Jon Tester

The Jobs for Veterans State Grant Program could work better in Montana.

We have got a lot of vacancies in the VA, and I will tell you that red tape is not something we should be working on.

I do not want to see myself losing the farm or my neighbors. That is all. And I know you do not either.

You combine that with what is going on with TPP where I believe 11 nations signed it, the United States was not part of it.

If I own it, I can stop it.

I think that sounds really good to me, but in practice, let us think about this for a second.

I am telling you I would have faith in the U.S. Government.

Montanans are deeply concerned with this breach of privacy and trust.

This is a troubling episode that completely shatters that liberty, so that you understand the magnitude of this.

They allowed a foreign company to steal private information from tens of millions of Americans largely without any knowledge of their own.

Facebook is an American company, and with that I believe you have got a responsibility to protect American liberties central to our privacy.

If we privatize this beast the veterans will be up in arms, and should be up in arms.

You said multiple times you are not in favor of privatization. We have heard from every VSO except one that they do not want to see privatization. Yet, boy, I see privatization written all over this budget.

I fought hard to make sure this was the case.

I absolutely am committed to redoing the regulations to help rural facilities get greater funding.

In Montana they are doing their damndest to privatize the VA.

Again, the answer from Tribal witnesses would have been, 'Yes.'

I would hope you would not oppose that when it comes through, okay?

If you can do something about this and give us some instruction, put it back on us.

In this case, increase is not a good thing. Declinations increased by 20 percent.

If you do not oppose it, then we would probably do it and get it done.

Would you be opposed, when the Appropriations Committee gets done with massaging these numbers, if they carve out a certain percentage of that $10 billion for Indian Country?

We are not getting it done. I think it is a big issue in Indian Country because of violence against women.

I need to know what you had in mind when you crafted your budget for this.

I just need to know why because it is unacceptable.