Statement By SASC Chairman John McCain On White House Playing Politics With Funding For Troops

Statement

U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ), Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, released the following statement today on the White House playing politics with funding for American troops in harm's way:

"Once again, the White House is playing politics with national defense. The President has recently decided to keep more troops in Afghanistan and send more troops to Iraq and Syria. This was the right decision. But now the White House wants to use the troops that the President is sending into harm's way as political leverage to get an equal amount of spending for federal bureaucrats at the EPA and IRS. There is a word for this: extortion.

"The need for additional funding to support the growing operational demands on our military is obvious, and it goes far beyond the minimum amount that the White House seems likely to request. If the President believes that sending thousands more young Americans into war is in the national security interest of the United States, he should support the additional funding required to support those warfighters. Full stop. No caveats, no qualifications, and no strings attached. To do anything less would be to place politics above our national defense and our troops."

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