With an unemployment rate of 13.8 percent here, nobody has to tell Flathead County legislative candidates what will be at the top of most voters’ minds in the June 8 primary.

“People are struggling right now,” House District 8 candidate Steve Lavin said. “There’s no jobs and they’re losing jobs … The best thing we can do in the Legislature is to encourage business through lower taxes.”

Carl Glimm, Lavin’s opponent in the Republican primary, sees it much the same way.

“In the last five years the state budget has grown 40 percent, and now the state [government] is the largest employer in the state,” Glimm said. “We can’t continue that. The private sector is what’s going to create jobs. When the government hires people and grows the budget, the private sector has to pay for it through taxes.”

Early voting began Monday for the primary election.

The winner of the Republican primary advances to the November general election to face Independent Bill Jones and the victor of the Democratic primary contest between Dane Clark and Bryan Schutt. House District 8 covers the Kalispell area.

Both Glimm and Lavin see the business equipment tax as one of the biggest culprits in discouraging companies from doing business in Montana.

“Essentially it’s a sales tax on a business,” said Glimm, a custom home builder. “That’s why there are 67 drilling rigs on the North Dakota side and six on the Montana side. Why would they want to move to the other side of the border and pay the tax?”

But it’s crucial, Glimm said, to bring them across the border.

“Responsible development of our natural resources is a no-brainer,” he said. “It creates resources for our state.”

Lavin, a sergeant with the Montana Highway Patrol, identified it as the biggest tax legislators need to reduce or eliminate entirely.

Overall, he said he thinks Gov. Brian Schweitzer has done a decent job with the state’s budgets. He particularly likes the governor’s plan to engage the public by offering a specially minted palladium coin for the best cost-cutting idea.

But he said efforts need to reach further.

“We need to look at a broad spectrum of all agencies and investigate to see where we can make cuts and lower taxes on people,” he said.

Lavin said he would get serious about zero-based budgeting, a method that requires each year’s expenditures to be justified instead of simply basing them on the prior year. The initial work to implement it would be worth the eventual cost savings, he said.

“Every department function is reviewed comprehensively and every expenditure must be renewed rather than just increase or decrease last year’s expenditures,” he explained. “Each manager has to justify what he is doing from the bottom up.”

Glimm said the state should have kept pace with the slowing conditions all along.

“The economy in the state has been slowing down for a couple years,” Glimm said. “The state should have been paying attention all along and been working with it rather than reacting to it now.”

Revenue projections in the 2009 Legislature overshot today’s reality, leaving the state short-funded.

“Some will say we’re short, so we need to raise taxes,” he said. “That’s not the answer. If you think we’re slow now, wait until we raise taxes and see how we come to a grinding halt.”

The Legislature also will have its work cut out for it in revamping the state’s medical marijuana regulations, both candidates said.

“The solution to the medical marijuana issue is in the argument that was used to pass the citizen initiative,” Glimm said. “If it’s a drug to treat a medical problem, it should be treated like a drug to treat a medical problem … It’s pretty easy to get a [patient] card. I don’t think that was the intent of the people who fought so hard for this with chronic pain, and I don’t think that was the intent of the voters.”

In his law enforcement work, Lavin said he has seen an uptick in crime related to marijuana and would rather see some research into repealing the law.

“I haven’t seen anywhere, read or been shown any proof that it serves medicinal purposes,” Lavin said. “I just am against legalizing any illicit drugs … I think it’s something we need to investigate a little bit.”

Lavin said he will count on his listening abilities to get at the heart of what his constituents would ask of him in the House.

“I think that’s what legislators are for,” he said. “It’s not your opinion. You represent the people in your district.”

Glimm’s arena for public connections, he said, comes as a small business owner who knows how to create jobs.

“The government can’t create jobs, the private sector needs to create jobs,” and that’s something he’s focused on daily, he said. “I deal with businesses — and you do that, you talk with people, you negotiate contracts. There’s always situations that you have to come up with solutions, and we have to do that in Helena.”

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com