Daily Inter Lake: Tester says stimulus put people back to work
Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., believes misperceptions persist about the federal stimulus spending and the health care reform, and he discussed soon-to-expire tax cuts along with some of his recent votes during a stop Friday in Kalispell.
Tester told the Daily Inter Lake editorial board that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act often is perceived as accomplishing little more than creating government jobs, but that is not the case.
He said people often overlook the fact that about one-third of the $787 billion stimulus package amounted to tax breaks, and much-needed infrastructure improvement projects put people in the private sector to work.
Without it, he said, “there’s a lot of people who wouldn’t have jobs.”
Tester originally backed the use of stimulus funding for a controversial $8.5 million renovation project at a remote Montana-Canadian border crossing station, but that situation has changed following Canada’s decision to close its side of the Whitetail port.
