2009 Values Voter Summit
Washington, DC
Friday, September 18,
2009
[TRANSCRIPT from FRCAction]
Thank you, Tony. Thank you all for that wonderful and warm welcome. And
welcome to the 2009 Values Voter Summit, the beginning of the comeback
in America for our values. (Applause.)
You know, 2009 is a very special year for me. I turned 50 this year. I
know I look older. (Laughter.) But, you know, serving in Congress you
start to think about the years and think about the time.
I’m reminded when I was first elected to Congress back in 2000 I went
up to the old timers and I said, how do you like it here? And he said,
oh, my gosh, Mike. He said, if I just had 10 years left to live I’d
want to live it as a member of Congress. And I said, really? And he
said, yeah, this has been the longest 10 years of my life. (Laughter.)
But, seriously, it’s been the greatest privilege of my life to
represent and to serve Indiana here in Washington, D.C. But I’ve got to
be honest with you. As a part of this job, the Congress of the United
States, I’ve had extraordinary experiences.
I’ve walked with our soldiers in places of war. I’ve sat with my heroes
here at home, people like Reagan and Kemp and Quayle. I’ve consorted
with presidents, prime ministers and kings in the far-flung capitals of
the world. But as I think about the past five decades in my life,
nothing can compare to the inexpressible joy I felt on a night in April
in 1978 when I gave my life to Jesus Christ. (Applause.)
And there is one occasion that came close. You know, the old saying is
that behind every great man there is a woman rolling her eyes.
(Laughter.) I don’t know if the first part of that is true for me, but
the second part is just about every day. Please welcome my beloved
wife, Karen Pence, who is in the house. (Applause.)
I stand before you today at an historic moment in the conservative
movement and in the life of this country. The coming weeks and months
may well set the course for this nation for the next generation and
beyond. How we as conservatives respond to these challenges could well
determine whether America retains here place in the world as a beacon
of freedom or whether we slip into the abyss that has swallowed much of
Europe in an avalanche of socialism.
While some are prepared to write the obituary on our values and our
movement, I believe we are on the brink of a great American awakening,
and it will begin here and begin now and begin with you. (Applause.)
I can see it. I can feel it everywhere I go: back home in Indiana town
hall meetings, as I travel across this great country, and as I see all
of you at this record crowd at the Values Voters Summit.
And I’ve go to tell you, Tony, congratulations on a great event and for
all that FRC does. But, you know, if the national media reports this
crowd the way they reported the crowd last weekend, the headlines
tomorrow will be, “Dozens gathered in Washington for the Values Voter
Summit.” (Laughter.) I’ve got to tell you, I’m encouraged. I really am.
(Applause.) Thank you for coming to Washington, D.C. and taking a stand
for values.
You know, but as we move forward I think it’s essentially that we learn
the right lessons from the recent past. On Election Day last year, only
22 percent of Americans described themselves as liberal, but our nation
went forward to elect the most liberal one-party government in American
history.
So, what happened? Well, some blame the war in Iraq. Some blame
Republican scandals. Well, I think the real scandal in Washington, D.C.
was runaway federal spending under Republican control. (Applause.)
The truth is Republicans didn’t just lose a few elections; we lost our
way. We walked away from the principles that minted our national
governing majority and the American people walked away from us, and
look at the results.
The age of Obama, Pelosi and Reid has dawned: energetic bureaucracy at
home, weak and apologetic leadership abroad. And as if things couldn’t
get worse, Democrats have answered years of fiscal irresponsibility by
putting runaway federal spending on steroids: Wall Street bailouts,
auto bailouts, stimulus, omnibus, budget.
The way this administration comes up with a new initiative every day, I
feel like I’m watching one of those infomercials on late-night
television. I expect Joe Biden to come running out at some point and
say, but wait, there’s more. (Laughter.)
Just when you thought things couldn’t get worse, now comes a national
energy tax and now comes government-run insurance. Let me be clear on
this: The American people want health-care reform that lowers the cost
of health insurance for working families and small businesses.
But the American people don’t want a government-run insurance plan paid
for with billions of dollars of taxes that will lead to a government
takeover of health care in this nation. (Applause.) And the American
people will not stand for government-run insurance that uses taxpayer
money to fund abortions in this country. (Applause, cheers.)
And the way they’re passing these bills I know has got to be driving a
lot of you crazy – thousand-page bills introduced the day before that
nobody’s read. It’s unbelievable. I think members of Congress should be
required to read every major piece of legislation before they vote to
enact it. (Applause, cheers.)
