U.S. House Western District democratic candidate Sam Forstag spent half of his life fighting fires, jumping out of planes, and working for a shrinking U.S. Forest Service were some of the sparks that led him to enter the congres sional race.Watch the full story here: Sam Forstag Candidate ProfileIm 32 years old, but my knees are in their 40s after 8 years of jumping into wildland fires.Forstag says working as his union representative when major cuts came to the Forest Service was what pushed him to enter the race. They came in and attacked the Forest Service and our public lands agencies and a whole lot of my members last year.Forstag invited us to his home where we worked on chainsaws and talked about the race. While we were cleaning his saw, he likened it to Congress.Its a lot like the federal government; you let these problems fester, you let all this gunk build up; its going to clog up and stop working. Thats what were dealing with right now.Forstag says he sees the solutions to many of the countrys problems are found with the working people, not the members of Congress who, as he put it, the average congressman is worth 15 times the average American.Administration after administration is greed burning out of control; were in a state that had a quarter of a billion dollars on a U.S. Senate campaign last election while people are living on the streets in record numbers. That is obscene.When asked about the proposal to repeal the Roadless Rule, Forstag says it's absurd.Thats what's so absurd about that change, I mean the Forest Service had a $6-8-billion backlog of road maintenance before repealing the roadless rule. We should be investing in actually making sure we can clear the roads that are supposed to be open before we take a broad brush and talk about punching roads 20 miles into the backcountry.Forstag says hes supportive of making government more efficient.There are some fundamental jobs that the government is failing at right now. I see the role of the government is not to impose a world view on us one way or another. Its to improve our lives. To make sure you can meet basic needs when the market is not meeting them, and the market is not meeting a whole lot of basic needs when it comes to housing, for healthcare, childcare, even retirement.He also says big money is a real part of our countrys big problems.Its people like the AI SuperPAC thats dropped $590-thousand into my opponents campaign already. My opponent, Aaron, is going to be accountable to those AI companies. Im going to be accountable to the working people Ive spent the last decade with and the last decade fighting for.When asked if he had any regrets about leaving his job as a smoke jumper to take on the campaign: I might see the jump plane flying overhead and a little piece of me wishing I was up there in their boots, but right now it very much feels like the stakes are high and where the fight is, is over in Congress.Watch Sam Forstags extended answers on specific issues: Sam Forstag Campaign QuestionsShould the federal government be putting more restrictions on data centers? Should local communities have an absolute right to say no to construction in their area?Sam Forstag: Yes on both counts. The scale and the scope of the data center development that were seeing in this country right now is terrifying. I mean, theyre proposing individual projects that would suck up more power than every residential home in the state of Montana, and these companies are talking about something like $ 4 trillion of development over the next seven years.We need federal laws saying that they cannot build these things, these AI companies, until and unless they can prove that theyre going to provide all their own power. If they want to suck up 30 megawatts of power, they better pay to actually construct that power and the transmission, add that to our grid, but theyre not going to leave our land, our water, our air, dirtier than they found it. Theyre going to use good local union labor in the process, and while theyre at it, these data centers- the real question is what are they powering?Its a technology that is, quite literally, the biggest existential threat we are facing as a country, I think. I mean, this artificial intelligence technology is something that the developers are saying could have a 10-20 percent chance of having catastrophic harm to all of humanity in the next ten years, if we dont get our arms around it. Thats terrifying. Meanwhile, we have people from our own federal delegation, and people like Aaron Flint, my opponent, who are saying that the government has got no role in regulating this technology. We didnt talk about nuclear fusion as something we could just leave to private industry. The federal government should be keeping us safe, keeping our kids safe, keeping our environment safe. Making sure that we arent building a technology that is posing a risk to the entire species. I hope well be able to get into that, but we need serious federal regulations and access to make sure weve got a kill-switch built into these things and make sure that we dont have three tech executives that are more powerful than