Baucus pledges federal support for education

Adding brainpower to Montana’s job base is the only way to create
better jobs for the state’s workers, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont.,
said Monday, and that means education must be funded.

By SCOTT McMILLION Chronicle Staff Writer

Baucus spoke to about 175 members of the Montana Education
Association/American Federation of Teachers at its summer
conference at Montana State University.

The state is facing big budget cuts in the ongoing special session
of the Montana Legislature and AFT vice president Jim McGarvey
said education already has taken some well-aimed whacks from
the budget cutter’s axe.

When state regulators raise tuition, refuse to replace workers and
try to impose unpaid furloughs for state workers, that’s "selective
taxation" on educators and public servants, McGarvey said.

"Education is vital to Montana’s economic development," he told
the union members, calling for increased taxes on cigarettes and
accommodations. "Revenue is available."

Baucus, running for a fifth term, also focused on the role of
education in economic development. Low-tech, low-skilled
industries don’t offer the state much hope, he said.

"We don’t want the shoe (making) jobs," he said. "Let them be
based in China."

He said he had helped deliver $204 million in federal money last
year for education in Montana, including $40 million for special
education and disadvantaged students.

"I’ve been working to oppose (school) vouchers," he said, to
strong applause from the gathered education union officials.
"That’s important."

Federal money accounts for only about 8 to 9 percent of the total
education dollar in Montana, he said, and while that percentage is
growing, he said it must get even bigger.

"We’re trying to inch it up a little," he said in an interview after his
speech. "Uncle Sam has to do more."

For the short term, Baucus said he is hoping the U.S. House of
Representatives will pass a bill the Senate passed last week that
increased the amount of Medicaid money for states.

The federal government finances about 73 percent of Medicaid
programs and states pick up the rest of it.

In tight budget times, states typically start cutting Medicaid, he
said, and sending more money to Helena would allow lawmakers
there a little more flexibility.

"It can free up some money," he said.

If the House refuses to pass the bill, he said he’d take it up again
in the Senate, where he is chairman of the powerful Finance
Committee.

Baucus also told a story illustrating how things get done in the
Senate.

He became Finance chairman last year when Jim Jeffords, a
Vermont Republican left his party and became an independent,
granting Democrats a majority in the Senate and giving Baucus the
chairmanship.

The move also shuffled a lot of other positions, and Sen. Harry
Reid wanted to chair the Transportation subcommittee, which
oversees highways.

Baucus said he’d give him that job "under one condition; you give
me everything I want for Montana. He said ‘that’s a deal.’"

"Now," he quipped. "I get up early every morning, go over to Jim
Jeffords house and take out his laundry. Lots of other senators are
doing the same thing."

Baucus is facing Mike Taylor, a Republican State senator from
Proctor in the November elections.

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