You know, I do think members of Congress should be required to read
bills, but I’ve got to tell you; I’d be just about as happy if more of
them read this a little more often, the Constitution of the United
States of America. (Applause.) You know, a lot of good stuff in here –
(laughter) – freedom of speech, freedom of association, limited
government – and nowhere in here can I find the word “czar.” (Laughter,
applause.)
You know, two weeks ago the president’s Green Jobs czar resigned, and
not a moment too soon. (Applause.) But let’s be clear on this issue.
This is not about the extremist views of one man. Washington, D.C. must
become a no-czar zone, starting here and starting now. (Applause.)
So we’re in the wilderness. The only question now, as my late father
used to say, is what are you going to do about it? Well, there sure is
a lot of advice out there for conservatives. You know, we’re hearing
that Republicans have to come up with “new ideas,” right? We have to
take our new ideas to new voters with new technologies, right?
Well, let me say, you know, Republicans need to come up with policy
alternatives and we have we’ll continue to. I think it’s wise to use
new technologies to reach voters that haven’t been coming our way for a
while. I mean, I’ve got a Facebook page. (Laughter.)
But let me say, more than anything else, for our movement and for the
future, we need once again to be willing to fight for freedom, free
markets and traditional moral values with everything we’ve got, and
take that message to every community in this nation, regardless of race
or creed or color. (Applause, cheers.)
We must take the cause of freedom and free enterprise, traditional
marriage and the right to life to every community, because these are
American values. They know no ethnic group. They are our collective
heritage. Jack Kemp taught me that.
Jack Kemp was my hero who became our friend. Jack Kemp often quoted a
line from the founder of the Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln, who
said, quote, “There is no reason in the world why the Negro is not
entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of
Independence, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Lincoln went on to say, “I hold that he is as much entitled to these as
the white man.” And Jack Kemp would always add – (applause) – and they
killed him for it; and they killed Lincoln for it. Our party was
founded on the vision of a quality of opportunity for all Americans,
and to that vision we must return this party and this movement.
(Applause.)
But we’ve got to be willing to fight, and the fight begins with
recognizing America’s freedom is not just our own. Since the founding
of this nation we have always believed that our freedom was meant to be
an inspiration for the world.
After months of traveling to the capitals of the world, glad-handing
dictators and apologizing for alleged American transgressions,
President Obama refused to stand with millions of Iranians protesting
the fraudulent elections this past June because he said the American
people did not want to, quote, “meddle in the internal affairs of Iran”
Well, House Republicans saw things differently. We brought a resolution
to the floor that gave the American people an opportunity for their
voice to be heard and it passed with overwhelming and bipartisan
support. The American people said to Iranian dissidents, we stand with
you who stand for freedom in the streets of Tehran. The cause of
America is freedom and in this cause we must never be silent again.
(Applause.)
You know, Ronald Reagan didn’t stand in front of the Brandenburg gate
and say, Mr. Gorbachev, that wall is none of our business. (Laughter.)
We’ve got to get back to standing boldly on the world stage for freedom.
But standing up for our values also means fighting for free enterprise
and free markets. The freedom to succeed includes the freedom to fail.
We must defend entrepreneurial capitalism against the onslaught of the
American left. (Applause.)
You know, even in these challenging times the American people know what
makes sense and what doesn’t. They know we can’t borrow and spend and
bail our way back to a growing America. We can’t bail out every failing
business in this country, and we can’t ask hardworking families who
played by the rules and paid their mortgages to bail out the
irresponsible decisions of Americans who haven’t figured out how to get
that done. (Applause.)
Finally, fighting for freedom means ensuring the blessings of liberty
for ourselves and our posterity, born and unborn. (Applause, cheers.)
We must stand for the sanctity of human life without apology. It is
morally wrong to take an innocent human life, but it’s also morally
wrong to take the taxpayer dollars of millions of pro-life Americans
and use it to promote abortion at home and abroad. (Applause.)
The largest abortion provider in America should not be the largest
recipient of federal funding under Title X. The time has come to deny
any and all federal funding to Planned Parenthood of America.
(Applause, cheers.)
And among the most profound blessings of liberty is the institution of
marriage. Marriage was ordained by God, instituted in the law. It is
the glue of the American family and the safest harbor to raise
children. Marriage matters, and we must fight to defend traditional
marriage against the onslaught of the courts and the left. (Applause.)
The American people aren’t happy, and they know this isn’t just about
dollars and cents. They know it’s about who we are as a nation. As
Ronald Reagan said in 1964, it’s about, quote, “whether we abandon the
American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a
far-distant capital can plan our lives better for us than we can plan
them for ourselves.”
