Vice President Mike Pence delivered an address Wednesday to rally support for the Trump administration at the headquarters of a construction firm in Port Allen, Louisiana.
Pence spoke for around 45 minutes before an assembled crowd of workers and small business owners at Cajun Industries, a major Louisiana employer that constructs large industrial projects, including those in the Gulf Coast’s crucial energy sector, touting the young administration’s success and urging support for President Donald Trump.
“President Donald Trump is requesting the resources we’ll need to build a wall,” Pence told the crowd, citing Tuesday’s budget proposal as the beginning of the fulfillment of that most central of Trump’s campaign planks.
Pence noted the success so far on securing the American border with Mexico, including the reported 73% drop in illegal border crossings.
Of the budget proposal more generally, Pence claimed it “puts America back on a path to fiscal responsibility” and will eliminate the deficit in a decade. On Tuesday, some left-leaning economists cast doubt on that projection, claiming the necessary return to 3% annual GDP growth, still below the average since the end of the Second World War, was unrealistic.
“The American people are witnessing the strong leadership of President Trump on the world stage,” Pence said, discussing the President’s trip through the Middle East and Europe, highlighting his “historic” meeting with Pope Francis Tuesday.
Addressing Monday’s deadly Islamist suicide bombing in Manchester, England, Pence emphasized America and her allies’ “shared commitment to protect our people and rid the world of the threat of terrorist violence.”
Pence turned his attention to other administration commitments, including a restoration of the “tradition of respect” for law enforcement and a steep reduction in federal regulations. President Trump is “slashing so much red tape he’s breaking records,” Pence claimed, citing the president’s executive order to eliminate two federal regulations for each new one issued and his aim to unshackle the American energy sector from environmental regulations.
“The Obamacare nightmare is about to end,” Pence said, turning his focus to the tumultuous health care debate again raging in Congress and the public sphere.
Pence hit the existing system hard. “The average premium has actually doubled under Obamacare,” he said, saying figures like that were something “the past administration would just never release to the public.”
“Every day that Obamacare survives is another day the American economy and American families suffer. But let me make you a promise, help is on the way,” Pence said.
The Vice President called the American Health Care Act (AHCA), passed earlier this month by the House of Representatives, the “first step in keeping our promise to repeal and replace Obamacare” and, stopping short of a whole-hearted endorsement of the controversial bill, called it, “the right bill to start” the overhaul of the American health care system.
The AHCA, strongly associated with House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), has now moved to the Senate, where support among the GOP caucus is uncertain and significant reworking may be required if the bill is to pass. Pence said it was “time for the Senate to do their part,” to ensure Obamacare is ended, and he called on the crowd to urge their Senators to work to that end. Some Senate Republicans expressed hope Wednesday that a bill could be passed before the August recess.
Besides healthcare reform, tax policy has been the most prominent part of the Republican legislative agenda in the new administration. “Get ready. Come this summer, we’re going to roll our sleeves up, we’re going to work with the House and the Senate, and we’re going to pass the most significant tax cut since the days of Ronald Reagan and one of the most significant tax cuts in American history,” Pence promised, touting the benefit to American global economic competitiveness a reduction of the corporate tax rate to 15% could bring.
As the Trump administration finds itself besieged by Democratic and media accusations of scandal and misconduct and faces uncertain backing the in polls, Pence devoted a significant portion of his address appealing to the populist base that put him and President Trump in office.
“President Trump and I will never stop fighting for the issues that matter most to the American people: good jobs, safe streets, national security, and a boundless American future,” he insisted, before calling on supporters to rally around the administration:
I think we’ve reach a pivotal moment in the life of this nation. And in this moment President Trump and I need the support of every freedom-loving American, all of you. Everyone who believes we can be strong again, everyone who believes we can be prosperous again. We need you to stand up and we need you to speak out. From this day forward I would offer to you that your President and the entire administration need every ounce of your energy and enthusiasm, the enthusiasm I see in this crowd today, your conviction and your passion.
According to Pence, the prayers of supporters are no less important. “We might need just one more thing in these days,” Pence extolled to wild applause, “if you’re of a mind to bend the knee and bow the head from time to time.”
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