Speaker Paul Ryan (R.-Wis.) praised the decision announced Saturday by President-elect Donald J. Trump to choose Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R.-S.C.), who worked closely with the speaker to expand immigration and guest worker programs, to lead Trump’s Office of Management and Budget.
“Mick Mulvaney is the absolute right choice,” Ryan said.
“At OMB, he will lead the work he has started to improve the way government does the people’s business,” the speaker said.
“Mick is someone I have come to greatly respect and rely on, going back to our time serving together on the Budget Committee,” he said. “I look forward to working with Mick in his new role, and I commend President-elect Trump on this excellent selection.” Ryan was the chairman of the House Budget Committee from 2011 to 2015, when federal spending increased from $3.52 trillion in fiscal year 2012 to $3.78 trillion in fiscal year 2014.
Mulvaney, a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus and early opponent of Speaker John Boehner (R.-Ohio), has found common cause with Ryan in the past, joining the Wisconsin congressman’s months-on-end discussions with House Democrats regarding bringing more immigrants into the United States and providing illegal aliens legal status (amnesty).
The problem of Americans losing jobs to guest workers is the reality in Mulvaney’s South Carolina, as revealed in a 2015 BuzzFeed expose: “All You Americans Are Fired.”
It was the congressman himself, who best summarized how he and Ryan feel about immigration and guest workers when he said: “There are jobs that American citizens will not do. There are jobs that American citizens will not do. We can talk about why that is. We can talk about how our welfare state is broken, how we encourage people not to work, but that doesn’t help the farmer pick his peaches this summer. We have businesses that rely on migrant – legal – migrant workers, and a lot of them are in this state.”
The vigor of Mulvaney’s support for amnesty puts his at odds with Sen. Jeff Session (R.-Ala.), who is slated to lead Trump’s Justice Department.
When it comes to budget issues, Capitol Hill and other Washington conservatives support Mulvaney for OMB, an office that not only prepares the president’s annual budget request and monitors budget trends for the president, but also has final approval-or-disapproval on all federal rules and regulations, including executive orders and so-called executive actions, as well as the coordination of presidential vetos.
Mulvaney will be at the nexus of Trump’s decisions to uproot Obama’s immigration and guest worker program, because so much of Obama’s immigration policy was conducted as executive orders, which are formal directives from the president entered into the Federal Register and subject to judicial review, and executive actions, which are an Obama innovation that have the same force of an executive order without the formalization. Often there is no written record of the action at all.
FreedomWorks CEO Adam Brandon said: “Representative Mulvaney’s voting record reflects his commitment to limited government and economic freedom, a founder and member of the House Freedom Caucus, Representative Mulvaney became part of the conservative conscience of the lower chamber.” FreedomWorks is a Washington-based policy and logistics hub for Tea Party and other conservative activists.
“These convictions will undoubtedly show in the crafting of President-elect Trump’s budget priorities,” Brandon said. “Trump has made yet another solid pick to serve in his administration. We wish Representative Mulvaney the best of luck and trust him to continue to exert his fiscally conservative principles at OMB.” Mulvaney received a lifetime 95 percent rating on the FreedomWorks scorecard.
Trump said Mulvaney’s drive for results was a factor in his decision.
“Right now we are nearly $20 trillion in debt, but Mick is a very high-energy leader with deep convictions for how to responsibly manage our nation’s finances and save our country from drowning in red ink,” Trump said. “With Mick at the head of OMB, my administration is going to make smart choices about America’s budget, bring new accountability to our federal government, and renew the American taxpayer’s trust in how their money is spent.”
The congressman said he was thrilled to be offered one of the most powerful positions in the the White House and the federal bureaucracy.
“The Trump administration will restore budgetary and fiscal sanity back in Washington after eight years of an out-of-control, tax and spend financial agenda, and will work with Congress to create policies that will be friendly to American workers and businesses,” he said. “Each day, families across our nation make disciplined choices about how to spend their hard earned money, and the federal government should exercise the same discretion that hardworking Americans do every day.”
The President of the Club for Growth David McIntosh said Mulvaney is the man who can fix the broken federal budget process.
“The days of the White House producing massive, ridiculous budgets that are dead on arrival on Capitol Hill are over,” said the former Indiana congressman said.
“Mulvaney is a leader among economic conservatives, and the Trump Administration’s selection is a major victory for taxpayers and for all who want to see the downsizing of the federal government,” he said. “He has walked the talk of economic conservatism and will bring that same steadfastness to the White House.” Mulvaney has a lifetime rating of 93 percent with the Club for Gr0wth.
Jim DeMint, the president of the Heritage Foundation and a former South Carolina senator, said: “I am delighted to see that my friend and former colleague Rep. Mick Mulvaney has been nominated to serve as director of OMB.”
Sen. Tim Scott (R.-S.C.), who replaced DeMint in the Senate, said his fellow Palmetto State legislator would go after the federal debt.
“We entered Congress together in 2011, and I am certain he will tackle this new position with the same passion he has represented the 5th District with over the past six year,” Scott said. “Facing a $20 trillion debt, we need someone committed to restoring fiscal sanity in Washington, and I am confident Mick will work to do so.”
The incoming chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, Rep. Mark Meadows (R.-N.C.), said the HFC members would miss Mulvaney, but they are happy he will be at OMB.
“Mick has been a personal friend of mine for years, and through our time of service together in the House, I have come to know him as one of the most principled and sharp-minded conservatives in Congress,” he said.”There is no better choice than Mick Mulvaney to make the tough financial decisions our country needs right now.”
Another member of the House Freedom Caucus and fellow member of the House Budget Committee, Rep. David A. Brat (R.-Va.), who defeated the pro-amnesty Majority Leader Eric I. Cantor in the 2014 GOP primary, was positive about Mulvaney getting the OMB nod: “Great to hear that my friend and founding member of @freedomcaucus Mick Mulvaney has been picked to head OMB.”