Big Sky Times

U.S. Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) is not necessarily concerned about the federal debt ceiling, but he is concerned that his campaign is running low on funds.

"I hate asking for money, Tester tweeted April 30. "If I could go without it, I would. But this Senate race will be the most expensive election in Montana's history. And right now, our numbers just aren't where we need them to be. So, yeah, I really need your help."

In mid-January, the federal government hit its debt ceiling amount of $31.4 trillion dollars. Hitting this mark means the government can no longer borrow any more money to be able to pay its bills and may run out of money and the ability to fund itself completely by the beginning of June. 

While Republicans in the U.S. House have already sent a bill through that would make dramatic cuts to spending in an effort to slowly turn the state of the budget around, they were faced with refusal from President Joe Biden, who was supported by many of the Democrat representatives, including Tester and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

On Twitter, Tester included a link to his donation site and asked, “Can you please make a donation of whatever you can afford to help us reach our end-of-month goal by midnight? We're about $7,293 behind. Thank you.”                

Sanders told CNN, “The president is right. What we need is a clean debt ceiling bill. You pay your bills, and then you can sit down and negotiate what a sensible budget is.”

In another clip of a CNN interview, Tester told the interviewer that a middle-ground budget that has spending cuts tied to the debt ceiling would be “a big mistake, I think it’s a big mistake.”               

Despite Montana being a generally red state, Tester has held his office as a Democrat since 2007 and has announced that he is running for reelection for the next term, which would be his fourth, according to the New York Post. His campaign funds, however, do not show much home field support, as the majority of his campaign donations so far this year have come out of California. He has received almost $700,000 from the west coast state, compared to just $400,000 from Montana.