Pence, Ryan Speak Out Against Federal Spending

By A.J. Swartwood

Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) and Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) criticized the federal government and Federal Reserve Tuesday morning and called for a return to principles of sound money and fiscal responsibility. Speaking at a forum on “Sound Money and America’s Global Leadership”, the two fiscally conservative Congressman minced no words in calling out the federal government for what Ryan called “insidious” debasement of American currency.

“President Obama and Congressional Democrats have tried to borrow and spend the country back to prosperity,” Pence said. “To this runaway spending of the federal government they added a government takeover of healthcare, attempted to pass a national energy tax and passed one bailout after another.

“To restore a going economy we must end all this runaway federal spending and go back to the practice of free market economics without apology,” said the Indiana Republican.

Rep. Ryan, soon-to-be House Budget Chair, and a member of the President’s fiscal commission, declared, “there are no shortcuts, no sugar highs, that will get us to the foundations of a pro-growth society.”

He called for a return to low tax rates, transparent regulations, rule of law, controlled spending and debt and “most importantly” an application of principles of sound money as the keys to economic growth. 

Republicans, fresh off of a victorious struggle to extend all the Bush-era tax cuts, are eager to continue implementing their fiscally conservative agenda as the new Congress begins in January, according to the duo.

Pence Tells Tea Partiers To 'Remember In November'

A prominent House conservative told participants in the second annual 9/12 Rally in Washington yesterday that the Obama administration is using the recession to wage socioeconomic war.

“No American should face a tax increase in January…not one. We will not compromise our economy to accommodate the class warfare rhetoric of this administration,” said Mike Pence (R-Ind.), Chairman of the House Republican Conference. Pence told the roughly 100,000 in attendance to stand against President Obama’s attempt to allow a series of tax cuts for the wealthy to expire at the end of this year.

“We do not consent to higher taxes on any American in the worst economy in 25 years. When did higher taxes ever get anybody hired?”

Pence spoke at the same rally last year, which focused mainly on drumming up resistance to a healthcare reform bill that would later become law. This year, the message from Pence and other speakers, including conservative Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R), was purely political.

Pence urged the audience to focus on voting out liberal members of Congress in the upcoming midterm elections, while Cuccinelli touted his own efforts to stop provisions within the aforementioned healthcare law from going into effect in his state.

The rally was organized by the conservative nonprofit organization FreedomWorks, along with a number of smaller local Tea Party groups. Glenn Beck’s 9.12 Project played an additional role in helping organize the rally both this year and last.

Pence: Credit Bush For Iraq Success

One of the most popular conservative lawmakers in Congress is accusing the Obama administration of unfairly attempting to take full credit for the U.S.’ ability to pull combat forces out of Iraq.

In an op-ed in today’s Washington Times, Mike Pence (R-Ind.), chairman of the House Republican Conference, argues that President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are wrong to claim it was they who created an end to the war. “That’s not the whole story,” writes Pence.

However, in a primetime address to the nation tonight, Obama is expected to discuss his efforts to end America’s combat mission in Iraq, fulfilling a promise he made during his 2008 campaign.

According to Pence, most of the credit is owed to former President George W. Bush, who, with violence against NATO-led forces escalating, famously ordered a ‘surge’ of 60,000 American troops to Iraq in 2007. Pence wrote that contrary to the position of Democratic leaders in Congress at the time, Bush had “decided not to lose.”

Pence notes in his piece that then-Senator Obama opposed Bush’s surge and made remarks questioning whether sending additional forces to Iraq would improve the country’s condition. Along with then-Senator Biden, Obama voted 10 times to establish a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from the nation at war, writes Pence.

Republicans have generally been critical of Obama for invoking his predecessor’s name amidst debate over various issues during the past 19 months. Yet, Pence says he wouldn’t mind seeing that happen tonight.

“As the president addresses the nation tonight, let’s hope he gives credit where credit is due: to the men and women of the U.S. armed forces who wrought stability from tyranny and terrorism in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and, for once, let’s hope the president gives credit to a predecessor who refused to accept defeat.”

Pair Of GOP'ers Repeat Calls To End Fannie And Freddie Bailouts

Two prominent House Republicans called on the Obama administration Tuesday to swiftly address the future of mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

“With the national debt at nearly $14 trillion and unemployment still near 10 percent, the administration has yet to stop the bailouts of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,” House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence (R-Ind.) said in a statement. “It is past time to rid the American taxpayer of the liabilities of these financial institutions once and for all.”

Treasury Secretary Tim Geither and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan held a listening session with top private lending officials on Tuesday that was expected to address the long-term plan for the two government sponsored enterprises.

Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee, said the two GSE’s should stop benefitting from taxpayer dollars, and called on the administration to investigate Fannie Mae’s dealings earlier this decade with other lenders.

“As our nation marched down the path leading to a crippling financial crisis, Fannie Mae should have been trying to cool off risky sub-prime lending and protect the economy from a volatile housing bubble,” said Issa. “The reality is that as Fannie-Freddie executives were accepting Countrywide VIP loans, they were also developing a strategy to form a partnership with Countrywide with the goal of using that relationship to influence the mortgage industry and policymakers.”

Pence: Leaked War Documents an Outrage

Philip Bunnell - Talk Radio News Service

Chairman of the House Republican Conference Congressman Mike Pence (R-IN) expressed outrage Monday over the 90,000 leaked Afghanistan war documents.

The documents, Pence said, were “leaked in a clear violation of the law, it was an outrage and ought to be an outrage to every American.” 

The New York Times, Britain’s The Guardian, and Der Spiegel of Germany all agreed to publish a select number of the war documents which were made public on Wikileaks, a public whistleblower website. Pence criticized the news syndications for publishing the documents, saying that the “publication of those documents was wrong.”

“When we are dealing with national security some things need to stay classified,” Pence said. “I am a champion of reporters’ privileges, but leaking information that compromises national security should not be protected.”

Pence criticized the deadline that President Obama set on troop withdrawal in Afghanistan. “The Taliban are using the president’s deadline as a recruiting tool,” Pence said. “We need to finish the job.”