the whole federal government.Chet Layman: Clearly then youre in favor of local control over anything that, if youre going to develop it in a local neighborhood, then the local control should be there?Sam Forstag: Absolutely, it should be incumbent on these corporations, these companies, to earn the support of a community if they want to come in and develop. We should frankly treat these things a whole lot like mines, because thats what a data center is. Theyre mining our personal data to power the models that theyre building. So if theyre going to come in, they should have to earn community support and put up a bond just like a mining company would to make sure that working people arent left holding the bag when theyre done.Chet Layman: Are there actions Congress could be taking to help improve the supply of accessible, affordable housing in Montana?Sam Forstag: Yes, this is the number one thing that were talking about in this campaign. Its the number one thing I hear across western Montana. Knocking on doors, you know, when I go to Columbia Falls, and I talk to Kathleen, whose entire Social Security check is being eaten up just by the cost of her two-bedroom that shes been in for a decade-plus. We are in a housing crisis right now.We should address it like a crisis; we should make the sorts of investments and reforms we need to make sure the people building those houses can actually afford to buy them on the back end, and people arent having to move one or two cities over just so they can do the work in town. We can do that. We can build affordable housing. Its going to take investments, not in tax cuts for corporations, but investments in building homes.Reforms to make sure you build those homes where you need them and interventions to make sure we have stability for people who are like the mobile home lot five blocks down from here, Mobile City, thats now one of 4,000 mobile home units in this state that are owned by out-of-state private equity firms. Theres when need help from our representatives on this, theres no reason we should let a Texas private equity firm buy up a mobile home lot and jack up rents to the tune of double in two years.These stories are heartbreaking, and theyre tragic, and it feels like were not being heard by our representatives in Congress. And frankly, its disappointing that my opponent has no plan whatsoever to address these things because the problem here is not complexity; the problem is a lack of political will from people who are funded by just those private equity firms. And looking out for them instead of working people on the ground.Chet Layman: Are you supportive of the more aggressive federal immigration enforcement weve seen under the Trump administration?Sam Forstag: I think we need to restructure and reform our immigration enforcement and, frankly, our entire immigration system. Nobody wants violent criminals here illegally in this country. That is where our immigration enforcement should be focused. I mean, right now thats not what were seeing.I worked as a smokejumper until December, and two seasons back I jumped a wildfire in northern Washington, and a week later, I think it was the Cub Creek Fire, we had an entire hand crew of firefighters lined up on day 14, after 14 days of fighting an active wildfire. You know, immigration agents come onto an active incident, line up those 14 firefighters, and take three of them away. That is not the sort of enforcement that actually makes us safer or makes us richer. That is working people paying the price for decades of both parties failing to actually enact comprehensive immigration reform. So Ill work with people in both parties when we win this election to actually get some comprehensive immigration reform passed and thats exactly how Im running this campaign too. I mean, we have 5 former republican legislators endorsing this campaign. A former republican governor is supporting this campaign who were going to be having another town hall with in Libby in about two weeks. If we want to have actual long-term change that is effective and last its got to be across party lines. I intend to govern the way Im running this campaign right now.Chet Layman: Do you think the Trump administrations tariff policy has been successful? Should anything be done to help Montana businesses who say theyve been harmed?Sam Forstag: This tariff policy is successful at jacking up diesel to about 6.58 a gallon, like I saw this morning driving into town. It has been successful at driving up bankruptcies for farmers and ranchers that tripled last year in the state of Montana year-over-year.It has not been successful in making working people any better able to afford the basics, and tariffs are not a bad thing in themselves. This is a tool that we can use to protect vital industries. But tariffs, when theyre used as a tool of chaos and corruption, that doesnt help us. So how do we solve that? Lets return constitutional order here. Lets remember the fact that the power of the purse is something that belongs to Congress, not the executive branch, and lets pass laws to say that Congress should have to approve tariffs before theyre