Tester gets earful on economy

Sen. Jon Tester heard some deep concerns about the economy and the manner in which the government is responding at a roundtable discussion Monday with business and community leaders in Kalispell.

Fresh off of voting to advance debate on health care legislation in the Senate on Saturday, Tester listened and asked questions of about 15 people at Flathead Valley Community College.

They revealed anxieties about the local economy on nearly every level — declines in real estate and construction, taxes and regulation, excessive government spending, banking regulations that have led to tightened lending, high unemployment and the ongoing threat of losing more jobs in the Flathead Valley’s basic industries.

Butch Clark, owner of the Kalispell Grand Hotel, said he has lived through multiple recessions, but he is worried about the current one because he sees “no lasting inertia” in the economy.

“For the first time in my life, the nation is truly at risk, and I mean that,” he said in a choked-up voice.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle need to pay more attention to the economy instead of “spending an enormous amount of time on the wants of the country, not the needs,” Clark said.

“People are nervous right now ... and I think a lot of it has to do with how much government is spending,” said Steve Thompson, an executive with Semitool Inc., which is being purchased by a former competitor, Applied Materials Inc. That purchase has raised anxieties about Semitool retaining its presence and jobs in the Flathead Valley.

Thompson said Semitool and other companies struggle with tax burdens and regulations that their global competitors do not have. As an example, he cited the Sarbanes-Oxley financial reporting legislation that was passed in the wake of the Enron scandal.

“It costs us millions of dollars every year to comply with that,” he said.

Thompson noted that 30 years ago, Semitool was sending 80 percent of its chip manufacturing equipment to computer fabrication plants in the United States — and now it’s the opposite. Other countries with more competitive business environments are attracting most “fab” plants.

Thompson warned against Congress passing cap-and-trade legislation to restrict carbon emissions, predicting it will significantly raise the cost of doing business.

“It’s going to be another [regulatory system] that will make it difficult for companies like ours to remain competitive,” he said.

Several people involved with banking and small and developing businesses spoke Monday about the difficulty in getting loans because of heightened regulation since the financial sector meltdown last fall.

“In the last 18 months it’s been a joke” to hear the suggestion of a small business going to the bank for a loan, said David Fischlowitz, the owner of FischWorks, a green building, remodeling and design firm based in Whitefish.

“Washington fails to distinguish between small business and new business,” said another participant who described how tax credits, for example, aren’t necessarily helpful to a new business that may not make profits in its first years.

Representing the Whitefish Credit Union, Jim Kenyon said that small, local lending institutions should not be bearing the brunt of overregulation when they had no part with troubles in the financial sector.

“We’re not the ones that overstepped our bounds,” he said. 

Steve Todd, the chief operating officer at St. Luke Hospital in Ronan, said reforms are needed for the country’s health-care system, but he’s “not confident in the government’s ability to do it.”

Todd said the health-care industry already is heavily regulated, and he fears that health-care legislation from Congress will increase those burdens and costs.

He said that, too often, the combined liability costs in the health-care sector are overlooked.

“Tort reform has to be part of it and I’m not hearing about that” in the legislation that’s advancing in Congress, Todd said.

Saturday night’s 60-39 vote advanced the Senate health care measure for debate, without a single vote to spare. “We’ve got a month or longer to scrutinize it,” Tester told the roundtable group.

Afterwards, he sounded supportive of the Democratic reform agenda.

“What we’re doing right now is not sustainable,” Tester said, adding that health-care reform will curb the rate of spending increases in health care and it will cut the cost of a federal Medicare program that is project to be bankrupt within seven years.

“I think change is difficult,” he said, referring to people who have reservations about the health-care legislation.

Montana Republican Party Chairman Will Deschamps has a different take, blasting Tester soon after the vote:

“If Democrats truly believed that government-run health care would benefit working Americans, why did Jon Tester and his fellow Democratic senators join their House colleagues in insisting that these votes come in the dead of night, on the weekend, during a holiday week when they thought no one was looking?

“The truth is they know that the Obama-Reid-Pelosi plan will do nothing but increase taxes on Montana’s families and small businesses, cut Medicare for Montana’s seniors and increase costs when Montana families go to the doctor.”

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com