Rep. Zinke: Obama, Reid 'Hold Our Troops Hostage' for Big Govt

Democrats are playing games with national security, Rep. Ryan Zinke said Saturday, calling on President Barack Obama to "do the right thing and help us give our troops the resources they need and the raises they have earned."

"The president and his party want more money for big government agencies like the IRS and the EPA, and in order to get it, they plan to hold our troops hostage," the Montana lawmaker said in Saturday's GOP address. "Not only are Democrats set in blocking a pay raise for our troops, but if they don’t get more money for the IRS and EPA, they intend to shut down the entire federal government."

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Zinke, a 23-year Navy SEAL veteran, in 2014 became the first SEAL elected to the House, and said he is now a military father whose daughter is a Navy diver and son-in-law is an active duty SEAL, so he takes the duty to provide for the defense "seriously and personally."

"You can imagine how I felt when Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said recently that supporting a bill to help our troops was a 'waste of time,'" he said.

Democrats are intent on forcing Republicans to roll back plans to increase defense spending without a commensurate increase in nondefense programs and are threatening to block the annual spending bills unless the GOP agrees to a budget summit.

Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, has persuaded his party to block the $576 billion defense funding bill, while Republicans insist they will not be influenced by Democrats' demands or submit to a budget summit.

"He was talking about a plan that provides the resources for critical medical supplies, food, body armor, and ammunition," Zinke said Saturday. "This plan also gives our troops a pay raise. A raise that I think we can all agree they’ve earned. But because President Obama threatened to veto the bill, Reid thought it was all a "waste of time."

The threatened veto has nothing to do with national security, Zinke continued, but Obama and Democrats "want more money for big government agencies like the IRS and the EPA. And in order to get it, they plan to hold our troops hostage."

Taking care of the military should be lawmakers' top priority, said Zinke, but it "isn’t on the Democrats’ to-do list right now, as "they’ve lost sight of American values in favor of Washington politics."

Obama does not have a strategy to defeat ISIS, he went on, but "his party has a strategy to get more money for the IRS."

Zinke, a combat veteran, said he knows the sacrifices it takes to win a war.

"If we must fight, we fight to win," he said. "We need to make sure our troops have the right equipment, the right training, and the rules of engagement to win decisively on the field of battle. And when we send our troops to war, we need a plan to make sure we bring them home safely."

Further, the government must make sure men and women are not only safe on the battlefield, but also taken care of when they come home said, Zinke, as "that's the least we can do."

"No price can be attached to the sacrifices of the men and women in uniform are willing to make," he said. "Members of the President’s party have lost sight of this."

Instead, Zinke said, Democrats will "vote against our troops and try to win more money for their Washington bureaucracies. How can they explain that at a 4th of July parade or military ceremony?"

"Mr. President, I appeal to you as Commander-in-Chief to stop this game your party is playing with our national security," he concluded. "It’s dangerous and it’s wrong. Do the right thing."

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