Tester Holds Q&A With the Phillips County News

Last week the office of U.S. Senator Jon Tester, of Montana, called the PCN and asked if arrangements could be made for an interview. The notice was posted on another media (Facebook) and individuals were encouraged to send their questions of concern for the Senator to address and comment on. These questions are a result of your inquiries for information.

The question/thought presented to him is in bold and his response follows.

1. Small towns, including Malta, have lost their retirement centers, and also facing the possibility of losing their hospitals as well. We have been told that of the reason causing the closures is due to increased unaffordable government regulations. Would you share your insight and thoughts on this matter? Also, is there any possible way we would be able to reopen our retirement center?

CMS put down a rule and we pushed back; one size fits all. Rural America is rural America. What works in the large cities and towns doesn’t always work for us. It is discouraging as staffing is an issue in the less populated areas.

The bigger issue is that State dollars ($1) is matched with Federal dollars ($2) for funding. The Governor put out a report on funding and it did not reflect what the actual costs are for hiring staff. Legislation needs to be cooperative. You need to pound into CMS to take all factors into account.

If the facility closes down, they are not going to open. It is a big infrastructure issue. Work to keep them open.

I think if there is the will, a community can keep it open.

2. Your thoughts on the APF:

The members of the APF are mostly people from the east or west. Anyone can sell to them, I oppose any sale to the Chinese, N. Korea, Russia, or Iran. It is a slippery slope… I would rather see ranches operating and viable. It is a private right to see your property.

I would like to see some meat packing industry available that would increase the cow-calf market and value so ranchers don’t have to consider selling as an option.

There was a tax bill that passed through which was supposedly to help the middle class but the rich got the most benefit from the bill. These people have already bought their home in Palm Springs and in Manhattan and all the cars they want, now they are buying land. Until we get the tax bill squared away, that’s another problem.

3. Your thoughts/ideas on the southern border:

We need to focus on technology and manpower. Unfortunately, the fentanyl problem is real. I had a number of bills that got passed. We need to have the technology to battle it, and the manpower to enforce the laws. We have to make sure we have the technology to protect our officers that have to handle the garbage. If the truth be known, it is doable. If there’s a will, there’s a way.

It’s been made into a political football, which doesn’t help. If I had my druthers we would pass a comprehensive immigration bill that would make it work. We are a country of immigrants, we’ve been a great country because of immigration. Get an immigration plan, fund the borders, get money for technology and manpower for a work force that businesses can continue to build and grow and expand.

Unfortunately, it’s been so politicalized it is hard to do anything without political stones being tossed.

4. What does the bill impact?

Target it and find it before it gets here. They are pretty ingenious in the way they hide drugs and people coming into the country.

I think we need to utilize the technology – in some cases it is there and we just haven’t invested in it

I was down to the border a couple years ago.

We need to determine where it is: in the wheel wells etc. They are creative – I’ll give them kudos for that but they are also crooks. Stop it before it get into the country.

5. What do you see for support for our veterans?

I continue to push for access and to get the care for our veterans… they have earned (it)…

You know as well as I do – you have a lot of veterans in Phillips County and a lot of veterans that live in MT. We owe it to them; we have a lot of veterans and making sure they have access to health care is critically important

I have done a lot of things as far as exposure which is an incredible advance in veterans care…it is being implemented as we speak. For mental health with the John Scott Hannon Health bill, which is a huge issue in our nation, especially among our veterans ...they came back in a bad way that has changed them and in a very bad way mentally. It can be fixed, we need to remove the stigma from the mental health issue. The VA is leading the way through alternative ways through John Scott Hannon and conventional methods of Mental Health.

Truthfully, my focus, because we had a good session last congress in getting things passed, it is about implementation. It’s about ensuring the VA has the manpower and facilities they need to deliver mental health in rural America because it’s a long distance between towns that have VA clinics and so we need to do our best to make sure we are keeping them open and fully staffed.

The idea of mental health is one people don’t want to address, even the victim of mental health. It’s a tough one to break through and admit hey, I could use help.

6. It is a tough one to admit and recognize mental health.

I agree with you 100%, because of the stigma around mental health people don’t want to make that admission, because people will look at them in a different light when the truth is: if you have a broken arm you can fix it – if you have a mental health issue you can fix it…you need to approach it from those angles.

The stigmas have been there for generations and we need to break it.

7. How are things sitting with the St Mary’s project?

We got 90M out of bipartisan infrastructure bill that I worked on with 9 other people to get it across the finish line.

That is a huge help for the communities or irrigators of the Milk that depend on it for water...there’s more work to be done and we continue to have bills to push it forward…but make no mistake about it, we would be in big trouble if we didn’t have that 90M out of the bipartisan infrastructure that I wrote and put the money in specifically in for projects that needed help and St Mary’s is one of them.

You can’t build diversions and canals with clean air – it takes money

8. What does MT have planned for the excess revenue?

That is a Montana legislative question.

Part of it should be used to maximize the match to make sure to nursing homes don’t close. Put it toward work force housing. It’s a big issue even for Malta much as bigger cities; make sure we have affordable housing - the business can start up and the businesses there can expand. I think it is critically important and I think child care is a big one. If I were in the legislature those are three things I would be looking at in a very serious way insofar as allocations for dollars

When I was in legislature they always said it was tougher when you had money than when you didn’t’

That’s partially true…they have some opportunities to help working families and small businesses reduce cost.

9. We have a lot of businesses that are closed or cut back on hours because of lack of employees.

So that goes back to the southern border issue. That’s why I think we need comprehensive immigration reform. We have more jobs than we have people for, I guess that’s a good problem to have unless you are looking for people to go to work for you.

We educate folks, people from other countries and then boot them out of the country because we don’t have an immigration plan

Just as our grandparents and great grandparents and great-great grandparents immigrated, we need to have folks get in line and have a pass way for citizenship. That will help with the lack of employees that can help these businesses expand and develop goods and services and entrepreneurs start up and grow.

Every effort was made to compile this as accurately as possible; due to the interview being recorded, it is possible some translation was misinterpreted.