Our accomplishments in the past year
- Passed the most significant health insurance reform in generations to help working families and small businesses.
- Reformed financial aid and increased Pell Grants, making it easier for middle class families to afford a college education for their kids.
- Passed tax credits to make it easier for middle class families to buy their own homes.
- Created countless jobs by making smart investments in infrastructure:
· Better roads like the Kalispell Bypass and Bench Boulevard in Billings.
· Reliable drinking water systems like the projects that will supply clean drinking water to tens of thousands of Montanans in rural communities.
· More cops on the street to keep drugs out of our communities.
· Stronger homeland security. - Reformed Wall Street, putting an end to taxpayer-funded bank bailouts and getting rid of the notion that a single company is “too big to fail” in America.
- Took on the credit card industry — making the rules easier to understand, getting rid of unfair fees, and holding credit card companies accountable.
- Strengthened fair pay for women in the workforce with the Lilly Ledbetter law.
- Improved transparency in government requiring Congress to post online all office expenditure reports.
- Kept our promise to America’s veterans by investing in the health care they earned. Earlier this summer — the President signed into law Senator Tester’s Rural Veterans Health Care Improvement Act which will:
· Improve transportation for veterans to VA facilities.
· Make permanent the 41.5 cents-per-mile mileage reimbursement rate.
· Expand the VA’s ability to recruit high quality health care providers in rural areas. - Achieved all of these accomplishments while still cutting taxes for 99 percent of Montanans.
· Taxes last year were the lowest they’ve been in decades.
· The Senate passed 25 different tax cuts.
· The Recovery Act alone included more than a half-billion in tax cuts for Montanans.
