BILLINGS - Senator Max Baucus is confident the president will have a health care reform bill on his desk before the end of the year. That topic dominated a roundtable discussion Friday in Billings with small-business owners.

The Senator took questions and said it's important to pass health care reform even if the bill doesn't contain everything he'd like to see in it. "The consequences of inaction are much worse," he said.

Baucus said with health care and climate legislation, half a loaf of bread is better than none.

"Social security as important as it is today was very modest when it was enacted in the 1930's,” he said, “we started small and over time looked at it and improved upon it each year, and that's why it's such a great program today."

Baucus predicts a health care bill will be signed into law by the time the president delivers his State of the Union address.

At that point, Baucus said, the president will focus on job creation. "We rank pretty low in the country in per capita income and we want to do our very best to get that back up again,” he said, “a lot of back and forth with Billings area businessmen is ways to do that."

Local businessmen also looked for answers on climate change legislation, but Baucus said any action is at least a year away. Baucus did say a 14% reduction in emissions by 2020 is feasible and practical, but thinks the 20% mark Senator Barbara Boxer has proposed would unfairly burden the economy.