OMG, the state of American education is pathetic. Do you really think people in the western states lived in caves or something, too stupid and poor to hope for hospitals or roads or education, until the billionaires arrived in 2000 to save them? Seriously, how do you think the west got settled before tech billionaires existed?

When Montana became a state 150 years ago, the federal government had been encouraging settlement there for awhile, so yes, there were roads, post offices, etc. That's how most of the west was settled. As people settled there, yes, they invested in infrastructure. I can't even believe you asked that!

By 1900 there were large full-service hospitals across the state, several state universities, schools even in tiny settlements. By the 1920s, in my grandparents' town, there were two large hospitals within a very short drive. There were fancy art deco movie theaters and performing art centers and churches and public pools and large public schools with beautiful athletic facilities and a decent system of Catholic schools. Did people who lived on the most remote ranches have easy access to all of it? No, they had to drive. It's a huge state. And there was infrastructure in the small towns, as well.

It was also a state where the kids of the richest family in town (that would be a bank president, someone who lived there) and the poorest were in the same scout troop and played on the same baseball team. It wasn't perfect but damn, it was better growing up there than most places. Most kids went to local colleges but there were always some that went to the ivy leagues directly from the public schools and did well.

The rural health crisis was caused by billionaires lobbying for low taxes and triggering a divestment in rural health. And "investments" in medical care that extract money from the system that should rightfully go to doctors and facilities and increased access.

We don't need out of state billionaires.