Former Vice President Mike Pence campaigning at the No B.S. Backyard Barbecue in Rye on Labor Day. Courtesy photo

RYE – Former Vice President Mike Pence criticized the economic policies implemented by President Joe Biden during the No B.S. Backyard Barbeque on Labor Day.

“When I looked at the disastrous policies of the Biden Administration, I just couldn’t sit this one out,” he said of his decision to run for the nation’s highest office. “I think this country is in a lot of trouble.”

Pence said inflation is the highest it has been since 1983 and that mortgage interest rates are also at a 22-year high.

“Nobody is buying Bidenomics,” he said. “Bidenomics has failed the American people. Two out of three Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.”

As a result, he said the national debt has reached $32.9 trillion.

“We have a national debt that’s the size of our nation’s economy for the first time since World War II,” said Pence. “We have a moral obligation to restore fiscal discipline in Washington D.C. My opinion of our government has gone down. But my opinion of the American people has gone up. We need a government that’s as good as our people.”

Pence also said Social Security and Medicare are the “principal drivers of government spending.”

Therefore, if elected, Pence said he would reform Social Security and Medicare without reducing the benefits of either program.

He would also allow employees in the public and private sectors to take a percentage of their payroll taxes and put it into a personal savings account which would have a two percent interest rate.

“It already exists, not surprisingly for federal employees,” Pence said of the Thrift Savings Plan, which has $760 billion in assets and is used by 6.7 million federal employees.

According to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the TSP is a “tax-deferred retirement savings and investment plan that offers federal employees the same type of savings and tax benefits that many private corporations offer their employees under 401(k) plans.”

Regarding immigration, Pence said 91,000 families came across the southern border last month.

“We have an avalanche of people coming into our country,” he said. “We have to fix this broken immigration system once and for all.”

Therefore, he would require immigrants to have jobs waiting for them before they arrive in the U.S.

“It’s called a merit-based immigration system,” he said. “It’s an idea whose time has come.”

Now 64 years old, Pence was a U.S. Representative from 2001 to 2013.

“I’ve battled against big spenders in my own party,” he said. “I was a conservative in Congress before it was cool.”

He then served as governor of Indiana from 2013 to 2017 when he was tapped for the vice presidency.

“I think about that day when I put my hand on [former President] Ronald Reagan’s Bible and took the oath of office,” he said.

During their four years in the White House, Pence said he and former President Donald Trump rebuilt the military, revived the economy, achieved energy independence for the first time in 75 years, secured the border and appointed three justices to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The latest national polls from CNN show Pence with seven percent of the vote in the Republican Primary. He is now tied for third place with former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, is in second place with 18 percent, while Trump continues to lead the field with 52 percent.