Zinke on Tranel, his record

It’s the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Since Joe Biden and Kamala Harris took office, grocery prices have climbed 21.5 percent, rent has increased by 22.5 percent, and electric bills have skyrocketed by 30.7 percent. Those are national averages, and in Montana, we’re feeling it a lot more. Electing Kamala Harris and other radical left Democrats to fix the economy they tanked sounds a lot like doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome.

With that in mind, I encourage Montanans to ask themselves, “Am I better off than I was five years ago?” By and large, the answer is no.

Liberal Missoula environmental lawyer Monica Tranel likes to pretend to be a Republican on TV, but the truth is she’s just another radical leftist who will be a yes vote for the Biden-Harris agenda. These policies are crushing our small businesses, driving up energy costs, allowing illegal aliens to cash in and bankrupt public services, and making literally everything more expensive for you.

Here’s the truth: Kamala Harris played politics with our pocketbooks, leaving hardworking families to foot the bill.

Take energy prices, for example: Kamala Harris and Monica Tranel’s Green New Deal and other mandates will make oil and home heating even more expensive while subsidizing Chinese-made solar farms. Their so-called Inflation Reduction Act and executive orders are taking gas cars and trucks off the road, with the goal of forcing us to buy expensive electric vehicles that can’t even make it from Browning to Kalispell on a winter day. By comparison, after two short years under President Trump, we became the world’s number one producer of oil, and we did it while lowering emissions and lowering costs at the pump. Gas was about 2 bucks a gallon and businesses had affordable power to make and move goods.

Another example is housing. Sadly, the American dream of purchasing a home feels unattainable for many.  It’s not only the inflation on gas and home energy bills. If you want to build a new home there’s insane inflation on appliances and building materials and the supply and interest rates on loans remain historically high. Monica Tranel and the Left’s answer is give taxpayer-backed loans to people with bad credit, ban developers from running apartment buildings, give illegal aliens free housing in what would be low-and-middle income housing for Americans, and do everything they can to push people into government owned or subsidized housing. That’s not Montana. 

Since returning to Congress, I’ve fought to address the housing crisis. After Biden’s Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) swiped $4.5 million in financial assistance to help Montanans struggling to stay in a home I launched an investigation and hounded HUD officials until they halted the clawback, saving several million dollars from being diverted to other states. I then worked with HUD and Montana Housing Authorities to develop a pilot program to address skyrocketing rental prices in rural Montana communities. I have also cosponsored several bills that will help to provide housing relief for qualified first-time homeowners, veterans, teachers, and first responders. Finally, I have secured millions of dollars in grants to fund much needed infrastructure improvements to support additional homes being built.   

I’ve worked hard to alleviate the pressure of Bidenomics on Montanan families. I voted for a 600-billion-dollar bipartisan tax cuts package to lower small business interest rates and enhance the Child Tax Credit to help families hit the hardest by Bidenomics-induced inflation. I fought against the Biden-Harris administration’s job-killing carbon tax. I voted to lower the cost of health care and to expand access to generic medications so the failing economy doesn’t stop Montanans from getting the care they need. These are a few ways my colleagues and I have tried to put Band-Aids on the bullet holes of bad Biden-Harris policies.

It wasn’t long ago that a single-income family lived a good life, now many two-income households struggle to make ends meet. Montanans cannot afford four more years of record-high prices. Let’s return to practical solutions, to gas priced at two bucks a gallon, and to economic policies that make sense for America.

Ryan Zinke currently serves as Congressman for western Montana.