Senator-elect Guest on Sunday Morning Classic
Jon Tester Meets the Press
By Jill Kuraitis, 11-19-06
The long-running “Meet the Press,” now with interviewer Tim Russert, is a gauntlet every new Washington D.C. pol must run.
Montana’s U.S. Senator-elect Jon Tester, who joined the broadcast from Big Sandy, teamed up this morning with Virginia’s newly-elected Jim Webb to answer Russert’s questions about the new Congress.
Russert ran a TV commercial from the Tester/Burns campaign – the spot in which Tester said, “we need an end to Burns’ corruption” and asked Tester what he thought of having a new Office of Public Integrity.
“I’m not crazy about another bureaucracy so I’d have to take a look at that,” said Tester. But, he added, “we need to get ahold of the earmark situation and make it transparent.” He also said that Senators’ meeting schedules and calendars should be posted publicly. “We should post who the Senators meet with, lobbyists etc., so people back home can see it, put their two cents in too.
“I know it’s hard on staff, but transparency in government is important.”
Russert asked Tester what he thought about not being appointed to the Appropriations committee, even though Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) had said he would be. “I can deal with issues of importance to Montana from the Senate floor. You can’t affect the process unless you know what’s on the floor at the time.”
Russert: “ If you got on Appropriations, would you want complete transparency for that committee?” Tester made a big commitment when he said, “Absolutely. You get a lot of projects funded that are completely pork projects. That has to stop.”
The most important domestic issue, said Tester, in response to Webb’s comments about American workers, is that “There’s no more middle class, the working poor aren’t even being addressed. Those are the people who brought us here [to Congress] and they need to be empowered. It’s time to show them attention…..We have to use policy to help that situation.”
Webb, who has more military background and experience, took the technical questions about the Middle East for the most part, but Tester had his say as well. He said it’s important, when the Iraq situation is resolved, “to know what we’ve accomplished when we’re done.”
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Actually, he's been host since 1991. That's 15 years. You really ought to get out more.
During the campaign Tester said he wanted to end earmarks. Perhaps Harry Reid has been talking to him. See: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-earmarks13nov13,0,6024897.story
>>>>Reid called funding for construction of a bridge over the Colorado River, among other projects, "incredibly good news for Nevada" in a news release after passage of the 2005 transportation bill. He didn't mention, though, that just across the river in Arizona, he owns 160 acres of land several miles from proposed bridge sites and that the bridge could add value to his real estate investment.<<<<<
Oh, thank you - you see, I'm very, very old. Fifteen years is but a mere flash in the pan. :)