Well, my money is on the American people, and let me tell you why. It
was the morning after that Wall Street bailout last fall. A handful of
us had dug in and fought against that massive transfer of wealth. I
just thought it was wrong to take $700 billion in bad decisions on Wall
Street and transfer it to “Main Street,” and I still do. (Applause.)
But we lost that fight. We lost that fight.
I got on the plane and flew home to Indiana, went out to the Henry
Country Fairgrounds for a Boy Scout Jamboree on a cold Saturday morning
just about a year ago, and I’ll never forget it. You know the Boy Scout
Jamboree situation. A bunch of little boys with their hair tousled,
ties pulled to the side, one shirt tail out, standing in a row.
I gave them a little speech about George Washington. I told them I’d
dyed my hair to look more like George Washington. (Laughter.) But then
afterwards the parents gaggled around me a little bit, but one man
stood off to the side. A lot of the folks were talking about that
bailout vote.
But it wasn’t until after everyone dispersed and walked away this one
man in modest dress walked up to me holding his hat in his hand. He
said, Congressman, I seen in the newspaper you were going to be out
here and I – I lost my job yesterday but I came out here to thank you
for voting against that Wall Street bailout.
And as I shook his hand and offered any help I could, I told him how
much I admired him for his stand, and he said words I’ll never forget.
He said, really, it’s nothing, Congressman. He said, I came by to thank
you, because I can get another job but I can’t get another country.
(Applause.) For that brave American who, in difficult days, did not
take his eyes off American ideals, we have to fight to advance American
ideals, preserve freedom, free markets and values with everything we’ve
got, so help us God. (Applause.)
So let me say we’ve got to take action to get the economy back on
track, put the American people back to work, but there’s one thing more
we must do. We must recognize that our present crisis is not merely
economic and political but moral in nature.
At the root of these times is the realization that we are struggling as
a nation because so many in authority have walked away from the
timeless truths of integrity, personal responsibility, an honest day’s
work for an honest day’s pay, and the simple notion that each of should
live and work in a way that treats others the way that we want to be
treated.
The old book tells us, if the foundations crumble, how can the
righteous stand? Well, I would add respectfully, if the foundations of
integrity and personal responsibility crumble, how can a free society
endure? The truth is, we’ve got to get back to basics.
You know, recently U.S. News & World Report called our office to
say they’d heard a rumor that I opened staff meetings at the House
Republican Conference in prayer. (Laughter.)
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Guilty!
REP. PENCE: Guilty. (Laughter, applause.) You know, only in Washington,
D.C. is being caught in private prayer a newsworthy event. You know, we
actually responded to him – you can look it up – we said – and they
printed it. We said, yes, the congressman does open meetings in prayer.
We pray for the president, for colleagues in both political parties.
Sometimes we even pray for the press. (Laughter.)
The truth is, times like these are a good time to remember what your
knees are for. Our founders believed in prayer, as did that president I
just mentioned, and Indiana farm boy named Abe Lincoln.
One of my favorite stories about President Lincoln came at the very
height of the Civil War. History records that on the eve of the bloody
battle on that field in Pennsylvania, President Lincoln fell to his
knees in the White House and prayed.
He later recalled the experience to a Union general with these words,
and I quote: “I don’t know how it was, I cannot explain it, but soon a
sweet comfort crept into my soul, the feeling that God had taken the
whole business into his hands and that things would go right again.”
Well, like millions of Americans, I’ve been spending some time on my
knees lately, and I got the same feeling. In these difficult times, by
His grace, things are going to go right again in the United States of
America. (Applause.)
Winston Churchill spoke to times like these when he said, and I quote,
“He must indeed have a blind soul who cannot see that some great
purpose and design is being worked out here below, of which we have the
honor to be faithful servants.”
You have come to this great national capital to take your stand for the
values that make this country great. It’s a capital filled with
memorials to America's heroes, men and women whose faces are carved in
bronze, whose names adorn monuments, and just across that river whose
remains lie quietly as a testament to their heroism and sacrifice for
us.
In their time they did their part. Now it’s our turn. Let us do as
generations of Americans have done before. Let us stand for what has
always been the source of American greatness: our faith in God, our
freedom and our vast natural resources.
And if we hold that banner high, without apology, I believe with all my
heart that the good and great people of this land will rally to our
cause. We will take this Congress back in 2010 and we will take this
country back in 2012, so help us God. (Applause, cheers.)
Thank you all very much. Thank you for taking your stand in this
nation’s capital. God bless you all.