Congressman Mike Pence
GLENN: Congressman Mike Pence from Indiana, he is -- we were talking yesterday a little bit about the SCHIP which is children's healthcare, and children's healthcare, this is so much bullcrap, I can't even stand it. It was, "We've got to help the children, we have to help the children," and now it's -- and underprivileged children and poor children. Now it's people who are making $60,000 a year and we've got to help the children. And they've just expanded it, and they are expanding and expanding and expanding. Now it takes 22.4 million new smokers, new -- they are funding it through smoking, new smokers, 22.4 million new smokers to be able to pay for what they've just passed. Well, how are they going to do that? How does that work?
Well, I was talking to Congressman Pence about it yesterday, and we touched upon something that is in the new stimulus package, and I just gave it to you a minute ago. In Obama's new stimulus package, $600 million to address -- and I'm quoting -- to address shortages and prepare our country for universal healthcare. This goes back to what I told you before: They are going to take this country by dribs and drabs. If you want to have an open debate about healthcare, then let's do it. If you want to say, "I want to be a socialist country," then let's have that conversation. But that's not the way it's happening. They are just taking it from you at night. Your freedoms, your economic freedom, the idea of capitalism, the idea that you control your own life and you make your own decisions, it's all going away and Congressman Pence is here to talk toe about this a little more. Congressman, how are you?
CONGRESSMAN PENCE: Hey, good morning, Glenn. Thanks so much for going off on this this morning. You are spot on as I said before, and I think the American people get a better understanding of the so-called stimulus bill the Democrats are -- they see that it is slow, it's wasteful and it really, as you've identified, it is laying a foundation for a massive expansion of government control in healthcare and so --
GLENN: Let's just touch on, first on slow. When you know the facts on this stimulus -- the idea of the stimulus package is, remember, we are a country -- we're either trying to fix this or we're not, right?
CONGRESSMAN PENCE: Right, right.
GLENN: So the idea is we're a consumer nation now and nobody's spending any money because either they don't have any money or they're living in fear. So no money is being spent and that stops the economy because we no longer build things. We just buy things. So the idea of the stimulus package is get money back into the hands of the American taxpayer, get it into the hands -- this was their excuse of -- it wasn't redistribution of wealth. It was, "No, poor people will spend it faster. So that's why we have to go for the poor, because we need to have this money into the system as quickly as possible." Explain what you mean by how slow this stimulus package is.
CONGRESSMAN PENCE: Well, I'll just explain to you what the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office outlined this week. In looking at the house Democrats stimulus bill, they found that less than half of their stimulus proposal --
GLENN: We're talking a trillion dollars, gang.
CONGRESSMAN PENCE: Right, right, right. Less than half of it would be spent before the beginning of 2011. So, you know, where's the urgency here? And, of course, you know, that's why Republicans continue to believe what we ought to be passing is a stimulus bill that doesn't put more money in the hands of government to be passed out in slow and wasteful ways but that we pass fast acting tax relief that puts money this year right now in the pockets of working families, small businesses and family farms who can make those decisions for themselves and put our ailing economy back on its feet.
GLENN: Congressman, I mean, look, I'm becoming more and more libertarian every day and I'm more and more pissed off at the Republicans every day. So I'm just going to speak frankly with you, and I'm sorry if you happen to be on the receiving end of this. But the stimulus package the Republicans should be pushing for is a tax cut. The fastest way, the most efficient way to get money into the hands of the American people is to say we're immediately cutting your taxes. You want to help businesses? Reduce the corporate income tax so we're at least competitive in the world. Make it 20%. Here's an idea. You really want to be successful, make it 15%, but at least let us be competitive. That's the -- what the Republicans seem to be doing, congressman, is they seem to be taking and saying, "Well, okay, I don't want to do that because that's way too much. Instead I'll do half of that or I'll change that a little bit." Throw the soup out. The stock is bad. The idea is tax cuts!
