Jon Tester for U.S. Senate

Dirty Dozen Campaign Lies from Junior Senator Debunked

Sen. Conrad Burns has far more tricks than treats up his sleeves this Halloween, and he’s using them to scare Montanans into keeping him for six more long years in Washington.

Jon Tester’s U.S. Senate Campaign on Tuesday debunked a lies Sen. Burns frequently uses in his struggling race against Tester. Here are a dozen lies from a new report called “Burns’ Pathological Halloween,” which is available online here:

BURNS LIE #1: Sen. Burns claims Tester failed to protect children from online sex predators.
TRUTH: Tester released his plan to fight child sex predators today. And as a leader in the Montana Senate, he voted to sentence predators who sexually abuse children to life in prison. Sen. Burns, on the other hand, voted against the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996.

BURNS LIE #2: Sen. Burns repeatedly claims to have never raised taxes.
TRUTH: Sen. Burns has raised taxes and fees 570 times on things like tires, vaccines and fuel. Burns’ increases amount to a staggering $450 billion.

BURNS LIE #3: Sen. Burns denies supporting a 23%-or-higher national sales tax.
TRUTH: Sen. Burns verified he “strongly supports” a national sales tax when he filled out survey for Montana Family Action 2006. He also supported a national sales tax in a survey he completed in September for the American Taxpayers Union.

BURNS LIE #4: Sen. Burns claims Tester opposes tax relief.
TRUTH: Tester’s tax cut plan emphasizes tax cuts for middle-class families, including tax relief to first-time home buyers and college tuition tax breaks.

BURNS LIE #5: Sen. Burns claims Tester raised taxes on 16,000 small businesses.
TRUTH: When Tester challenged Burns to name one of those businesses, Sen. Burns could not. Sen. Burns apparently wasn’t paying attention when Tester voted to lower taxes on 13,000 small businesses.

BURNS LIE #6: Sen. Burns claimed Tester voted to raise taxes on families making $24,000/year.
TRUTH: In 2005, As President of the Montana Senate, Tester voted to lower income taxes and provide property tax relief for 95% of Montanans.

BURNS LIE #7: Sen. Burns claims Tester voted against the Bull Mountain Coal Project.
TRUTH: Tester never voted against the Bull Mountain Coal project. He voted to prevent a mining company from transferring a revoked permit to another company without having to undergo a rigid reapplication process. Tester strongly supports responsible development of Montana’s natural resources.

BURNS LIE #8: Sen. Burns claims Tester is a big spender.
TRUTH: As President of the Montana Senate, Tester worked with Governor Schweitzer to balance the state budget on time and without raising taxes. Under Sen. Burns’ watch, the U.S. National Debt has tripled to nearly $9 trillion.

BURNS LIE #9: Sen. Burns claims he has delivered $2.2 billion to Montana.
TRUTH: The number Sen. Burns touts is inaccurate. According to a report by Lee Newspapers, at least $1 million Sen. Burns claimed never came to Montana.

BURNS LIE #10: Sen. Burns claims Tester’s position on Iraq constantly changes and that he wants to “cut and run.”
TRUTH: Tester has never said he wants to “cut and run” from Iraq. From the beginning Tester has encouraged President Bush to come up with a plan to bring home U.S. troops as soon as possible. Tester has always supported all American men and women in uniform.

BURNS LIE #11: Sen. Burns claims Tester supports flag burning.
TRUTH: Tester was the only Democrat in the Montana Senate who voted to make flag burning a crime, and he would support a federal law making desecration of the American flag a crime.

BURNS LIE #12: Sen. Burns claims Tester supports gay marriage.
TRUTH: Tester supports traditional marriage between a man and a woman.

If you’ve been watching TV in Montana in the past week, you’ve witnesed Conrad Burns’ latest misleading ads, in which he trys to hide behind Democratic Senator Max Baucus in the final week of the election.

Today the Tester campaign released an ad featuring Senator Baucus that sets the record straight: Baucus supports Jon Tester in next Tuesday’s election — not Conrad Burns.

The AP has more on this story.

Plan contrasts Burns’ hypocritical record of failing to protect victims of sex crimes

In light of Sen. Conrad Burns’ failures to protect victims from sexual predators, Big Sandy farmer and U.S. Senate candidate Jon Tester on Tuesday unveiled his multi-part plan to crack down on sexual predators, especially those who use the Internet to target their victims.

