Congressman Denny Rehberg, by his own admission, has placed various earmarks in recent legislation, including funding for the World Trade Center. The total of these earmarks is $42 million. There's just one word for bragging about bringing federal money home for projects and then voting against the legislation that funded them: hypocrisy.

Congressman Rehberg has said he could not vote for the Recovery Act or the spending bill because of the excess spending and earmarks therein -- the same earmarks he worked to place in the legislation. More importantly, once he voted against both of these measures, he then paraded around the state touting the benefits of the infrastructure improvements such as water projects, roads and bridges, school improvement projects, etc. He voted against these exact projects. In my neighborhood, that's like taking credit for shoeing a string of horses you've never seen.

Montana has until now avoided the real crunch of the economic meltdown. However, that's changing. Unemployment in Montana just since the end of 2008 has jumped from 5.4 percent to 6.7 percent today and is expected to reach 9 percent by year's end. Montanans are hurting. More families are having difficulty paying their mortgages, educating their children and providing the basics to their families. Farmers and ranchers face the situation where the value of our crops and livestock is less than cost of production; that's simply not sustainable.

Congressman Rehberg is traveling the state talking about the need for good-paying jobs. Yet he's voted against raising the minimum wage at his every opportunity. He voted against the Recovery Act, which will provide 11,000 good-paying jobs in Montana. Only a professional politician who's been eating out of the public trough for more than two decades could believe he could get away with talking out of both sides of his mouth. This hypocrisy must stop and there should be accountability.

Montanans know Rehberg voted for polices that took a budget surplus that existed when he went to Washington in 2000 and turned that surplus into a $1.7 trillion deficit by 2008. The national debt doubled as he consistently voted in favor of the Bush-Cheney economic policies. These are the unpleasant facts and Congressman Rehberg owes Montanans an explanation.

From 2000 until 2008 the financial sector (the big banks) spent $5 billion on U.S. federal campaign contributions and lobbying efforts. Rehberg enjoyed a portion of these funds and this investment paid off big time for the banks. Rehberg and Congress during this timeframe refused to impose new regulations on our banking system, rolled back long-standing regulatory control, and refused to enforce the regulations that were in place. In doing so, Congress and Congressman Rehberg consistently voted for Wall Street and against Main Street, Montana.

Finally, most hypocritical of all is that after voting for the policies, which have brought us to the brink economically, he refuses to offer a solution. I am very much concerned about our nation's rising debt and believe that once we've stabilized the economy we'll have to roll up our sleeves and make the commitment to pay down our debt. I know Montanans will ultimately make the sacrifice to do just that, because we've always risen to the challenge.

However, to do so, we must have an honest debate and make positive suggestions on how to fix the economy and our banking system. We cannot talk about good-paying jobs or the need for infrastructure improvements and then fail to support legislation that does both.

Dennis McDonald is chairman of the Montana Democratic Party and a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives.