Republican fury over Biden's 'irrational and politically suicidal' opposition to the biggest pay raise for low-level troops in years

Republicans tore into President Biden's 'insane' and 'politically suicidal' opposition to giving junior enlisted members a nearly 20 percent pay boost amid recruitment issues. 

In a Tuesday statement about opposition to the House's version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the White House Budget Office said a plan to give low-ranking troops a 19.5% boost in basic pay next year would be too expensive. 

'Joe Biden managed to become a multi-millionaire on a public servant salary,' Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., told DailyMail.com. 'And he is snatching food out of our junior enlisted people's mouths.'

Van Orden said that while he was an active duty Navy Seal, his wife had to use WIC coupons to keep their children fed. 

'It's disgusting and reprehensible. I can't feel more strongly about it. That is bulls**t.' 

After bipartisan lawmakers spent months studying quality-of-life issues in the military, the House decided to offer a 4.5 percent across-the-board pay raise and an additional 15 percent bump for junior enlisted in their yearly Pentagon policy bill. 

In a Tuesday statement about opposition to the House's version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the White House Budget Office said a plan to give low-ranking troops a 19.5% boost in basic pay next year would be too expensive.

Republicans tore into President Biden's 'insane' and 'politically suicidal' opposition to giving junior enlisted members a nearly 20 percent pay boost amid recruitment issues

The Senate's version of the bill does not currently include the additional 14.5 percent hike for junior enlisted.  

Some early-career enlisted service members can make as little as $24,000, not including their housing allowances and free health care. The House plan would ensure that service members make at least $30,000 per year. 

'It's completely insane,' Rep. Mike Garcia, who has led the fight for better military pay, told DailyMail.com of the Biden position. 'I can't understand that the rationale and in what universe it would make sense, either from a policy or from a political perspective.' 

'They're actually going out of their way to say no to this and explain why this is a bad idea and it's, it's completely irrational and politically it's actually suicidal.'

Former President Donald Trump brought the issue up in a meeting with House Republicans on Wednesday, according to Garcia, and said he thought it would be a 'front burner issue.' 

'[Trump] said ,everyone knows that we're having challenges in our military right now. So why would you not support getting them to the equivalent of a minimum wage which the rest of the universe has in our country?'

'This is a pay raise targeted at the E1 through E4 level,who are currently making literally $12 an hour, right now, which in California is about half of what the fast food workers make at McDonald's.'

The targeted pay raises would cost more than $24 billion over the next five years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. 

Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., called the White House opposition 'one of the dumbest things I've ever heard come out of [Biden's] mouth.'

One quarter of the military population experienced food insecurity between 2018 and 2020 , according to the US Department of Agriculture. 

More than 22,000 active-duty troops used the food stamp program in 2019, the most recent year with data available, according to the Government Accountability Office. 

'You got one out of eight ballistic guys on staff at food and water food banks, particularly in DC, San Diego,' Bacon, a member of the Armed Services Committee and retired Air Force officer, said. ''And we figured we worked hard to figure out would the price need to be to get them above that threshold.'

The U.S. entered this year with one of its smallest defense forces in over 80 years  as active-duty troop numbers sunk to less than 1.3 million as the Department of Defense is facing sever recruitment issues. 

Recent recruitment targets were missed in the Army, Navy and Air Force, although the Marine Corps and the newly established Space Force reached their goals.

White House officials said the proposal 'would lead to pay compression in some parts of the enlisted military basic pay table' and said it should be delayed until a full review of military compensation rules is completed next year.