enacted because, again, these things can be a good tool. They can protect industries like the sawmills that we need to save in this state, but theyre not helpful when we jack up rates to 140%, back down to 30, back up. What that does is it wipes out entire markets for farmers and ranchers and leaves all of us paying the price.Chet Layman: Do you want to make any changes to the tax policy Congress passed in the Big Beautiful Bill last year?Sam Forstag: Oh yeah I do. The Big Beautiful Bill had $ 3 trillion in tax cuts that only went to large corporations and the richest people in this country. There were provisions of the BBB that were great.Not everything in the Big Beautiful Bill is bad; no tax on overtime. When Im working as a smokejumper, the only way you make a living is through overtime. Without overtime, my monthly paycheck was 70-80% of just what it takes to keep the 980-square-foot roof over my head. So let's keep no tax on overtime, let's keep no tax on tips, let's keep no tax on Social Security.The trouble is, in that bill, those things that actually help working people expire in 4 years. Cutting the corporate tax rate, cutting income taxes for the highest earners in this country- those things were permanent, and working people should not have to settle for scraps while the richest people in this country actually get long-term help that fills their pockets and leaves us paying for it. Thats not tax policy that serves us; lets ask everybody in this country to carry their own weight just like working people are right now.Im going on at length here, but the story this brings to mind is that if you look at a picture of a smokejumper in our jump gear, it looks like were wearing a big ole diaper. That diaper is our pack-out bag. When you get to the ground, when you parachute into a wildfire, the first thing you do is you pull out your pack-out bag. You put 110 pounds of gear in that thing, and you go fight the fire. When Im packing out of a wildfire, the last thing Im doing is looking around trying to see if anybody else is carrying more weight than me. Im looking around to see to make damn sure nobody else is carrying more weight than me.That is not how it feels that the richest people in this country are pushing or enacting tax policy in this country right now. If you are, when Im working as a jumper, I pay 36% of every paycheck to all the rest, and Im happy to do so. The top 400 earners in this country are paying an effective income tax rate of 3-4 percent. That is why we are $40 trillion in debt as a country. That is why we spend more money on interest every year on our national debt than on national defense. Thats no way to run a country. That's why it feels like we are all poorer than we were last year, and five years ago, and ten years ago, because working people are, and because a very small slice of people are getting very rich off of this broken tax system, and then theyre funneling that money back into our politics. In this race, to the tune of $ 3.1 million of corporate PAC spending and super PAC spending, thats already committed to support my opponent. We dont have to stand for that. WE can fix that by just sending working people to Congress so we can finally fight for ourselves.Chet Layman: Do you want to see further changes to eligibility requirements for benefits like Medicaid and SNAP? Sam Forstag: Yeah, we just saw change in the last five days in this state. Montana just enacted new paperwork requirements that are leaving us all literally paying more for less. The state of Montana is hiring 59 new employees just to boot 30-38,000 Montanans off of their health insurance. When you do that, you know what happens? All of our premiums go up. You have to date 22,000 more Montanans uninsured, with another 30-38,000 coming.My Mom is an ICU nurse, and she would tell you that we already got universal healthcare in this country; you just dont get it until you go to the emergency room.That is the most expensive, least effective way that we could possibly deliver healthcare.So lets repeal that $ 1 trillion of cuts to Medicaid that were made in the BBB, that Aaron Flint cheered on from his air-conditioned radio studio. Lets actually invest up-front to make sure people have access to things like mental health care. To make sure 11% of the homeless people in this state are over the age of 55. To make sure we dont have people showing up in the emergency room of Saint Pats here because they could not afford to get primary care sooner. That leaves us all paying more and the only people that benefit are health insurance corporations that just rake in something like $38 billion profit last year.Chet Layman: Do you support the Trump administrations decision to repeal the nationwide Roadless Rule? Do you want to see changes in how the federal government manages federal lands?Sam Forstag: I would absolutely see changes in how we manage our federal lands. What I tell people, what got me into this race, was this whole department of government efficiency that was supposed to be going after inefficiencies in the government, but in the Forest Service and our public land agencies, what it