WEEKLY REPUBLICAN ADDRESS, SATURDAY JUNE, 21, 2015

WASHINGTON, DC – In this week’s address, Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) calls on President Obama to join Republicans’ efforts to make sure our troops have the resources they need and the pay raise they have earned.  On Thursday, Senate Democrats blocked a troop funding bill in an attempt to extract more money for the IRS and the EPA.  

“Mr. President, I appeal to you as commander-in-chief to stop this game your party is playing with our national security,” Rep. Zinke says in the address. “It’s dangerous, and it’s wrong.  Do the right thing, help us give our troops the resources they need and the raise they have earned.”

Rep. Zinke is a fifth generation Montanan, former state senator and a 23-year U.S. Navy SEAL veteran.  In 2014, he became the first Navy SEAL elected to the House. 

Via: Speaker.gov

Continue Reading....

Harry Reid Mad At Obama For Not Sharing Credit With Senate Democrats For Fixing Obamacare…

Add caption

I WILL GIVE THEM 

CREDIT FOR BREAKING 

OUT 

HEALTHCARE SYSTEM!! 

HOWS THAT?

Democratic senators are unhappy the White House didn’t give them any credit for key fixes to ObamaCare.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) recently reproached President Obama in private on the issue, arguing Obama should have given his colleagues more praise.

“I did communicate to him that there have been things done by the White House that improved the healthcare bill and those fixes were suggested originally by my senators and they got no credit for it. I thought that was improper,” Reid said in an interview Wednesday with The Hill.

Reid didn’t specify what ideas Senate Democrats had offered to the White House.

Obama suggested in public remarks on Oct. 30 that his administration had received little constructive feedback from critics.

“If folks had actually good ideas, better ideas than what’s happening in Massachusetts or what we’ve proposed for providing people with health insurance, I’d be happy to listen. But that’s not what’s happening,” he said.

Democratic senators had several meetings with White House chief of staff Denis McDonough and other senior administration officials to put together a rescue plan for ObamaCare.

The law’s ailing website and other problems set off a near-panic in November among Democrats who remain worried that the law could cost them the Senate majority in next year’s midterm elections.

Reid said the coordination between the White House and Senate Democratic caucus had been inadequate during the height of HealthCare.gov’s problems.

“There was a period of time there where there were no questions that were answered because they were so overwhelmed with trying to get that program fixed,” he said. 

Via: The Hill

Continue Reading,,,,

Dems give White House tight deadline to fix Obamacare

Democratic senators facing voters next year are willing to give the White House time to resolve the glaring problems with Obamacare.

Very little time.

At the pleading of senior White House officials, Senate Democrats are holding off on demands to delay major aspects of the health care law until the Obama administration has the opportunity to fix the website problems that are thwarting enrollment in the program.

Democratic senators facing reelection have a green light to bash the White House and call for certain legislative fixes. But they’ve been urged by senior administration officials not to insist on delaying the controversial law’s core: The mandate for individuals to purchase insurance coverage or face penalties.

(PHOTOS: House hearing on Obamacare website)

Their requests are being heeded — for now.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), who attended a tense two-hour meeting with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday over the issue, stressed that senators should give the administration just “a little bit” of breathing room.

Via: Politico

Continue Reading......

A September to Surrender: Syria and Summers Spell Second-Term Slump

President Barack Obama, joined by Congressional leaders, speaks to the media in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2013, prior to a meeting with members of Congress to discuss the situation in Syria. From left are, National Security Adviser Susan Rice, the president, House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

There is no greater and politically significant power of the presidency than the use of military force, no matter how “unbelievably small” it is supposed to be. The summoning of a nation to military action on behalf of national security interests, no matter how diffuse, regional, or nuanced they might be, is the supreme act of presidential power, persuasion, and projection.

A commander in chief speaks intimately to America, constitutionally to Congress, and authoritatively to the world when he deploys the bullet, bayonet, B-52, or Tomahawk missile. Presidents don’t dopinpricks, either. Every military maneuver—real or feigned, decisive or disastrous—echoes like a drum. The vibrations change the rhythm of domestic politics.

These truths transcend the Obama presidency. They are resonant enough in the aftermath of Syria, where new and unflattering stock is being taken of President Obama and his application of this vast and consequential power.

But Obama also elevated the choice of the next Federal Reserve Board chairman to a place of exalted power, describing it in a White House news conference as the “most important economic decision of his second term.”

This was after Obama had devoted weeks to retooling his economic message, when he downplayed deficit reduction and emphasized job creation and wage growth. The president concluded and signaled to Senate Democrats that he could only surmount the GOP hurdles of sequester, shutdown, and debt ceiling if he changed the debate from belt-tightening to middle-class security.

Taken together, Syria and Summers therefore represent—by history’s decree in the case of military power, and by Obama’s own grandiose vision of the Fed’s role in the economy—the most important second-term presentations of power.

Via: National Journal

Continue Reading....

Senate Dems propose increasing IRS budget for targeting Conservatives and Tea Party Groups

Senate Democrats on Tuesday proposed increasing the budget of the Internal Revenue Service and other financial agencies next year. 

The IRS would get $12.07 billion in funding under the Financial Services subcommittee bill reported to the full Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday, an increase of $276.5 million.

House Republicans, in contrast, have suggested cutting the IRS's budget by 24 percent.

Senate Republicans are not happy with the funding level proposed by Democrats, and subcommittee ranking member Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) took the rare step of recording a “no” vote against the bill.

“Count the IRS among the winners in the bill despite the political targeting that appalled all of us and eroded the public’s trust,” Johanns said. 

The IRS has been embroiled in controversy since May, when the administration admitted the agency had improperly handled requests for tax-exempt status by conservative and Tea Party groups.

Subcommittee Chairman Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), in his first markup in his new role, said the bill contains language to force the IRS to improve its management. He called the House cuts “counterproductive,” arguing they would lead to personnel cuts and result in lost tax revenue. 

In total, the Senate bill contains $23.2 billion in discretionary spending, an increase from the $21.4 billion enacted in 2013 before automatic spending cuts under the sequester went into effect.

The bill increases funding for the implementation of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) gets $110 million more and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) gets $353 million in additional funds.

The bill heads to full committee on Thursday.

Via: The Hill

Continue Reading: