Republican Leadership Press Conference
September 30, 2009

Participants:
- Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH)
- Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA)
- Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence (R-IN)
- Republican Conference Vice Chair, Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA)
- Republican Policy Chairman, Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI)
- Rep. Candice Miller (R-MI)

Multimedia:
Audio  |  Video

Transcript:

Conference Chairman Pence:
 
I'm Mike Pence, the House Republican Conference Chairman. We just completed our weekly meeting, and later today House Republicans will convene a summit on Capitol Hill with some of the nation's leading economists.
 
When I'm home back in Indiana, what I hear about more than anything else is jobs. The American people are hurting, families are struggling, businesses are making tough decisions to make ends meet and to keep the doors open. Yet they see here in Washington, D.C., plans for a government takeover of health care paid for with hundreds of billions of dollars in higher taxes, and now we see in the Senate today the introduction of another cap and trade bill that will mean a massive national energy tax weighing down this economy.
 
The American people are saying, "Enough is enough." It's time that this Congress set aside their plans for a national energy tax, set aside their plans for a government takeover of health care and begins to focus on creating jobs for the American people.
 
House Republicans will be focused on those solutions today, and we look forward to driving that debate to the floor of the House.
 
Republican Whip Cantor:

Good morning, there is no doubt when we go home and visit our constituents across this country what we're hearing is the concern, the real concern, as Mike just spoke about, around the kitchen table, about job security, about continued spending at the federal level, about bailouts, about car company takes over and the concern that something is out of control here in Washington and we need to get together and provide some leadership. And you look at the reality on the ground and compare that to what is going on in Washington and there just seems be a real disconnect. All we are hearing now in Washington is the debate about a public option, which way, how can they get to the public option? That is just absolutely disconnected with what most families in this country are expecting out of their government.

Really, what the people want is for people to set aside the partisan bickering, to set aside the blame game, and get together and see where we can agree and produce some results for them and their families. That's what we are about. Last week, Leader Hoyer indicated that he would be willing and wanted to meet with us, and he specifically said he would meet with me. I have yet to hear from him that we can sit down. I intend to seek him out and ask him for a meeting so that we can begin to sit down and look at where we can go to produce some meaningful health care reform for the American people.
 
Conference Vice Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers:
 
Good morning, everyone. Yesterday, we saw where the Senate Finance Committee rejected the public option twice and it was a bipartisan opposition to that public option. And I think it's really significant and in the House the big question is whether or not the House Democrats are also listening. Are they listening to people all across this country who have made it clear that they don't want a government take-over of our health care? There is a better way. The bill in the House has been rejected; 3200 has been rejected all across this country. And we stand ready to work in a bipartisan fashion to address some issues on health care, a step by step approach where we can find some common ground and really meet the needs of American people who want health care reform, want us to take some steps to control rising health care costs and ensure that you still have access to go to the doctor of your choice. We are ready to do it, we are just waiting for those in the Democratic leadership of the House to join us in that effort.
 
Rep. Candice Miller:

I come from the great state of Michigan and we were a state, of course, that was always a critical component in driving our nation's economic agenda forward. Today we are living through a painful economic transition. I'm going to tell you the truth, unlike anything I have ever lived through in my lifetime, when we look at the national unemployment - which is in the ninth percentile - in the Great Lake State the unemployment figure right now is in the 15th percentile. I represent five counties very proudly. Four of those five counties, right now, the unemployment is 18-19 percent. One of my large cities it's 26 percent. Those are depression era numbers, quite frankly.
 
And what do the people of my state talk about when I go home? They talk about jobs, jobs, jobs and the economy and why they are watching this debate in Washington, D.C. focus on issues that are really not principally looking at the economics and how we get our economy back on track. They're watching the debate in Washington with the economic stimulus, where the president said that we would gain two million jobs. Instead we have lost two million jobs since we have passed that so-called ‘economic stimulus.' They are watching the debate on the cap and trade issue which, of course, in a manufacturing sector and manufacturing state like Michigan will be a job killing agenda for a state like Michigan that gets two-thirds of its electricity from coal right now. They're looking at the debate on health care reform. Of course our seniors are very very worried that they are going to have rationing of their care because of pay-fors with cutting Medicare. We're looking at the jobs-killing part of health care reform, on health care plans.
 
Really, the economic issues that are facing our nation, and a state like Michigan, are something that we would hope this Administration and the Democratic majority would pay more attention to. The Republican party is absolutely committed to working together in a bipartisan way on focusing our attention on getting our national economy and states like Michigan back on track and we are certainly hopeful that the Democratic majority will pay attention to that.
 
Rep. Thaddeus McCotter:

Obviously in this difficult economy, the American people want prosperity. But in this dangerous world, the American people also deserve security. For the first time in 30 years, the Administration is going to have face-to-face talks with the Iranian government.
 
As members of the party of Lincoln and Reagan, we ask the president, in these meetings, to reaffirm the fundamental principle of American foreign policy; that in expanding liberty for the oppressed, we ensure it for ourselves. We ask the president to talk about the freedom movement in Iran. To ask Ahmadinejad, the usurper, to explain why people like Neda Soltan were shot in the streets for wanting to be free. We ask the president to remind Ahmadinejad of what Natan Sharansky said: "how a nation treats its own citizens is how it will treat the world."
 
Republican Leader Boehner:
 
Well, let's go back to families who are struggling in America, small businesses trying to keep the doors open and keep people on the payroll. This week it's pretty clear that the Administration is going to release the new jobless numbers on Friday. And I don't think the news is going to be good. Clearly, there's something wrong here. The American people want to go back to work. The American people want some assurances they're going to be able to keep their job. But the stimulus bill that was supposed to be about jobs turned into nothing more than spending. We were going to lower unemployment, what happened?  2.4 million people have lost their jobs since. The president said that unemployment wouldn't go above 8 percent and now we're nearly at 10 percent.
 
If that isn't bad enough, the Administration continues to support policies here on Capitol Hill that will kill more American jobs. You've heard about the cap and trade comment from my colleague from Michigan. This big government bureaucracy that's going to control the price of energy and carbon in America is estimated to cost us 2.5 million jobs a year each and every year over the next 10 years. You look at their proposal on health care, where they're going to mandate health care coverage on employers. All that's going to do is to drive more employers to reduce employment. And this is not what the American people want. They want policies out of Washington that will help ensure that we get the economy moving again.  But we're not doing that here on Capitol Hill.
 
And now the president is going off to Copenhagen when we've got serious issues here at home that need to be debated. And so we would hope that our Democrat colleagues would work with us to promote policies that would put Americans back to work. Because at the end of the day, until Americans get back to work, our country won't be on the road to recovery.