Earlier this week, the WaPo reported that Indiana
Congressman Mike Pence had been beaten up so badly by the House
leadership that he would be backing off his "Operation
Offset campaign to cut some of the fat in the federal budget
to help fund disaster relief.
But -- as shocking as it may be -- WaPo got it wrong.
Pence isn't backing off anything. I just interviewed him briefly
about the WaPo story. Here's what he said:
"I would say that the reports of my demise or the demise of
Operation Offset in the Washington Post this week were
greatly exaggerated.
"House conservatives this week have redoubled our efforts to
ensure that as we deal with the catastrophe of nature that we
make the tough fiscal choices necessary to ensure that it will
not become a catastrophe of debt for our children and
grandchildren. Operation Offset, I believe, has commenced an
important national debate both within the corridors of the
Congress and the White House but also around a lot of kitchen
tables all across America...
"Thanks to the efforts of dozens of House conservatives last week
and throughout this week Congress and the White House, I think,
are beginning an earnest and sincere effort to find the cuts that
are necessary to offset the extraordinary costs of Hurricane
Katrina.
"I spoke at the Young America’s Foundation on Monday and the
title of my speech was, 'Another Time for Choosing,' and I drew
the title of my speech from Ronald Reagan’s famous 1964 address
entitled 'A Time for Choosing' and I said then, and believe, that
the time in which we live today is very similar to the time in
1964 when Ronald Reagan spoke. We find ourselves at a crossroads
in America in the conservative movement. Whether we will renew
our commitment to limited government and traditional moral values
or we will heed the siren song of the central planner who says
big government is good government if it’s our government. Ronald
Reagan challenged that boldly, on a small stage in the midst of
the Goldwater campaign in 1964. I believe in the wake of the
first entitlement in forty years, in the wake of a 'No Child Left
Behind' bill that expanded the federal Department of Education by
52%, and in the wake of Katrina relief measure where Congress
spent $60 billion without even discussing budget cuts to offset
the cost that there is a renewal in the conservative movement
around America to return to those first principles that we all
know to be true: that the government is too big and spends too
much, that the government that governs least governs best and
that a society is judged by how it deals with the most vulnerable
in its midst, from the unborn to the elderly to the disabled to
the mentally infirm. As we go through that renewal and return to
those core principles I think we’ll find our way forward."
Looking down from Heaven, the Gipper must be smiling. I am.
topics:
Education, Federal Budget