When elected to the U.S. Senate, Tester plans to:

• Establish an Internet Safety and Child Protection Trust Fund to help law enforcement combat Internet and pornography-related crimes
• Replace the adult website ‘honor system’ with a better system to verify age
• Hold Internet service providers and the telecommunications industry more accountable for efforts to fight child predators
• Dedicate resources to cracking down on child predators who fail to register

Tester’s full plan is available online here. It is a clear contrast to Sen. Burns’ record on sexual predators.

Sen. Burns not only voted against the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996, he voted against funding to protect children from child pornography. And he voted against requiring sexual predators to report their addresses to authorities.

Last month the Department of the Interior–which Sen. Burns oversees–released a study that revealed its employees spend a significant amount of time at work surfing adult and illegal websites. Some DOI employees even kept child porn on their computers. But Sen. Burns has refused to call for an investigation. [Department of the Interior, Office of the Inspector General, “Excessive Indulgences,” September 2006; Knoxville News-Sentinel, 3/3/06; AP, 4/14/05; Washington Post, 10/5/06]

Sen. Burns is currently criticizing 37 state senators including 18 Republicans, who, along with Tester, voted against Senate Bill 139 in 2001. The bill would have unnecessarily required Montana libraries to install Internet filters, even though those filters were already in place.

Instead, as a leader in the Montana Senate, Tester focused on more effective measures, continually voting to toughen laws against sex offenders.

• He voted to sentence predators who sexually abuse children to life in prison. [SB 381, Tester yea, 2/21/05]
• Tester voted to restrict where sex offenders can live and work in Montana. [HB 434, Tester yea, 3/31/01]
• Tester voted to monitor sex offenders electronically. [SB 207, Tester yea, 3/18/05]
• Tester introduced legislation requiring sex offenders to pay the cost of registering with the State of Montana. [HB 308, Tester yea, 3/31/03]

Tester has also signed a pledge from the National Association to Protect Children, vowing to increase law enforcement efforts to track child sex predators. Sen. Burns has refused to sign the pledge.

“Sen. Burns likes to play political football with important issues like sex predators,” said Matt McKenna, Tester’s spokesman. “But when it comes to protecting our children from known sex predators like Congressman Mark Foley, Sen. Burns has fumbled.”

Inbetween stops on his Countdown to Change Tour (full schedule here), today Big Sandy farmer and former music teacher Jon Tester returned to his roots, teaching the basics of trumpet and tempo to a classroom full of preschoolers and kindergartners.

Tester began the class at the Billings Montessori School with his trumpet in one hand and a bag full of kazoos in the other. Together, they played and hummed various renditions of ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ while learning the fundamentals of music.

Tester, a trumpet and piano player, taught music to elementary students years ago in Big Sandy, where he currently operates a dry-land farm.

“I had a blast,” Tester said. “Kids are our future. They’re full of energy and they’re eager to learn. It’s always great to get back to the classroom.”

Additional photos can be found on the campaign’s Flickr photostream.

Confronted with undeniable facts, Burns’ mouthpiece refuses to come clean on Burns’ record of raising taxes

Sen. Conrad Burns’ mouthpiece and Montana Republican Party Executive Director Chuck Denowh refused on Monday to admit the truth about Burns’ record of raising taxes, even when presented with evidence by a nonpartisan arm of Congress. Big Sandy farmer Jon Tester, Burns’ opponent in the U.S. Senate race, called on the junior senator to tell Montanans the truth about Burn’s tax record.

A report released this week by the Montana Democratic Party tallied 570 individual tax and fee increases supported by Sen. Burns over the last 12 years. The list includes higher taxes and fees on items including gasoline, airline tickets and even vaccines for Hepatitis and influenza.

Despite these facts, Denowh said, “Conrad Burns has never voted for a tax increase, period.”

Unsatisfied with Denowh’s false explanation, Tester on Tuesday called on Burns to come clean on his record of raising taxes.

“Montanans want a serious debate on taxes, and we can have one as soon as Senator Burns does two things: First, he needs to stop lying about his record and then he need to stop lying about mine,” said State Senate President Jon Tester. “Conrad Burns must have hoped that nobody would read those 12,000 pages of tax bills he supported. Now that they have, maybe Senator Burns can face the facts and he and I can have a serious discussion about whether tax cuts should favor working Montanans like I’ve proposed or whether we should pass cuts for the mega-rich and special interests while imposing a new sales tax on every Montanan.”

Details of Burns’ taxes can be found in a new report from the Democratic Party called “Never Say Never Again,” which is available online here.

The report relies on research from the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, which analyzes fees and taxes passed by Congress.