HELENA -- Montanans likely will feel the reverberations from House Republicans' splitting of the state spending bill through the end of this legislative session and probably into the 2008 political campaigns.

The issue, for better or worse, figures to dominate the remainder of the 2007 Legislature, and its news coverage until the Legislature adjourns in late April. It may well turn out to be a major issue in the 2008 governor's and individual legislative races.

So what happened and why should it matter to those Montana individuals and businesses that pay their taxes to finance Montana state government?

On Thursday, House Republicans made good on their recent pledge to break House Bill 2, the traditional single state spending bill they killed a week earlier, into six parts.

The sum of the six parts is less than the whole. The GOP chopped $241 million in general-fund spending increases proposed by Schweitzer over two years in HB2.

However, the six bills would not actually cut existing budgets, Republicans emphasized, but trim back proposed increases in existing spending. Republicans said they are looking to raise the state's general fund spending by 13.3 percent over the next two years, compared with Schweitzer's proposed 22.6 percent hike.

Questions abound.

Can Republicans get the six budget bills out of the House where they have just a 50-49 majority over Democrats, with Rep. Rick Jore, a Constitution Party member, often against any increased spending? Will House Democrats refuse to vote for these GOP bills?

Are the six bills legal? Democrats and the Schweitzer administration question their legality, although the measures have passed muster with legislative leaders?

Won't the Senate, where Democrats outnumber Republicans 26-24, just pump the money back in the bills that House Republicans cut? So what has been gained?

If so, won't Republicans attack Democrats as big spenders in the 2008 elections? Or will Democrats turn the tables and accuse Republicans of being big spenders if all of the proposed Republican tax cuts are counted?

What are Republicans really trying to do? Are they trying to get Schweitzer to buckle to their demand for permanent property tax relief, even if some of it gives large corporations hundreds of thousands of dollars?

What will Schweitzer do? He has said he will not consider the budget bills piecemeal. He wants them all at once or has threatened a veto.

Republicans insist the shift to six bills will increase accountability. It frees legislators to vote for a couple of budget bills and against others. Under a single HB2, lawmakers sometimes had to hold their noses over sections they found repugnant, while still voting for the overall bill.

Democrats accused Republicans of ignoring the testimony of 1,100 Montanans who testified on HB2 earlier and drafting the bills in secret without public participation.

Republicans replied they are scheduling three full days of for public comment on the new bills before the House Appropriations Committee beginning the morning of March 5.

House Republicans believe the Schweitzer budget is bloated and needs to be shaved.

As further evidence, they cited a page-one story in this weekend's Wall Street Journal about how many U.S. governors are abandoning fiscal restraint and proposing hefty budget increases that outstrip inflation

"Big Budgets," the Journal headline says. "Forget Austerity, State Spending Ratchets Higher." A few inches below is a line drawing of Schweitzer, the first of three Democratic governors pictured in the story.

Deeper in the story, Schweitzer defends his budget increases by citing the state has a need to "educate, medicate and incarcerate" and pay for these programs' rising costs. He defends his proposal to create "meth prisons," his planned $150 million in tax cuts and his call to spend $170 million on capital construction projects with cash, instead of bonding them.

"The governor and, it appears, many more states are trying to expand government beyond the ability to pay," House Appropriations Chairman John Sinrud, R-Bozeman, said. "We're trying to control the spending so we don't come into the situation we came into in 2003 (with a $232 million projected budget deficit)."

David Ewer, Schweitzer's budget director, defended HB2 as proposed as sound and sustainable. He said the budget addresses problems Schweitzer inherited upon taking office in January 2005. These included overcrowded prisons, insolvent public pension funds, an unconstitutionally inadequate school funding system and rising university tuition that made college unaffordable for some Montanans.

Ewer criticized the House Republican budget actions as "an unprecedented form of brinkmanship."

Democrats also are questioning the fiscal restraint of House Republicans leaders. They are circulating a sheet calling House Majority Leader Michael Lange a "big spender," citing nine of his bills that, as introduced, would cost the treasury $608 million over the next two years. Some are proposed tax cuts that have since been scaled back.

House Minority Floor Leader Art Noonan, D-Butte, said he's actually voted to reject $360 million in increased spending proposed by Republicans. That prevents the GOP from painting his party members into the tax-and-spend corner.

So the debate over the budget is more than just a calculator and green eyeshade topic. It boils down to fundamental questions of what are Montanans' basic priorities, as reflected by their legislators' decisions, and what do they want for their tax dollars.

How much of the budget pie would you slice up for education and how much for prisons? How big should the health care piece be? Would you serve up a piece for tax cuts?

You can pass on your pie orders -- or answers -- to your lawmakers when they're home for the halfway break late next week.

Chuck Johnson is chief of the Lee Newspapers State Bureau in Helena. He can be reached at (800) 525-4920 or (406) 443-4920. His e-mail address is chuck.johnson@lee.net .