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U.S. Senator Jon Tester has been touring Montana in recent weeks talking about jobs and the economy, and on Tuesday his travels landed him in Helena. The News Station's Marnee Banks sat in on the forum to find out how Montanans are viewing their economy.

Tester told the forum, "I go around the state of Montana. I hear a lot of things, from a lot of folks, but I think jobs is the first thing out of most everybody's mouth. I will look for opportunities to put people to work, I will look for opportunities where we can help expand competition in the marketplace."

Tester heard from a panel including the transportation and health care industries, the Chamber of Commerce, unions, and small business owners, and while each industry had specific concerns, the overall sense was that despite economic growth, Montanans are cautious.

Joe Mueller of the Helena Association of Realtors told Tester, "Consumer confidence is probably the biggest issue in front of us, Senator, right now. People are a little hesitant about making their big-ticket purchases."

Tester told the panel he is focusing on creating jobs, pointing out that in 2009 he supported the federal stimulus bill, which he says put people to work all across Montana.

But those funds are running out and Montanans aren't seeing the sustained growth they anticipated.

Webb Brown of the Montana Chamber of Commerce commented, "What I will talk about is still the level of uncertainty that is out there. I really think we need certainty going forward before people will decide to take those courageous steps in hiring, in expanding, in buying new property."

Tester told the crowd he plans on creating jobs by focusing on two main areas, saying, "I focus on physical infrastructure, I am talking about bridges, roads, electrical transmission lines, water systems, sewers, gutters, those kind of things. I also focus on human infrastructure, how we can help our COT's in particular, retrain workers that are much needed in the work force."

Montana State Senator Dave Lewis says after today's meeting the state can't rely on the federal government to help create and maintain jobs here in Montana, noting, "We are going to have to work on developing private sector jobs and certainly glad to hear that the Senator is behind that. But I don't think we can count on a big increase in federal spending, we are not going to see another stimulus bill, we are not going to see another housing tax credit. We have got to quit thinking about those things, and think about what we can do here to develop jobs in Montana."