Mike Pence : Conservative of the Year

With this year coming to a close, many conservatives have thought to themselves about the state of the conservative movement. Where have the ideas and principles of Ronald Reagan, which once were the inspiration that strengthened our party and our nation, gone? Why has our ruling majority succumbed to Big Government Republicanism? Who will carry the Reagan mantle and lead our conservative movement in these trying times? These questions have been at the forefront of every conservative’s conscience.

Ladies and gentleman, there is good news. Conservatives this New Year can now be jolly and cheerful as a national voice has emerged this past year to lead the conservative movement with moral clarity and unwavering principles. Indiana’s Mike Pence has provided Congress with conservative leadership that has garnered victories and led our ruling majority back to the right, earning him the honor of “Man of the Year” by Human Events.

Entering the House in 2000, Mike Pence’s conservative leadership made an immediate impact as he became one of only five freshmen in the past fifty years to chair a subcommittee. As a freshman committed to downsizing the scope and influence of the federal government, Pence made a bold stand against the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001. In only his second term, Mike Pence became a deputy majority whip, a feat that most politicians spend their entire career to achieve. One primary responsibility of this new position was to gather votes among his Republican colleagues for legislation that the Republican majority had sponsored. It was the Medicare Bill of 2003, the largest socialized medicine bill to ever pass through the halls of Congress, that became the last straw and the catalyst that would go on to form the character of the hero and statesman.

Mike Pence valiantly led the revolt against the Medicare Bill along with 24 other House conservatives. Despite the band of rebels’ efforts, led by Pence, the longest vote in Congressional history went in favor of the GOP leadership and Big Government Republicanism. Afterwards, the six founding members of the Republican Study Committee approached Pence to take charge of the conservative caucus. Mike Pence is so humble that he demanded an election for the position. Because of his humility and his effective leadership, Pence was unanimously selected by over 100 House conservatives to chair the caucus. Immediately Pence went to the GOP leadership and willingly stepped down from his whip position while quoting scripture, “you can not serve two masters.” Pence became the first person in fifty years to willingly step down from leadership position.

With Pence’s strong and determined leadership, the RSC immediately turned the tide in the House this session. In March, Pence and his band of committed conservatives led the charge for budget reform. This principled stance led to House leadership adopting their budget-process reform giving House members the opportunity to vote to defend the budget on the House floor. This became a big victory for Pence and his colleagues as the RSC now became a viable and credible caucus for legislative authority. GOP leadership soon recognized that all legislation must now come through Mike Pence and the RSC in order to pass.

Immediately after Pence led a group of Congressman over to Iraq to build the morale among the troops, Hurricane Katrina hit our shores and our federal government responded. Pence and his conservative caucus also responded by calling for a press conference to announce “Operation Offset,” their plan for federal spending cuts of over $900 billion to offset Katrina spending. This bold move led to the chastisement of Pence by the House leadership. Yet, in his calm and ever graceful presence, Pence’s moral stance eventually convicted House leadership and led them to adopt many of the RSC’s proposed spending cuts.

Mike Pence does not only clearly and optimistically articulate our conservative message of limited government, fiscal discipline, strong national defense and traditional moral values, but his leadership effectively challenges his colleagues and GOP leadership to return to the principles in which our party and nation was founded upon. Pence has rightfully emerged as the leader of the conservative movement as his message and his stances have caused the GOP to side with the principles of the conservative base that has elected our governing majority.

Mike Pence boldly proclaimed in an article by Human Events, “I believe in my heart that this generation of Americans is going to produce leadership that will sit in the Oval Office and look the American people in the eye as adults, and say the party is over. We simply cannot continue to write hot checks on the backs of our children and grandchildren. We need to lay the problem out with moral and fiscal authority, to explain the truth of the matter, and treat the American people as the thoughtful and courageous people they are.” We couldn’t agree with you more Mr. Pence.

