Petition To Sell Montana To Canada To Ease US Debt Goes Viral

A petition on Change.org has gone viral after it called for U.S. to sell Montana to Canada because of its growing national debts.

In the petition created a week ago, Ian Hammond noted how the country's debt has grown while jokingly quipped that the state is "useless" to the U.S.

“We have too much debt and Montana is useless. Just tell them it has beavers or something.”

As of today, the petition has already surpassed the initial goal of 10,200 people to sign, on its pace to reach 15,000 online signatures.

Montana’s Great Fall Tribune published an editorial last week, in response to the petition. The editorial noted that many of those who signed were coming from Montana.

The editorial even joked, “Are you trying to hurt our feelings, man?” A question was also raised as to whether it will be named Southern Alberta or still as Montana.

Montana’s Financial Status

In a report released by StateData Lab in September of 2018, Montana earned ‘C’ Grade on it’s financial health. The report also said that their elected officials created what is called the Taxpayer Burden. This scheme defined as money available (or needed, if a burden) to pay bills divided by the number of state taxpayers, is the share from each taxpayer on the state bills after tapping all available assets.

As of 2017, the report said, the state of Montana has total bills of around $6 Billion, yet it only has a total asset of $4.9 billion. Therefore, Montana’s assets are insufficient to take care of its debts.

It was also reported that Montana is considered a ‘sinkhole state’ as it needs additional funds from the taxpayers to pay all its bills.

Reason for Signing the Petition

With the ongoing petition to sell Montana to Canada, thousands who have signed the proposal stated their own reasons for supporting. Although there were some who found the petition a way to voice out their dissatisfaction with the government, most of the reasons were comical.

One of the people who signed the petition stated, “I live in Montana and I don’t want to have to deal with America's problems with global warming and nukes and school shooting when I grow up. This seems like the perfect opportunity to fix those problems and get me free healthcare and out of Donald Trump’s path of destruction."

There are also others who believe that selling Montana for $1 trillion could help the U.S. with its national debt.

“Would reduce yearly interest on debt by 30 billion, which you could spend on other stuff. If Canada will buy it then great deal” one of the petition signee said.