Politics & Power Quote by Mike Pence

Pence frames an economic argument as a kind of common-sense referendum: "The American people know..". is a preemptive mandate, designed to make disagreement sound elitist or out of touch. It’s a classic populist move from inside the system - Washington is positioned as the problem, even as the speaker is a Washington actor. The line flatters voters while narrowing the menu of acceptable solutions to two conservative staples: "fiscal discipline" and "across-the-board tax relief."

The phrase "fiscal discipline" works because it’s morally loaded but operationally vague. It signals spending cuts, restraint, and seriousness without naming the painful parts: which programs shrink, who loses benefits, what trade-offs follow. "Across-the-board" is the rhetorical clincher. It promises fairness and simplicity, dodging the distributional reality that tax relief rarely hits all incomes equally, and that broad cuts can disproportionately advantage higher earners unless carefully structured.

Then comes the coalition-building list: "working families, small businesses and family farms". Each term is culturally sympathetic, almost archetypal. It’s a political technique as much as an economic claim - wrap tax policy in the most defensible identities and you get to imply that opponents are targeting Main Street. "Family farms" in particular is a nostalgic signal, invoking rural virtue and independence even as modern agriculture is shaped by consolidation and federal policy.

Contextually, this language fits the post-recession, Tea Party-era Republican message: energize anti-DC sentiment, elevate austerity as prudence, and cast tax cuts as the engine of recovery. The intent isn’t to describe a complex economy; it’s to provide a moral storyline where growth comes from restraint and relief, and where "necessary" means ideologically settled.