Pence, who calls himself, “A Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order” has inspired our nation to build upon the ideas and principles of Reagan. He has given hope to those of us who see our party being destroyed by careerism and Big Government Republicanism. He has truly led the charge to rejuvenate our conservative principles in our nation’s capital and to renew conservatism in the hearts and minds of the American people. And it shall be the efforts of this conservative leader that will strengthen our party and our nation once again, as we remain that shining city on a hill with 2008 on the horizon.

Pence on Fox News Sunday Yesterday

Transcript: GOP Lawmakers Promote Bush's Agenda
Monday, January 30, 2006

The following is a partial transcript of the Jan. 29, 2006 edition of "FOX News Sunday":

CHRIS WALLACE, HOST: Among those listening to every word the president says Tuesday night are congressional Republicans who will have to run on his agenda. We turn now to two young guns of the GOP, Senator John Thune, who joins us from his home state of South Dakota, and here in studio, Indiana Congressman Mike Pence.

Gentlemen, welcome to both of you. Thanks for coming in today.

SEN. JOHN THUNE, R-S.D.: Thanks, Chris.

REP. MIKE PENCE, D-IND.: Thanks, Chris.

WALLACE: White House officials say the president is going to offer a more modest domestic agenda in the State of the Union speech this week because this is an election year and also because he's learned from last year that it's tough proposing dramatic proposals while you've got a war going on.

Let me start with you, Congressman Pence. Are you disappointed that the president is not going to propose major Social Security reform again, or tax reform, or apparently any other bold initiative?

(Story continues below)

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PENCE: Well, what I'm excited about, Chris, is that it does appear that in a time where there's really a crisis of confidence in Republican governance in Washington, D.C., we have indications that the president is going to go back to the basics, essentially, back to the roots of the Republican revolution in '94 and the roots that Ronald Reagan brought to Washington, D.C. 25 years ago this month.

It's limited government, fiscal discipline, a strong defense, and a commitment to traditional values. As someone who opposed No Child Left Behind, one of the conservatives in the House to do that, as someone who thought the creation of the first new entitlement in 40 years was the wrong policy for our majority, it is refreshing to hear the president signaling a commitment of fiscal discipline for the State of the Union address.

WALLACE: Let's talk about that.

Let me pick up on that if I can with you, Senator Thune. The president, we hear, will talk about spending restraint. But when spending has increased so dramatically while the Republicans have been in control of Congress, when this president has not vetoed a single spending bill during his five-plus years in office, do the Republicans — the president and the congressional leadership — have any credibility on spending restraint?

THUNE: Well, we did, before Congress adjourned, Chris, pass the first-ever since 1997 deficit reduction bill that reduces entitlement spending by $40 billion. The discretionary appropriation bills that were passed last year — actually, some of them came in not only below the baseline but below the previous year's levels.

Congress and the administration, the president, are committed to fiscal discipline. The big problem that we've got are the entitlement programs that are exploding and over the course of the next 10 years have to be addressed. The president tried to address one of those last year with Social Security but got no cooperation from the Democrats.

We will continue to lead on fiscal discipline. As Mike said, that is what the Republican Party is about. That is what the American people look for us to do. And we will deliver.

WALLACE: You talk about, Congressman Pence, a commitment to fiscal discipline, entitlements. In fact, it was the Republicans and the president who created a huge new entitlement with the Medicare prescription drug benefit.

I want to put up something you said recently. Here it is. "I believe George Bush is conservative, but I don't believe he is a conservative." What do you mean by that?

PENCE: Well, I believe President Bush has been an extraordinary commander in chief. I believe he's demonstrated what it is to practice honor in your personal life, in Congress. And in his heart, I believe he is a conservative man.

But when you look at the domestic initiatives of the last five years, a 50 percent increase in the federal Department of Education, national testing in the fourth and eighth grade, and, candidly, Chris, when you look at the creation of the first new entitlement in 40 years, it is hard to argue that on the domestic level, up to this point, this president has practiced a conservative agenda at home.

But I really believe that now is the time to renew the confidence of the American people in Republican governance in Washington, D.C., and we will do that by renewing our commitment to limited government, and fiscal discipline and traditional values.

