I had to shake my head in disbelief when I read Gov. Greg Gianforte's “witty” remark at a VIP fundraiser in Missoula in April. After 16 years of Democrats in the governor's office, he told the hand-picked crowd, it was “like cleaning up Aisle 4.”

Wow. What grocery store does HE run? Because the one I'm in looks like it got hit by a hurricane.

• Gear 1: More than 132,000 Montana residents – including nearly 45,000 children! – have lost their health insurance coverage.
• Course 2: Property taxes for homeowners have just increased by an average of 21%.
• Course 3: Last month, public schools across Montana had to again ask those same homeowners for tax increases to keep good teachers and important programs at their schools. Understandably, half of those levies did not pass.
• Gear 4: While Gianforte is allocating funds to his long-term priority of privatizing and evangelizing public education, dozens of teachers and administrators in Montana's truly public schools have just lost their jobs. The burdens they once bore are now being taken on by other educators who are too busy and less qualified to adequately handle them. Kids are losing access to music, counseling, job-related training…those “little” things that make such a big difference in realizing their potential.
• Gear 5: The housing crisis is exacerbating homelessness in one Montana city after another, putting pressure on homeless and homeless people alike, not to mention local authorities.
• Gear 6: Workers, who are desperately needed to keep small businesses and schools afloat, are unable to find affordable housing. Bozeman, Whitefish and Missoula had previously developed funding strategies to address the problem. Those local solutions were eliminated under Gianforte's signature.
• Gear 7: Remember the pride you felt when you moved into the first home you bought with your hard-earned money? Too many young people in Montana don't know that feeling. Like one in three Americans ages 18 to 34, they live with their parents or another relative.
• Gear 8: The last best place needs love. But for short-term mining profits, we are putting the incomparable Smith River State Park at risk. Fish are dying in weed-ridden rivers in some of the world's most beautiful fishing waters. Our children have had to sue us to get us to address climate change.
• Gear 9: “Purge in aisle 4” is hollowing out state agencies, neglecting the vital services they provide, and leaving workers “trapped in a recurring nightmare.” Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department? The state hospital? The Office of Public Education? Employment is a constant revolving door.
• Gear 10: DPHHS! Our most complex and sprawling agency is run by a non-doctor, Doogie Howser, a Washington wunderkind for whom Gianforte created a top spot. What could go wrong? Ask all the Montanans who lost their health insurance last year. Or the state hospital that lost its federal accreditation — and the money that came with it.

I could go on, but it's too depressing. Montana needs more than a mop to clean up this mess – more like a fleet of excavators and cherry pickers. And what's our governor doing about it? He appoints task forces that blather on ad infinitum while he chills in his new mansion, and no doubt sends a lackey out to check the traps every now and then.

It doesn't bother me that Gianforte just bought his fourth villa. It doesn't bother me that his net worth is over 300 times mine. In every way, I'm richer than Croesus. But it bothers me when the chief administrator of the state I love not only ignores the disasters he has caused but refuses to defend them in public.

The best place to do this is at a gubernatorial debate. So go ahead!