration of education, science, or American History and Law.

However, you can only blame so much on them alone. They WERE manipulated, lied to, and deliberately deceived about the choices to make by people who were very well paid to do it, and who were elected to public office on the expectation that they would honestly act in the public interest.

There are very few in the GOP ranks of the House and Senate who could not be blamed at this point. Most of them DID know what was intended and most welcomed it. I cannot say to a man how many expected the assault on Law and Order, on Diplomacy, or National Health. I am sure the MAGA knew some of what was intended and probably worked to facilitate it.

IMO there are a few ropes in need of stretching in that regard, what with such treason being high crimes and felonies. I understand mass murder is considered to be a crime against humanity. 80 years ago there were trials, imprisonment, and executions meted out to those who were held responsible for the programmatic deaths of millions of European Jewish citizens. The programmatic, and wholly avoidable, removal of health insurance, healthcare, nutrition, and housing support to millions of American citizens dependent on Medicaid and Medicare will lead to their deaths either by immediate medical calamity or slow death through starvation and homelessness. These are the informed and willful choices made by elected GOP members of the House, Senate, and state legislatures along with GOP governors, and the Senate approved heads of our agencies and institutions.

They KNOW that people will die. They KNOW that this could be avoided by a simple and modest tax on the ultrarich oligarchs. They revel in the idea that they have won the culture war and consider that this is justice for having lost the Civil War 160 years ago.

I am no longer willing to extend my hand on cooperation with them. All of the chaos and death they are generating is intentional. I fully expect they will attempt to invalidate the interim elections in 2026 by any and all means they can muster. They are already trying to sell off what is left of our public lands.