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)

Multimedia:

Audio  |  Video  |  Photos

Transcript:
 
Conference Chairman Pence:
 
Welcome back everybody.
 
We just had our first Conference meeting for the July session on Capitol Hill, and House Republicans are here to do the people’s work.  We think job one for the American people today is to create jobs.  When this President first spoke to the Congress, he asked Congress to send him “a recovery plan that would put people back to work.”  Since that time, hundreds of thousands of Americans have lost their jobs. Unemployment is now at 9.5 percent, and even though the President on the first of July had said that the stimulus bill had “done its job,” my constituents see it differently.  I spoke to one constituent at a Fourth of July parade who said he was no fan of the President’s predecessor, no fan of the economic policies of the Bush Administration, but he said, “Mike, we’ve gone from bad to worse on this economy.”  And he’s right.
 
Republicans know and the American people know that what we need is fiscal discipline in Washington, D.C., and we need to give the American people tax relief.  Working families, small businesses, and family farms need more of their hard-earned money to put this economy back on its feet.  The American people know how to make America work.  The only thing the stimulus plan has stimulated is more government and more debt, and House Republicans are determined to continue to advance policies that will get this economy moving and create the kind of jobs that the American people want to see created across this land.

 
Republican Whip Cantor:
 
Good morning.
 
Chances are, if you’re of working age in America right now, you are worried about job security. Everybody in this country is worried about their financial security and the future of this country. So it’s in that context that we come back to work the next four weeks to try and accomplish what most Americans have to deal with, which is the increased cost of health care and the threat that they will lose the health care that they have enjoyed.
 
I think that where we see this health care debate going, at this point, is down the path of discussion around one large issue and that is whether there will be a government takeover of the health care system or not. We saw the other day that White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, had indicated that perhaps a government plan was negotiable. Yesterday we saw the President take to the mics and indicate that Rahm was wrong. Well, you know Rahm and I know Rahm – he’s looking at the same polling that we are. People in the country want to keep the health care that they’ve got. That cannot be achieved with a government plan. That will be the thrust of the negotiations, I think, in both Houses. There’s no question that the impact of that will determine the health care future of this country.
 
 
Conference Vice Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers:
 
Good morning everyone.
 
I too wanted to just talk a little bit about the health care crisis because I think, as a mom, there’s nothing more important to me than making sure I get to take my son to the doctor that he wants to see. That is true of millions of moms all across this country.
 
When I was home in eastern Washington, getting around the district, I can tell you people talked to me about the lack of doctors and nurses. The shortage we continue to have. They’re concerned about the cost of health care that drives up the cost of health insurance and they continue to be concerned about the uninsured. But you know, they are fearful of government taking control of the health care system. They are fearful of government coming along and telling a mom, “You know what, we’re going to choose a pediatrician for you.”  Seniors are fearful that after years–decades sometimes–of going to the same doctor, that they will lose that doctor because the government doesn’t pay the cost of health care for these doctors. During this debate, we can not forget that doctors are the experts. We must guard that relationship between the doctor and the patient–it is one of the most valued relationships that we have.
 
According to the nonpartisan study by the Lewin Group, nearly 120 million people would lose their health insurance if we implement this public option, this government option. You know, we can reform health care. We can give options to the uninsured without the federal government setting up shop as a big health insurance company or the health care gate keeper. We can do it while protecting that valued doctor-patient relationship.
 
 
Republican Leader Boehner:
 
All of this talk about a second stimulus bill has been rather interesting. I think it’s an admission on the part of the administration that their stimulus plan is not working, and so there’s conversations about how do we grow jobs. And it I found it also interesting over the last couple days to hear the Vice President, Vice President Biden, and the President mention the fact they didn’t realize how difficult an economic circumstance we were in. Now this is the greatest fabrication I’ve seen since I’ve been in Congress. I sat through those meetings at the White House with the President and the Vice President. Trust me, there’s not one person that sat in those rooms that didn’t know how serious our economic crisis was. We tried to explain to the President that growing government wasn’t going to get America back to work again and, that by allowing small businesses and American families to keep more of what they earn, they’re the real engine of economic growth in America. And if we really are serious about creating jobs we ought to allow American families and small business to keep more of what they earn.
 
The second thing we should do if we’re concerned about growing jobs in America is that we should not pass this national energy tax, which is going to raise the taxes on all Americans—less money for them to spend—and millions of American jobs are going to get shipped overseas as a result. And if you look at their proposal on health care, again we’re talking about a $1.5 trillion tax increase—less money for the American people to spend on themselves, less money for American businesses. And if that’s not bad enough, we’re going to ruin our health care system and we’re going to tax employers if they don’t provide health insurance. And so we are killing jobs with every proposal we see here. The first thing we should do is practice the Hippocratic Oath: first, do no harm. Let’s get rid of this national energy tax idea. Let’s get rid of the idea of raising taxes and this big government takeover of healthcare that will make it impossible to create jobs and it will cost Americans millions of additional jobs.