WALLACE: And I want to bring in Senator Thune in just a moment.

Congressman Pence, you talk about big government republicanism. The Republicans have been in charge now in the House for 12 years. I mean, isn't the dirty little secret that conservative Republicans like to spend money as much as liberal Democrats?

PENCE: Well, you know, what I think the dirty little secret, Chris, is that — that budget act that we haven't changed since 1974. A budget act that was designed to make it harder to cut taxes and easier to increase spending even over time worked its will on a Republican majority in Congress.

I believe we ought to repeal the Budget Act of 1974. We ought to bring back a line item veto for the president of the United States. And make no mistake about it. As Senator Thune just said, it's going to be Republicans in the White House and in Congress that do that.

In five years in Washington, I've never seen the Democrats bring a spending bill to the floor that wasn't significantly bigger than what the Republicans were proposing.

WALLACE: But, Senator Thune, just this week, the House speaker, Dennis Hastert, defended the idea of earmarks. He said he thinks that they shouldn't be snuck in, that there should be an open vote on them. But he also said who knows better about what a district deserves than the congressman from that district.

It doesn't sound like Republicans are getting serious about spending.

THUNE: I think, though, you'll see is the House and the Senate have a very spirited debate about the whole issue of earmarks, Chris. And frankly, the big issue, at least in my view, in the Senate is making sure that the rules we have are enforced.

What bothers people is when earmarks are brought in in the dead of night in a conference committee that haven't been considered by the House or the Senate, where there's no accountability, where there's no transparency, where people don't have to stand up and defend those earmarks.

Yes, we need to get that process under control. And we will. And I think what you've heard Mike Pence say and the same thing I'm saying this morning is we understand the roots of the Republican Party, that we are the party of fiscal discipline, and that we have to follow through with that.

And I think that you will see, I think you have seen, steps in that direction with the deficit reduction bill last year, and I think you will see additional steps taken in that direction, because the president and the Congress understand that what makes America stronger is to make America safer and more prosperous. And the way that we do that is to allow the American people to keep more of what they earn, continue to grow the economy and create jobs.

WALLACE: Senator Thune, let's talk about lobbying reform. Why shouldn't the White House release all records of any contacts with lobbyist Jack Abramoff?

THUNE: Well, I think that the White House — what the Democrats want the president to do is release any photos he has. Well, the president does grip and grin sessions where he...

WALLACE: No, no, no, they're also talking about records.

THUNE: Well, look. If there are records out there where he has been involved in lobbying, those I believe have to be disclosed. Anybody who lobbies the federal government, either the executive branch or the Congress, does have to fill out paperwork disclosing that.

WALLACE: But would you like to see the White House release records of all contacts — correspondence, phone calls, meetings — that Jack Abramoff had with people in the White House?

THUNE: Well, I'm one who believes that more is better, Chris, when it comes to disclosure and transparency, and so I'd be a big advocate for making records that out there available. I don't think it's useful to have pictures released, because, clearly, all the Democrats want to do is use those for political purposes.

But I do think it's important that everybody understand what this guy's level of involvement was. I think we know now it's all coming to light in the Congress, and I think it points out that we have some work to do when it comes to tightening up, stiffening up, strengthening the lobbyist ethics rules that we currently use as they apply to Congress and lobbying the executive branch of the government.

WALLACE: Senator Thune, let me talk to you about your history with lobbying. And let's put this up. In 2002, you received $2,000 in direct contributions from Jack Abramoff and his wife. You announced this month, more than three years later, that you're giving the money to charity. And after you lost in a Senate race in 2002, you started your own lobbying firm here in Washington.

I guess the question I would have is — you should know better than anyone, isn't there a problem with lobbyists, and aren't they part of the reason that Washington spends so much money and gives it to special interests?

THUNE: I think that that's coming under — all that's coming under review right now. And part of it comes back — the whole issue you talked about earlier of earmarks. But the point is, Chris, most, I think, lobbyists follow the rules, and there are rules. There are rules of disclosure. There is transparency.

