MISSOULA, MT — Today, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will join congressional candidate Sam Forstag in Missoula to promote the same progressive economic and energy agenda that has hollowed out working-class communities, driven up costs on American families, and undermined the industries that once powered the American Dream.
While the event is marketed as a conversation about economic fairness and the working class, AFP-MT says the policies championed by AOC and her political allies would do the exact opposite for Montana families. Their agenda would mean more federal control, more burdensome regulations, higher energy prices, fewer good-paying jobs, and continued attacks on the industries that built communities across Montana.
AFP-MT State Director Jesse Ramos issued the following statement:
“Sam Forstag may live in Montana, but he is bringing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez here to sell Montanans the same ‘Green New Scam’ policies that have devastated working-class communities and driven the erosion of the American Dream across this country.
“For decades, people in places like Libby, Colstrip, and countless small Montana towns built strong communities around energy, mining, timber, agriculture, and manufacturing. Families could afford homes, raise children on a single income, and build lives rooted in dignity, work, and purpose.
“Then politicians and bureaucrats inspired by the same ideology AOC promotes began waging war on the industries that built rural America. They buried projects in endless regulations, blocked development, attacked domestic energy production, and treated the people who actually produce things in this country like obstacles instead of assets.
“Now the same political movement that helped destroy opportunity in working-class towns across America wants to lecture Montanans about how to run our economy and manage our land.
“It’s absurd hearing politicians tied to places like New York City lecture Montana about environmental stewardship. Many Montanans wouldn’t let their dogs swim in the rivers surrounding the cities these activists represent, yet they continue trying to dictate how Montanans should manage forests, energy production, and natural resources.
“Montanans do not need imported progressive ideology or more political theater from national activists. We need policies that unleash American energy, lower costs, create jobs, strengthen families, and restore the freedom to build, produce, and prosper again.”
AFP-MT will continue advocating for policies that expand domestic energy production, streamline permitting, reduce regulatory barriers, strengthen economic freedom, and protect the industries that power Montana communities.