Amish and Mennonite scribes produce the content, but Miller and others who aren’t Amish edit the paper – including sometimes removing controversial content on politics, sex, violence, drugs, and alcohol.

Nevertheless, cultural gaps inevitably occur between the writers and editors.With its conversational tone, the paper includes some of the same cultural colloquialisms as everyday small talk, which means it can range from mundane to nearly foreign to readers from outside the community.

Our church services were at Lyndon Lambrights. Visitors on the minister’s bench were Jason Stutzmans, Leonard Hochstetlers, and Loren Stutzmans. Next services to be at Marlin and Laura Miller.
-Mrs. Kenny Vera Jones, Middlebury, IN

We had our buggy horse re-shod at grandson Samuel Byler’s last week one evening. Sams and their two boys had been headed to a ball game at Toby Detweilers’ last week one evening when their horse threw a front shoe. It came in through the open front, made a ringer on Margaret’s forehead and flew on out the open half door in the back of the buggy.
-Daniel M. Yoder, Lamar, MO

“Only in The Budget can you read, ‘She is on a wheelchair going backwards,’ in a letter about someone’s health, or ‘The yard sat full of people,’” says Walnut Creek, Ohio, scribe Willis Miller with a laugh. “Pennsylvania Dutch doesn't always translate” well into English.

In recent years especially, as more and more settlements appear across the country, being a scribe for The Budget has become a position of status within a community. With access to nearly the entire Amish and Mennonite population, their words carry some weight.

Cory Anderson is a sociologist and Holmes County resident who converted to the Anabaptist faith at age 18. In doing sociological research on the plain people, he has a unique perspective on the dynamics of the community he joined.

He notes that “the staff at The Budget are very much conscious of the ‘trash talk’ that plain people (subtly sometimes) level at each other to influence each other’s behavior. If (someone writing for) The Budget gets a little too [snippy], [editors are] going to hear about it,” he says. These days, Anderson attends a conservative Mennonite church with his wife, Jennifer, who also converted to the faith.

While The Budget is about as different from a typical newspaper as one can find, and its audience is unique, Milo Miller occasionally receives feedback similar to many newspaper editors and publishers today.

“I just never thought I would field calls of people telling me I’m part of the leftist agenda,” Milo Miller says. After all, he publishes columns such as “Cookin’ With Maudie” and “Just Plain Mom,” which chronicles such chores as dusting cobwebs over homeschool books in early August. But some have complained when they hear from a scribe that the paper edits out blatantly political and potentially polarizing content.

Aside from the occasional such complaint, most of The Budget is non-controversial. Scribes rarely spare details, and it has the feel of a comfortable conversation over a cup of coffee.

Greetings from a white house. I normally start this on Sat. evening, and then tidy it up on Mon. morning after gathering a few tidbits at church, but we had some neighbors come over Sat. evening and this did not get done then. …
-Everette D. Burkholder, Dayton, VA

A sunny hello and news from the Pequea. … The Fishers pumpkins measure 10’’ round and some 10’’ long. We offer our condolences to the carpenter John Z. Ebersol family, … as 83 year old John died last week. John was a gifted barn framer and well known carpenter in southern Lancaster Co. In his retirement he made model barns, perfectly made to scale; only thing missing was the sound of hundreds of hammers in the old time barn raisings.
-Sam Stoltzfus, Gordonville, PA

Weather is a common topic, as the communities rely on sun and rain for healthy crops and gardens. Scribes often begin their Budget letters this way.

Another sunny, warm day after our 2” of welcome rain last week. Cucumbers are just starting and lots of garden goodies again.
-Dan and Clara Miller, Kennan, WI

We are having a very welcomed rain. Farmers are making second cutting hay. Oats are ripening, but looks like a short crop.
-Alfred M. and Mary Yoder, Clark, OH

The paper’s most faithful readers are older members of the community, though readership has recently been trending younger, Milo Miller says.

“People – older people – reserve their Wednesday evenings just to read The Budget. The diehards,” says Willis Miller, the scribe from Twp. Rd. 419, just outside of Walnut Creek, Ohio, who is not related to Milo Miller.

Willis sits in his kitchen with his latest column in front of him on the dinner table. His report covers eight pages – double spaced – all in cursive longhand, neatly torn from his Budget-issued yellow, legal pad. Each Monday, his employer lets him use the fax machine in the breakroom of Hiland Wood Products to send his column to the Budget’s editors, who type his prose into a computer and ship it off for Wednesday’s paper.

“In school, when we played ball, I was almost always the last one to be chosen – I was not athletically gifted,” Willis Miller says with a laugh. “But God in his wisdom knew not to make us all alike. I love to write, I love to use words, particularly descriptive adjectives.”

It shows.

Last summer, Willis Miller wrote in the July 21, 2021, edition about a fatal crash a few miles from his home, describing a community’s grief with raw emotion.

Our community is reeling due to the July 9 bicycle/motor vehicle accident claiming the life of 20-year-old Monica Miller. Monica was on her bicycle at the intersection of St. Rt. 515 and U.S. 62, where this happened. Unbelievable being here one moment and gone the next. Does our life hang on a thread so slender? Bringing grief so raw and stark family, with her absence in the home, the youth circle, and the church family becoming so real. … Unashamedly, we shed tears and cry, being part of the healing process and acceptance. … Where would we be minus the support of family and friends with tear-stained cheeks offering words of consolation?
-Willis D. Miller, Walnut Creek, OH

Many of his peers also find joy in crafting richly detailed prose for the paper.

Nature has a way of holding our attention in different ways, certain times of the year. Now when we enter the woods in the fall, it is often stealthily, with hopes of observing whitetails, and maybe bagging one. A few months later our focus shifts to all maple, as we tap trees and boil maple syrup. Now our eyes feast on those thorn patches, and all the little ripe berries-black raspberries.
-Tobie C. Yoders, De Graff, OH 

These simple letters contribute to a sense of community. The strong Christian faith within Amish and Mennonite groups is at the core of the bond between distant settlements, and The Budget provides another layer of glue to hold communities together. 

 “There’s no other newspaper like it in the world. It’s so unique. It brings all these communities together,” says Willis Miller. 

Having been publisher for nearly two decades, Milo Miller has seen the newspaper grow despite the pressures on other modern newspapers. 

A recent Washington Post story said, “Newspaper companies have been struggling to find their financial footing with the decline of print advertising. A recent Northwestern University study predicted that one-third of American newspapers that existed roughly two decades ago will go extinct by 2025.

Newspapering is surely a changing industry. But Milo’s confidence in The Budget doesn’t waver, and for good reason.

“I honestly think, and it’s nothing I’ve done, this will be the last newspaper standing,” he says.

Sophie LeMay writes for TheReportingProject.org, a nonprofit news organization of the Denison University Journalism Program, which is funded in part by the Mellon Foundation.