CONGRESSMAN PENCE: Well, let me tell you, I can't speak for some of my Republican colleagues in the Senate, but I'll tell you House Republicans -- and you know I'm a minor member of leadership now as the conference chairman. I'm going to tell you what: House Republicans formed a working group a few weeks back and we are in the process of presenting a proposal for stimulating this economy that is all tax relief. Glenn, you are going to love it. It's tax relief for working families, for small businesses, and it's tax relief that would impact the economy right now, this year.
GLENN: What about the rich? What about the rich? I mean, let's stop with the class warfare, too.
CONGRESSMAN PENCE: No, no, we're talking about tax cuts that would affect not 95% of Americans the way the Democrats are doing their rebate thing which is really -- you know better than most the rebate stuff we did last spring and the tax, so-called tax cuts in the Democrat stimulus bill look a whole lot more like welfare than they do like tax relief. You are just passing out checks to people, an awful lot of people that didn't pay taxes to begin with.
GLENN: Right.
CONGRESSMAN PENCE: What we need is across-the-board tax relief that affects every American business and every single tax paying American.
GLENN: Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Congressman -- I'm sorry. It's just, I'm frustrated because I think our republic is at stake. I think we are, I think we are entering dangerous, dangerous territories where when people like Barney Frank continue to say, "Oh, there's corruption, there's corruption," and they're hypocrites and they are pointing their finger some place else and haven't taken the beam out of their own eye. When this stimulus package puts us behind the eight ball, when the dollar is devalued to staggering amounts, when these banks finally do collapse, no matter how many trillions of dollars we spend and now we have a socialized nation, I think you have disenfranchisement that is going to bubble over if the people in Washington don't show that there's some sort of common sense leadership that is speaking the language of the rest of the country. We've got enough people speaking the language of government and socialism. We don't have anybody really articulating clearly, loudly the idea that failure is a part of life, and I think somebody that would stand up and say, "You know what, America, I would rather go through a depression because I trust you will be good to your neighbor and I know we'll make it together because we made it before" than to sell out our very system and every value that we stand for and come out the other end as France. When will I hear that from the Republicans?
CONGRESSMAN PENCE: Well, I tell you, you've got to visit my YouTube page, Glenn, and you've got to visit, you've got to take a look at who Republicans have been saying. John Boehner, our Republican leader, has been very consistent challenging the stimulus bill saying, listen, these guys think we can borrow and spend our way back to a growing economy. Republicans don't believe that. Republicans know what Glenn Beck knows, what your millions of listeners know, that the cure for what ails this economy will not be found in the Treasury, it will not be found in the pocketbooks of tax paying Americans. The cure for what ails this economy will be found when we bring tax relief to Americans to invest their own resources, creativity, demonstrate their resilience and perseverance on this economy on their own. The strength of America's not in her federal government. The strength of America is among the American people and that's why you saw Republicans yesterday overwhelmingly oppose the bailout. I opposed it the first two times last fall.
GLENN: God bless you.
CONGRESSMAN PENCE: I don't believe the charge against it, as you know.
GLENN: God bless you.
CONGRESSMAN PENCE: We're dug in on it, man. Look, there's a choice, there's a conflict of visions here. Republicans believe that fast-acting tax relief is the way to get this economy moving again. Democrats believe we can borrow and spend and bail our way back to a growing America, and the American people need to pick up the phone and start sending e-mails and letters and let their congressmen know which one they choose.
GLENN: Congressman, I appreciate it. Thank you so much for the good fight. You are not alone. There's a lot of people out there that are feeling the same way and the same frustration. Boy, that would just be -- if I were in congress, I'd be sure, I'd be the town cryer ringing that bell in the hallway saying, you guys, you don't know the trouble that is coming our way if we're not honest, if we're not up front, if we're not telling the American people the truth and we try to do things in the cover of darkness. It's just not going to end well.
CONGRESSMAN PENCE: Glenn, I've got to tell you your voice is in congress and conservatives on Capitol Hill are grateful every day.
GLENN: God bless you. Thanks very much for bringing this to our attention.
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