We have the most transparent government in the world, which is why the people who committed these acts have been caught. Now, can we do a better job? Can those laws be improved? Absolutely. And that's what we're going to be discussing here in the next few weeks.

WALLACE: Congressman Pence, the same question I asked Senator Thune. Do you think that the White House should release all records? You talked about a crisis of confidence in Republican leadership. Should the White House release all records of contacts with Jack Abramoff?

PENCE: Absolutely. I think this president is a man of unimpeachable integrity. The American people have profound confidence in him. And as Abraham Lincoln said, give the people the facts and republican governance, perhaps, will be saved.

But let me speak to this reform issue, if I can. On the House side, at least, we've got a great opportunity to put feet on our commitment to reform, by electing John Shadegg as the new majority leader. You had him on the program. I and other conservatives in the House are supporting John Shadegg for our new majority leader.

He's a guy who came in in '94 and never lost his zeal for reform. And as we look at restoring public confidence in the fiscal and ethical integrity of the Republican majority in Congress, John Shadegg's the man to lead the charge.

WALLACE: We're not going to charge you for that campaign commercial, Congressman. But let me ask you one final question. We've got about 30 seconds left.

Last year we saw congressional Republicans beginning to take more of an independent line from the president, whether it came to Social Security reform, or some of the budget spending proposals, or the treatment of detainees. Are we going to see more of that, do you think, in 2006 where the Republicans in Congress, take their own line sometimes separate and apart from the president?

PENCE: I hope so. Many of us — a few dozen of us, rather, broke from this White House on No Child Left Behind when all the Democrats and the rest of our colleagues voted for that expansion of the government's role in our local schools.

Another two dozen of us broke from the president on Medicare. And many of our colleagues now understand that this president has seen his last election in his career, but we're looking at one down the road.

And the course of Republican governance on which turns our policies in Iraq, our posture in the world, our commitment to national defense, the sanctity of life — all of that turns on our ability to return to our roots, which are limited government, fiscal discipline, and traditional moral values. I believe you'll see the Congress do that, Chris.

WALLACE: Congressman Pence, Senator Thune, we're going to have to leave it there. We want to thank you both so much for joining us today.

PENCE: Thank you.

THUNE: Thanks, Chris.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,183122,00.html

Congressman Pence is hardly a wimp.Anyone who takes on the Hammer and wins(three times no less) has "guts" .NO ONE in our conference has a stronger backbone than Pence.Did he have a bad day on Hannity once? perhaps.But Pence doesn't bash his oppenents and that is why he is the guy who can win moderate support despite being an "ultra" conservative.

http://thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/031705/gop.html

House GOP leaders blink
By Alexander Bolton and Patrick O'Connor
Lacking votes to pass the budget, House Republican leaders struck a deal yesterday with conservative members who had demanded reforms to the spending process.

The deal is a major win for the conservative Republican Study Committee (RSC) and signaled a rare concession from powerful GOP leaders.

Republican leaders had charged that the reform demanded by members of the RSC would tie the leadership’s hands and empower House Democrats. But realizing that they would otherwise lack the votes to pass the budget this week, the GOP leaders yesterday agreed to conservatives’ demand that waiving budget rules for future spending bills require approval by a majority of the House.

The conflict reached full intensity yesterday morning at a closed-door meeting of the House Republican Conference.

After RSC Chairman Mike Pence (R-Ind.), one of the key lawmakers involved in the contentious push for budget reform, addressed the conference, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) angrily demanded of the conservative rebels how they planned to pass the budget, an implication that reform would make it more difficult to pass budget and appropriations legislation, said a lawmaker who attended the meeting.

“DeLay got into it with some members on the budget,” another GOP lawmaker said.

Conservative proponents of reform responded that they liked the budget Republicans passed out of committee and that they simply want to enforce it, the reason they have cited for pushing budget reform.

