Fagg bashes Tester during Havre stop

Montana Republican U.S. Senate candidate Russ Fagg slammed Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., for voting against a temporary spending bill that ended a recent government shutdown, and said it showed Tester is out of step with Montanans.

Fagg criticized Tester during an interview Monday when he was in Havre for a campaign event coordinated by the Hill County Republican Central Committee and the North Central Pachyderm Club.

"He was one of 18 senators who also voted to continue the shutdown, which I don't think is in line with Montana's interests," Fagg said.

"He has just kind of lost touch with Montana," he added. "He is kind of out back there with the liberal elites and I think the vote, he was one of 18, shows that in stark numbers."

Tester voted against a stopgap measure last week to keep the government funded until Feb. 8 that extended funding of the Children's Health Insurance Program.

Tester, who is running for a third term, said after the vote that he believes the Senate needs to stop passing short-term resolutions and approve a long-term budget,

"Congress has failed to do its job by failing to pass a long-term budget that works for Montana, which is why he took a principled stand to say enough is enough," Chris Meagher, Tester's campaign communication's director, said Monday.

"Jon believes we need to responsibly fund the government for the long-term and address funding for community health centers, like Bullhook (Community Health Center), provide long-term certainty for our military and make our borders stronger," Meagher said.

The vote against the continuing resolution has been characterized as a protest against the extension of Defered Action of Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program. The program created in 2012 by President Barack Obama through executive order, was meant to protect dreamers from deportation until Congress could pass a bill that would do so.

In September, Trump said DACA would expire in March, unless Congress took action that would extend the protections, increase border security and overhaul the nation's immigration system.

Most of the senators who opposed the short-term resolution, Fagg said, did so because they wanted action taken to continue protections for dreamers.

Tester with his vote, Fagg said, was prioritizing illegal immigrants over military veterans and the children who depend on CHIP.

Fagg, a former member of the Montana House of Representatives and a recently retired state district judge, officially launched his campaign in November and is one of several candidates in the Republican primary.

The only Republicans who actually have filed are state Sen. Al Olzewski, R-Kalispell, and Bozeman businessman Troy Downing. Other Republicans who have said they will file include state Auditor Matthew Rosendale of Glenndive, Ron Murray of Belgrade and James Dean of Havre.

Tester himself and Dean's wife, Sarah Dean of Havre who has said she will run as a Democrat for the same seat, also had not filed as of this morning.

Fagg said his background as a fourth-generation Montanan and a judge places him in a unique position.

"I think it really puts me in a great position because I've made a lot of decisions," he said. "I've had to look people in the eye and say 'I disagree and this is why' and I think that is going to serve me well back in Washington, D.C."

Fagg said endorsements from former Montana Republican U.S. Reps. Rick Hill and Denny Rehberg and former Republican Govs. Stan Stephens, Marc Raciot and Judy Martz, along with 40 other former and current state legislators, shows his campaign is gaining momentum.

Fagg said the issue he is most focused on as a candidate is creating economic growth.

During his time on the bench, Fagg said, he has seen people in criminal, civil and family cases who have come before him who are struggling and the thing that can help them most is better economic opportunity, growth in jobs and increased wages.

Fagg said such growth can best take place through less government and more individual responsibility.

"The government's job is not to create jobs, government's job is to create an opportunity for jobs and an atmosphere for jobs," he said.

Fagg said the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 passed by Congress and signed into law by Trump in December has strengthened the economy.

He cited reports of companies giving pay raises and bonuses to workers, and a roaring stock market.

"We are already seeing the benefits of the tax cuts," he said.

The tax bill, which also reduces the estate tax and the corporate tax rate, passed Congress without the support of Democrats.

Tester and other Democrats have said the law disproportionately favors the wealthy over the middle class.

Fagg said that while the wealthy will pay less, the law benefits nearly all taxpayers.

Tester and other critics also have said the tax cuts would increase the federal budget deficit.

Though Fagg said it is unconscionable that the national deficit keeps growing and the cost will be passed onto future generations, he added that he thinks the tax cuts will generate enough economic growth to offset the cost to the deficit.

Fagg said he believes that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, has been a disaster for health care in America,

Congress unsuccessfully tried last summer to repeal the landmark health care law, but fell short of the votes in the Senate to do so.

If the law is repealed, Fagg said, a replacement for it will have to be put in place.

The health care system, he said, needs to be made more competitive and improvements can be made by expanding the use of health savings accounts and allowing consumers to buy insurance across state lines.

Fagg added that there should also be greater price transparency so people know how much a medical procedure costs. He said computer programs and websites exist that allow consumers to see how much medical procedures at different hospitals charge and that those hospitals are ranked by how well they have done in the past.

Fagg said he would rather address immigration through a series of votes on individual bills rather than one major comprehensive piece of legislation.

He said he would support bringing a bill up that just extends protections to dreamers in the DACA program, a stance that puts him at odds with Trump and other Republicans.

"When I was in the Legislature, I liked stand-alone bills and either vote it up or vote it down based upon its merits," he said, "and I really like that idea of let's vote up or down a DACA package, let's vote up or down border security. If there is a compromise, certainly you want to look at that, but I like the stand-alone bills."

Fagg said that the U.S. cannot deport every DACA recipient but it cannot give them amnesty either.

"There is a middle path that is based on secure borders and vetting them carefully and based on merit, deciding whether they should be allowed to stay or not," Fagg said,

He added that DACA recipients who have not broken any other laws, are employed, pay taxes and have learned English, should have the opportunity to become citizens.

People who are criminals, don't have a job and are "sucking off of society" should have to leave, Fagg said.

The investigation into whether Russians interfered in the 2016 presidential election and whether Trump obstructed justice should be allowed to continue, Fagg said, but the inquiry must be done fairly.

"We need to get to the bottom of that, whether it is Russian influence in favor of the Republicans, whether it's Russian influence in favor of the Democrats," Fagg said."We need to find out what happened. We certainly don't want that to continue in the future."