VP Mike Pence Lavishes Praise on Ivanka, Promises Health Care Action

Vice President Mike Pence spoke at National Small Business Week Awards Program at the White House Monday, calling President Donald Trump “the best friend small business will ever have in the White House.”

The address, given to honor the winners of the Small Business Administration’s annual awards, gave the vice president an opportunity to tout the young Trump White House’s record on business matters. Mike Pence congratulated Garrett Marrero and Melanie Oxley, proprietors of the Maui Brewing Company on winning “small business people of the year,” before moving on to the Trump administration’s accomplishments. “We’re in the promise-keeping business,” Pence told the crowd.

In the first 100 days, Pence said that Trump “picked a world-class cabinet filled with business leaders who know what it takes to succeed in a competitive marketplace.”

“President Trump has already signed more bills cutting job-killing regulations than any president in American history already,” Pence said, highlighting the more than a dozen pieces legislation taking advantage of the Congressional Review Act to reign in regulations issued by the administrative state.

He also pointed to President Trump’s executive order demanding agencies seek to remove two regulations for each new one they seek. He also touted the long-delayed approval of the Keystone XL pipeline and the role it will play in delivering cheap energy to American business. “No matter where you look, President Trump has taken decisive action to get government out of the way so you can do more, create more, innovate more, and grow more jobs,” Pence said.

Pence was bullish on progress so far, pointing to 500,000 new jobs created so far in calendar-year 2017, which he characterized as “driven by small business.”

“Folks he’s just getting started,” Pence said of his boss President Trump, turning to the administration’s agenda going forward.

“We’re gonna pass the largest tax cut in American history. We’re going to cut taxes across the board for working families, small businesses, and family farms,” Pence boasted, “We’re gonna repeal and replace Obamacare and we’re going to give the American people the kind of world class health care they deserve.”

The latter promise has, so far, proven more difficult to bring to fruition than the administration had hoped. Repeated false starts and delays have plagued Speaker of the House Paul Ryan’s attempts to get the necessary consensus from his caucus.

Pence reiterated his commitment to crossing health care off the administration’s checklist. “I’m headed to Capitol Hill right after I leave you,” he promised, continuing:

It was about a month ago Congress wasn’t quite ready to take that first step to repeal and replace that disastrous policy. But the president remains confident that, with your strong support, and maybe you could talk to a member of Congress before you leave town, that we’ll get a fresh start on health care in America … I want to promise you. Working with the leadership of the House and the Senate, President Trump is going to make sure that these majorities and this nation’s capitol keep our promise to the American people. We’re going to repeal Obamacare and we’re going to give the American people the ability to purchase health insurance that they want and not what the government dictates and mandates.

Also notable was Pence’s lavish praise for now-official White House adviser Ivanka Trump. He called the First Daughter a “Great Leader” and a “Champion for Small Business,” comparing her upbringing in the Trump Organization to his own experience working as an attendant in his father’s Indiana gas station.

More broadly, the vice president praised the vital role small business owners play in the American economy. “Every single one of you is a profile in courage. Every single one of you took a risk when you set up shop,” he said. “When small business is strong, America is strong.”