As the “summer of recovery” appears to be anything but, the bad economic news certainly isn’t keeping politicians from touting the so-called federal stimulus bill. Here’s what Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) had to say in an interview with KECI in Missoula:
“It’s been positive all around. And it’s kept some people working that otherwise would’ve been out. And it’s created some jobs in the process. I can tell you this we were on the edge of a financial meltdown in september 2008, we were on the cusp of bad things happening so this thing, we’re not out of the woods yet, but I think the recovery act was a step in the right direction.”
Click here to listen to the audio:
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All this, as Missoula’s economy has taken a hard hit, especially after the closure of Smurfit Stone in Frenchtown. Interestingly enough, the Washington Examiner opined last week that the stimulus bill cost more money than all the years of the Iraq War combined. Seems to me the domain name for any economic recovery won’t have dot-gov in its address.
Meanwhile, The Missoulian provides an update (if there really is one) on Senator Tester’s wilderness bill. Tester didn’t have much to report, but did have this to say:
“We’re 95 percent there to get it out of committee,” Tester said. “It still revolves around the cut language. There’s going to be mechanical treatment in that bill – there’s got to be.”
Of course, there can be mechanical treatment (logging) in the bill all they want, but it only takes one judge to block it all.
If you read this Tuesday morning, Senator Tester will be holding more public meetings in Helena and Anaconda according to The Helena IR.
The Helena meeting is from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Helena Regional Airport upstairs conference room. The Anaconda meeting is from 3:30-4:30 p.m. at the Anaconda Local Development Corp. in the third-floor conference room.