“Our ambition was that members of the majority have an opportunity to defend the budget of the majority on the House floor,” Pence said yesterday, announcing the agreement along with conservative Reps. Paul Ryan (Wis.), Jeb Hensarling (Texas) and Jeff Flake (Ariz.). “If any one of the 10 appropriations bills exceeds the budget, any member of Congress would be able to raise a point of order and that would be subject to debate and vote.”

“I believe this is a significant step forward,” Pence said.

Ryan explained that a lawmaker would have an opportunity to raise a procedural objection against a budget-breaking spending bill after it had been amended on the House floor but before final passage.

Pence was 30 minutes late for an early-afternoon RSC meeting because he was putting the finishing touches on the deal. He outlined the deal to RSC members with Neil Bradley, an aide to House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.). It was mentioned in the meeting that Hastert and Blunt helped craft the compromise, suggesting that DeLay was not involved.

A DeLay aide said that DeLay was talking with RSC members yesterday.

The so-called point-of-order protection would not apply to bills produced by conferences with the Senate. It is usually in those negotiations that spending bills are swelled beyond the levels called for in the budget resolution, making yesterday’s agreed-to reform modest in terms of its impact on discretionary spending. In the past five years, the House appropriations panel has seldom sent a bill to the floor out of committee that exceeded the budget, a GOP leadership aide noted.

But the political impact is likely much greater, as it is one of the few times that a faction of Republican House members has battled with the party’s leaders and won. It is all the more significant because the leadership conceded to give up some of its power, perhaps the reason that GOP leaders fought conservatives so hard on the issue.

One Republican RSC aide said, “This is the first time the RSC did anything,” alluding to the group’s previous reputation of buckling under pressure.

The victory belongs primarily to the RSC and its new leader, Pence, who replaced Rep. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.) at the beginning of the year. In yesterday’s meeting, Pence was “stoic” and adamant that the deal should not be portrayed as an RSC win, according to a source in the room.

Pence, who fended off numerous direct and indirect attacks from leadership and budget officials this past week, said that the past several days have been tiring and emotional, the source added. He also said Hensarling, who was Pence’s right-hand man on the budget reforms, deserves the bulk of the credit.

Republican centrists who had joined conservatives in their opposition to a budget resolution not linked to budget reform did not withstand pressure from GOP leaders to fall back into line. The centrists “caved,” in the words of one conservative.

Rep. Mark Kirk (Ill.), the co-chairman of the Tuesday Group, acknowledged that it was the RSC that forced leadership to compromise on budget reform.

“The RSC had the bulk of the troops. The centrists helped,” said Kirk, who after being asked twice whether centrists had in fact caved to leadership’s pressure, cocked his head from one side to another before answering, “We wanted to make sure we didn’t come out with nothing, and we didn’t. The leadership had a serious offer.”

Pence and his conservative allies initially demanded a two-thirds vote of the House be required to waive rules for legislation that violated the budget. They later scaled down their demand, ultimately asking for only a majority vote to waive the rules for spending bills that violated the budget.

The leadership also moderated its counteroffers. Aides familiar with the negotiations said that Blunt initially offered Pence his choice of several compromise measures. The proposals included allowing Republican lawmakers to call a conference meeting on any bill that exceeded the budget and requiring the Rules Committee to explain why it had waived a budget rule on legislation in violation of the budget.

While the budget reforms, by themselves, do little to reduce government spending significantly, RSC members are hopeful other structural changes will be implemented. Pence told the RSC yesterday that GOP leadership indicated it wants more substantive reforms, adding that he believes that commitment is “genuine.”

Pence said the budget reform would be a part of the House rules. Kirk said reform would be initially implemented as a standing order of the House, something that has the power of a rule, and formally made a part of the House rules at a later date.

TAKING THE HEAT

“In fire, gold is tested,” the saying goes. Just ask Mike Pence.

A third-term congressman from Indiana, Pence has been sorely tested lately, enduring a fire that few of us would want to withstand -- and he’s demonstrating that he’s as good as gold.

That’s because Pence is largely responsible for the change in attitude we’re seeing in Republican leaders toward spending cuts.

“In fire, gold is tested,” the saying goes. Just ask Mike Pence.

