Zinke ready to fight for identity of America

U.S. House candidate Ryan Zinke said Monday that he thinks there are major problems in the attitude and bureaucracy in the nation’s capital.

“It is fixable,” Zinke said in an interview with the Havre Daily News. “I think this is a battle that needs to be fought. It is a battle, I think, for the identity of America, and it is a battle that needs to be fought, and I think we’ll win.”

Zinke, the Republican candidate, faces Democrat John Lewis in the Nov. 4 general election.

Zinke said national leaders need to stop using one-size fits all policies.

“I think D.C. is arrogant,” Zinke said. “The arrogance to say that they know how to do things better than we do. That’s just not the case.”

He said he is a “teamwork guy,” citing his football career from Whitefish High School through playing in the PAC 10 at the University of Oregon as well as his work as a Navy SEAL, including being a commander at SEAL Team Six.

“I’ve been on a team all my life, and I understand teamwork,” Zinke said. “But I don’t yield to pressure either. I yield to higher principle.”

He said he would maintain his principles if elected.

“People have asked me, ‘Ryan, are you going to change,’” he said. “‘Is D.C. going to change you?’ And the answer is, I’m just a Montana kid. I’m not going to change. … I am what I am.”

He said he has not changed since he was in the Montana Senate, though some critics say he has moved from being a moderate to holding a hard right-wing stance.

Zinke said he has moved farther right on some issues, mainly in response to the policies of Barack Obama and House leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to balance their push to the hard left.

“On some issues, to correct it, you have to put your rudder a little more to the right …

“I don’t think I have changed. I have always listened and learned … ,” Zinke said. “I don’t like the term moderate. I think I’m an American.”

Too much government

Zinke said the government needs to reduce regulations and restrictions, which will allow businesses to work, grow, innovate and create jobs.

He cited the decline of Libby in Lincoln County, with some of the highest unemployment in the state, saying the town is a shadow of what it was. That includes because of the loss of access to timber and the loss of mining and other jobs he said, saying much of that is due to well-funded, out-of-state environmental groups and ignoring the local economic impact of regulations.

“It comes at a cost, it comes at a human cost of hard-working Montana families that just want to carve out a living here,“ he said. “And you guys know how hard it is to make a living in Montana. It doesn’t have to be that hard.”

Reforming Obamacare

Zinke said the nation needs to get out of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — called Obamacare — and find a different solution. While a few items, such as insurance companies having to cover pre-existing conditions, most of the policy built “a rotten apple around that one plus, and it soon will become unaffordable, and when that full weight comes in it will be stifling.

He said he is hopeful that both sides can remove the politics and solve the problems. He said he supports increasing use of policies like cooperatives, small business sharing and pooling, individual health care accounts, tort reform, family health care tax deductions and creating more low-cost clinics.

“I just think there are better ways to do it,” he said.

Energy regulation

and development

Zinke said he wants to make American energy-independent, and that requires using all of the options. While he supports protecting the environment, energy independence should include research and development in improving existing sources such as coal, he said.

“This administration’s regulatory burden on coal is designed to kill it. And killing coal to me is a very dark future for Montana,” he said.

He said he also supports developing new energy — he cited work at Havre’s Montana State University-Northern in renewable energy including biofuels — but that the government should not be subsidizing new sources once they are developed.

“The government should not be picking winners and losers,” he said.