I have been a longtime advocate for lifting the embargo, particularly as it relates to food, medicine, and agriculture commodities to Cuba.

This issue of Cuba will be one of broad interest in Congress.

Will the administration's proposal to transform Tricare Prime and Standard into Tricare Select and Tricare Choice have any effect on the timeline for implementing T2017?

I applaud those efforts. We have seen a number of just individuals--Gary LaGrange, who is retired military in my hometown, has created opportunities for veterans returning with traumatic injuries to enter farming, in this case, beekeeping…

My understanding of the current state of the law in regard to Cuba is that we can sell agriculture commodities, food, and medicine to Cuba for cash.

It is directly related to the ability to have USDA personnel in Cuba, developing relationships with potential customers.

I have expressed an ongoing concern about the ability for particularly rural telephone companies to be able to repay loans.

We have seen significant improvements in the opportunity to sell.

I would express my disappointment that, once again, the President's budget proposes significant cuts to crop insurance.

Thank you for your passion and for your compassion.

But my view is that the government program is the subsidy, not creating additional service in places that are already served.

We cannot compete with the Administration's budget when they use mandatory spending as the solution to funding this and many other programs.

Mr. Secretary, what do you expect the timeframe to be? What schedule are you on?

Food aid, and particularly the McGovern-Dole--in Kansas, we would say the Dole-McGovern program. You are proposing reductions in the spending in that area.

We look forward to working with you on that and other issues.

I would highlight for you that our Subcommittee intends to have a hearing in the next several weeks on this topic of how to bring veterans into agriculture.

I am an advocate, obviously, for expansion of those opportunities in places that are unserved.

We want to work with you to make certain that the training and recruitment, retention opportunities exist at USDA.