Rep. Trey Gowdy told the combined Greenville County and Upstate Republican women’s clubs Wednesday, Aug. 31, that “compromise is only one-way street in Washington.
“They want us to compromise when we are in power, and they can do what they want when they are in power. With civility we must be unyielding in our convictions.”
Gowdy referred to Sen. Jim DeMint, the luncheon’s first speaker, as the father of the modern-day constitutional conservative movement. Gowdy asked that DeMint give prayerful consideration to running for president. He said his dream ticket is either DeMint and Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin or DeMint and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.
“Do not underestimate what the NLRB is trying to do to Boeing,” Gowdy said. The NLRB is an unelected, Executive branch entity that is trying to mothball Boeing’s $1 billion plant and send 1,000 jobs from a right-to-work state back to a union state.
“It is gutter-raw politics,” Gowdy said. “It has nothing to do with respect to the rule of law. The next time Boeing is considering whether to expand, it won’t be between Washington state and South Carolina. It will be between Washington state and Brazil or India or China, because they do not have an NLRB. As long as the South Carolina delegation has breath, we will fight the NLRB.”
Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, allowed the field hearing about Boeing to take place in Charleston, “which created a huge home court advantage for us.”
Gowdy said that Operation Fast and Furious, in which the U.S. Government allowed thousands of weapons to cross into Mexico, which were used to commit heinous, violent crimes, was an “ill-conceived, botched” operation from its inception.
“We are not going to let it go until we find out who in the Department of Justice knew about it, who sanctioned it and who turned a blind eye to it.”
Gowdy said the fact that Rep. Paul Ryan is not on the so-called Super Committee on the budget should tell you to have “very low expectations for what is getting ready to happen.”
While on scores of plant tours, Gowdy is told that Washington must stop creating uncertainty, whether it’s Obamacare, Cap and Trade or Card Check. Don’t make us fearful to expand our businesses, he is told.
Gowdy concluded by saying: “This is still the greatest country on the face of the earth. There is something about the American spirit that has gone from a ragtag band of mercenaries who took on the most powerful army on the face of the earth at the time, which led to the forming of our country, and then cobbling together, as some would say by fate, and I would say the Lord did it, in Philadelphia to get those minds in that room at that time to create our Constitution.
“We have survived presidential assassinations, we have survived Civil War, we have survived the Civil Rights conflict, we have lost scores of our young men on the beaches of other countries so they could enjoy freedom.
“My fear is this, what unites us anymore? We say we are the United States of America, and then all I hear about is diversity. What unites us? I think what unites us is individual liberty. What unites us is a belief in personal responsibility, what unites us is accountability to others, a belief that education and hard work is the pathway to prosperity, not a government handout, a belief in the sanctity of life, an acknowledgement that we must have the Lord direct our steps, or we are not going to make it as a country.”
Gowdy was introduced by Solicitor Walt Wilkins.
You can watch Rep. Gowdy’s speech online at SouthCarolinaConservative.com.