A third-term congressman from Indiana, Pence has been sorely tested lately, enduring a fire that few of us would want to withstand -- and he’s demonstrating that he’s as good as gold.

That’s because Pence is largely responsible for the change in attitude we’re seeing in Republican leaders toward spending cuts.

Not long ago, they appeared unconcerned about the explosion in growth we’ve witnessed in the size of government over the last few years. Now, thanks mostly to the Republican Study Committee (which Pence heads), they’re talking seriously about cutting up to $50 billion from the federal budget over five years, plus cutting current spending and eliminating wasteful and unnecessary spending.

I don’t mean to imply that Pence has acted alone. Other conservative representatives, such as Jeb Hensarling of Texas and Jeff Flake of Arizona, have been instrumental in moving the debate in the “right” direction. And if the high-speed train that’s been barreling lately toward ever-bigger government is ever derailed, we’ll have them to thank.

“Sometimes a small group of people can take a stand, be defeated, and still make a difference.” Rep. Pence said that last year in a speech to The Heritage Foundation, long before he and his colleagues would take their current stand. He was referring to the Medicare drug-benefit vote of 2003, when the biggest expansion of entitlement spending in nearly 40 years was approved with the help of certain self-styled conservatives. Even in defeat, Pence said, he and his colleagues might have really won.

Pence couldn’t have known that a horrific national disaster would hit one year later, forcing the kind of introspection necessary to wake some lawmakers up to the point he had been trying to make. He simply saw that Republicans were on the verge of “a historic departure from the limited-government traditions of our party and millions of its most ardent supporters” -- and he knew it was time to take a stand, no matter how unpopular or idealistic it would seem.

Pence, Hensarling and Flake have taken a lot of heat since then. But when you consider the state of fiscal discipline in Washington these days (or, more precisely, the lack of it), you see why we should be grateful to them for doing so. A new book of charts by Heritage budget expert Brian Riedl, “Federal Spending -- By The Numbers,” shows just how bad things are.

Take overall spending. It’s up 33 percent since 2001, from $1,863 billion to $2,470 billion. In 2005, inflation-adjusted federal spending neared $22,000 per household, the highest level since World War II. For 2005, the government spent $21,956 per household, overall, taxed $19,147 per household, and ran a budget deficit of $2,809 per household, Riedl says.

Who out there thinks spending growth can grow at this pace forever? And what will we do when the bills come due?

You might think that increased defense spending and homeland-security funding since 9/11 are largely responsible. Sorry, no dice.
Riedl shows that from 2001 through 2003, spending expanded by $296 billion, of which $100 billion (34 percent) went for defense and $32 billion (11 percent) went for 9/11-related costs. That leaves $164 billion spent on items totally unrelated to defense and 9/11 -- more than half (55 percent) of the total amount.

So where does the increased spending go? To things like a 2002 farm bill estimated to cost $180 billion over 10 years. To a Medicare drug bill estimated to cost $724 billion in its first 10 years and as much as $2 trillion over the following decade. And so on. Nobody is refused, it seems, unless it’s someone calling for restraint and responsibility.

But that appears to be changing. GOP leaders are listening. And President Bush has signaled that he will help, too, noting at a recent news conference that “Congress needs to pay for as much of the hurricane relief as possible by cutting spending” and noting that he would “work with members of Congress to identify offsets.”

And why is this necessary? Because if we hope to leave a legacy of economic opportunity to our children -- rather than saddling them with incredible debt and high taxes -- then the bedrock conservative principle of limited government must be restored as the foundation of our nation.

As Pence noted in his Heritage speech, “Conservatives know that government that governs least governs best. Conservatives know that as government expands, freedom contracts. Conservatives know that government should never do for a man what he can and should do for himself.”

And if there’s one thing lawmakers should be able to do for themselves, it’s to be wise and frugal when spending the hard-earned tax dollars of their fellow Americans. Kudos to the brave souls willing to withstand the fire to make sure that happens.

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/rebeccahagelin/2005/10/18/171726.html

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