looked like here was them firing the lowest-paid workers we got.When they fired 360 Montanans in the Forest Service two Valentines Days ago in one day, 85% of them were making $19.70 an hour or less. We were losing GS-2s making 11 bucks an hour. There are inefficiencies in the federal government; the inefficiencies are not the people, the Montanans whose lives they turned upside down in the course of that effort. So the changes we should be making are making sure you can still responsibly harvest timber on federal lands. And that it doesnt take 5 to 6 years to get a timber contract through, as youre tied up in litigation. We should reform those processes to make sure they work like theyre supposed to. To make sure you can get a timber sale through in 6-12 months, not 5-6 years. We should also not wait until its a complete crisis to invest in land management.You know, two hours east of here, two summers ago we had a fire called the Windy Rock. It was 2,000 acres over by Helmville. That fire cost the State of Montana $ 56 million. That is the most expensive, least effective way to manage our land. We should be investing in things like fire mitigation fuels reduction. Making sure that responsible timber harvest is part of that tapestry, when it makes sense.Because we all could be spending millions less. That would save working people a lot of money. It would save us a lot of taxpayer dollars. It wouldnt be boosting your profits if you happen to be somebody who owns a wildland fire contracting like one of our U.S. Senators. Who never once recorded a profit until 2025, when they gutted our public lands agencies. Your job as a representative is not to get yourself rich. It's to be a wise steward of taxpayer dollars. God, it seems like we are in desperate need of somebody who knows what forest management looks like on the ground, in Congress, so we can start making these reforms.Chet Layman: How do you think the U.S. should be approaching the ongoing conflict in Iran/the Middle East?Sam Forstag: I think right now the fact we are spending over a billion dollars a day on another forever war in the Middle East while people are struggling to just afford a roof over their head, basics like healthcare or stable retirements, is obscene. You know one of the best parts of the America First promise was that they were going to end the forever wars, and here we are again.So we need to restore a balance between diplomacy and defense. A great American president once said: Defense is no substitute for diplomacy. When you fail at one, you fail at both. Right now we seem to be failing because this war has got our gas prices at $6.50 a gallon for diesel. This war has us spending well north of $100 billion already as taxpayers and another request for $ 300 billion to clean up the mess that they made?We shouldnt be going into any more wars overseas until were actually doing right by the service members who put their lives on the line and did their duty. We shouldnt be going into any more wars overseas until we restore those 28,000 jobs they just cut at the VA last year that have wait times going through the roof for people whove served this country.We should, again, restore constitutional order when it comes to war powers as well because the power to declare war sits with Congress, and we deserve a congressperson whos got the courage to actually stand up and say, if we are going to go to war, we should have to vote on it. This is not a power were going to leave to the executive because that leaves us all poorer in so many ways. And we sure as hell cannot afford to do that when were failing to invest at home like we need to.Chet Layman: Social Security is projected to be unable to pay full benefits by 2032. How should Congress respond?Sam Forstag: This is not a new crisis; this has been a slow-moving crisis for decades that Congress has failed to address. Right now, Id say the answer is pretty similar to how we solve a lot of these problems. We should scrap the payroll tax cap. Because right now the top 6% of earners in this country are paying a lower share of their income into the Social Security trust fund than the other 94% of us.In this country, after you make $184,000, $184, 500 in a year, you dont pay another dime into Social Security.Lets scrap that cap. Lets ask everybody in the country to pay the same share of their income into Social Security that would get us most of the way towards attaining solvency.While were at it, I mean, frankly, we should ask the highest earners in the country to pay a little bit more in because working people, weve been carrying our weight for a long time. Again, I worked with homeless shelters between fire seasons for three years. If you go to the Poverello Center, you go to the Rescue Mission in Butte, or you go to the Samaritan House in Kalispell, more than 1 out of 10 people living on the streets in this state are over the age of 55.That is a fundamental failure of leadership. People who have been working their whole lives paying into Social Security should be able to depend on a stable retirement on the back end of it. Thats not too much to ask. ...read more read less