Tester talks spending bill, infrastructure, northern border in press conference

Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., held a rural press call Thursday to discuss progress on the Democrats’ spending program, infrastructure bill and the opening of the U.S. northern border to vaccinated people.

Tester said he hasn’t been able to dig into the fine details of the revamped social spending program which the Biden administration unveiled yesterday, but he knows it contains critical targeted investments to decrease the cost of child care and housing, address the needs of veterans and bring more health care staff to rural America.

This revamped spending program would cost $1.75 trillion over 10 years, half of the originally proposed $3.5 trillion, and while Tester said there will surely be things in it he doesn’t like, it is very important to Montanans.

He said one thing he worked successfully to have stripped from the package was the stepped-up basis tax proposal which he said would have negatively affected small businesses and family farms in the state of Montana.

Tester said the change was misguided and would have had unintended consequences that hurt Montanans and he’s happy to see it gone from the new package.

Tester also talked about the infrastructure bill that passed in the Senate months ago and has been stalled in the House since.

He said President Joe Biden called for a vote on it Thursday morning and he has encouraged House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to bring it up for a vote immediately.

Despite most of them supporting the bill, Progressive Democrats blocked the effort to bring it to a vote later that day, over the cuts to the social spending bill and demanding the social spending bill be voted on first.

Tester said the infrastructure legislation would be a win for Montana and the larger U.S. economy, and is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to invest in roads, bridges and highways, as well airports and rural water projects, including $100 million for the Milk River projects.

It also makes investments in high-speed internet, wildfire prevention and doesn’t raise taxes on working Montana families, he said.

He also talked about the recent announcement that the U.S. northern border would be open to the vaccinated Nov. 8, which he said was incredibly important to northern Montana especially given Canada’s importance as a massive trading partner.

During the call Tester was asked if he thought the stipulation that border crossers had to be vaccinated was “discriminatory.”

“No,” he said.

He said hospitals throughout the state are filled with the unvaccinated and health workers are burning out rapidly due to the pressure inflicted by the pandemic which needs to be brought under control.

Tester lamented that last year seemingly everyone was begging for a vaccine to be developed as quickly as possible, and rightly so. But now people are taking unproven and dangerous drugs like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin instead of a provably effective and safe vaccine.

He said he doesn’t understand why this vaccine is suddenly such a huge problem when vaccines for mumps, measles, polio, rubella and a host of other ailments have been used for decades without issue.

He said this is especially frustrating given how effective the COVID-19 vaccines are at saving people’s lives, which the numbers in Montana back up.

“The people who are dying are the ones who haven’t had the vaccine,” he said.

Tester was also asked about Sen. Josh Hawley R-Miss., who recently called for U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to resign for offering support from the Federal Bureau of Investigation to local school boards to investigate threats of violence made against members.

Hawley, and other congressional Republicans including Sen. Steve Daines, have characterized this offer of assistance from the FBI as an effort to stifle the free speech of parents.

Tester disagreed with this characterization, saying the FBI is looking into threats of violence being made, something that is both inappropriate and against the law.

He said he served on a school board himself for nine years, and while parents absolutely have a right to voice their opinions at meetings, they do not have a right to harass and threaten members of their local school boards.

“You can’t have parents threatening people,” he said.

Tester said this was a transparent attempt by Hawley to blow the situation out of proportion for the sake of getting press.

“Hawley is always running for president,” he said. “... Everything he does is focused on 2024.”

He said parental engagement is necessary for schools to operate properly, but in so many cases seen recently, meetings have gotten so out of hand that school board members need help to address threats made against them.

Tester also talked about the federal government looking into Montana’s management of wolf populations.

He said he helped get the animal taken off the endangered species list around a decade ago after their population had stabilized, and the reason the issue is being looked into again is because management tools used have changed dramatically in the last year.

He said wolves are an important part of the ecosystem and if it turns out that too many have been killed in recent years then it sets back his work over the years so it is worthwhile.

Tester said he hopes they stay unlisted, but as long as the issue is examined with proper scientific rigor, he will be satisfied.