Congresswoman Nancy Mace grew up in the Lowcountry. She is the daughter of a retired Army General and retired school teacher.
Before being sworn into Congress, Nancy earned accolades as one of the most fiscally conservative members of the South Carolina General Assembly; she’s also one of the most pro-conservation lawmakers in the state of South Carolina.
Nancy grew up in Goose Creek, S.C. And when she dropped out of high school at the age of 17, her parents said, “If you’re going to stop going to school, you got to start going to work.” She immediately became a waitress at the Waffle House on College Park Road in Ladson (exit 203).
The Lowcountry of today would be almost unrecognizable to our parents and grandparents. Thanks to the hard work of countless entrepreneurs and workers, we’ve become a world leader in everything from manufacturing to tourism and hospitality.
Let us not forget, infrastructure is the backbone of our South Carolina economy. A total of 6,303 companies exported from South Carolina locations in 2016. And of those, 84 percent were small and medium sized enterprises with fewer than 500 employees.
But, we can’t take success for granted. Our roads, bridges, airports, ports, and waterways are all vital to our state’s economy. Without flowing highways, tourists can’t make it to the coast. Without the Port of Charleston, the hard work of countless entrepreneurs and workers never reaches global markets. And not only that, port operations support 1 in 10 jobs for South Carolinians and account for 10% of the state’s economy. That’s $1.1 billion in tax revenue annually for South Carolina.
But this isn’t just about money. Failure here translates into real impacts on real families. Schools, police, firefighters, and countless other services we all rely on degrade if our economy stagnates, and that hurts the least fortunate among us.
It’s why I’m determined to work toward making infrastructure among Washington’s top priorities here in Congress.
I support lower taxes for all. Tax cuts create jobs, prosperity, and wealth. They empower us to spend our money how we see fit, rather than relegating this decision to Washington bureaucrats. When Washington enables individuals and businesses to keep more of their hard-earned dollars, our economy flourishes.
Currently, few people in Washington are taking responsibility for the crippling debt. Medicare and Medicaid will cost us almost $6 trillion dollars in less than a decade. Unfunded pensions eclipse $122 trillion, with another $35 trillion projected in the next four years. Simply put, the spending in Washington is out of control. As a single mom, I know what it’s like to balance a budget. My voting record will reflect this focus in Washington DC.
Washington doesn’t have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem.
Despite federal tax revenues reaching record highs prior to the pandemic, deficit spending reached even higher levels. We’ve seen multiple years of multi-trillion dollar deficits - from both Democrats and Republicans - and now our national debt is now over $28 trillion, this amounts to over $85,000 per American.
Still, many in Washington claim the problem is the American people aren’t paying their “fair share.”
Only in Washington is taking more money from others by force a realistic solution for bad money management. When normal Americans or private businesses are spending more than they take in, they have to cut back and only spend what they absolutely must. They can’t just make up the difference by taking money from others.
No matter what many in Washington might say, there’s simply no way to tax our way out of the endless cycle of debt and deficits.
We must get serious about the “sacred cows” of waste which both Republicans and Democrats refuse to address and push forward true reforms which will get our debt under control. We must take a relentless approach to rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars by those whose only goal is to enrich themselves or to hang on to their own power.
We can’t let Washington politicians, bureaucrats, and their connected pals treat the American people like a bottomless ATM. If we don’t act quickly and seriously to balance the budget, our economy will be devastated, and our children will be forced to pay for our failure to act responsibly.
Sending our troops overseas, making sure those who have come home receive the very best healthcare, the applicability of military skills in the private sector — you name it — all these issues have affected both me and my family personally.
Like many South Carolinians, most of my family are military veterans. I am the daughter of U.S. Army retired Brigadier General James E. Mace, who saw two tours of combat in Vietnam and another in the 1964 Dominican Republic coup d’etat.
I am enormously supportive of all those who have served our country and will strongly fight for them in Congress, because to me, they’re family.
And Parris Island is part of this family—not only here in Beaufort, but to our entire state. Since 1915, the birthplace of Marines has always called the Lowcountry home and I will do everything possible in Congress to see it remains so.
The Lowcountry depends on the preservation of our region’s natural beauty for our economic prosperity. This includes our wildlife, too! Millions of people come from all around the world each year to visit our little corner of the world. We have pristine waters, beautiful beaches, forests and marshlands.Not to mention our great food and hospitality! This creates hundreds of thousands of jobs and over $10 billion in economic revenue each year.
I’m committed to doing all I can to ensure our environment is preserved, but environmental protection and free markets aren’t mutually exclusive.
We should be empowering communities, families, and businesses to continue to protect our environment.
One of the best decisions of the Trump administration was to end oil and gas drilling off South Carolina’s coastline. We’ve seen the immense damage offshore drilling can do to our wildlife and environment when things go wrong, and South Carolinians have made it abundantly clear they don’t want to take this risk.
Our region and our state depend on the conservation of nature to grow and prosper. I’m committed to keeping oil rigs off our coast permanently to ensure South Carolina will never experience the crippling devastation others have and that we do all we can to protect our environment and wildlife.
Parris Island is a fundamental part of the heart and soul of the Lowcountry, and our region is proud to play such an important role in our nation’s defense. Marines trained at Parris Island have served our country in every conflict we’ve been involved in for over a century. In addition, every woman who has ever served as a United States Marine trained at this base.
This installation creates over $800 million in economic activity each year and sustains over 6,000 jobs. But, closing this vital institution wouldn’t just be damaging to the Lowcountry, it would be detrimental to our national defense.
I’m determined to protect Parris Island and I’ve introduced legislation which would protect the base from closure, ensuring the Lowcountry continues to do its part to train our brave marines for generations to come.
Our justice system is supposed to protect the rights of each and every American, both from criminals seeking to do them harm as well as the government. There are millions of incredible law enforcement professionals determined to fulfill their oath to protect and serve the American people.
But over the last several decades, our justice system has failed us.
We put more of our nation’s population in prison than China, Russia, and North Korea. Just as my life has been a series of second chances, I am a firm believer that all persons can be redeemed. Instead of spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to keep people who aren’t dangerous behind bars, we can and must do better. At the same time, millions of Americans’ rights have been violated for years through schemes like “civil asset forfeiture”, which has robbed innocent citizens of billions of their hard-earned dollars.
I’ve spent much of my career getting vital criminal justice reforms put into law and I’m willing to work with anyone and everyone willing to work with me to get this done in Congress.
When politics and overly burdensome regulations are removed from industry, the door is opened for REAL competition — it’s true in the business world and this is especially true in health care. As a limited government, fiscal conservative, I know the free market is able to deliver a higher quality product at a lower price for the consumer. Needless taxes and penalties stand in the way of getting South Carolinians the health care and insurance they deserve. The federal government must loosen its grip on our healthcare decisions.
One of the federal government’s most basic responsibilities is to protect our country and our people from attack by those who wish to harm us. As the attacks on 9/11 showed us, we live in a hostile world, one filled with threats which can do incredible damage if we don’t take them seriously.
But, we can’t allow Washington to use these very real threats to keep our armed forces engaged in endless wars across the globe without any input from Congress or the American people.
Our Constitution gives Congress the exclusive authority to declare war because our Founders knew allowing a single person to take an entire country to war on their own was a massive risk to our liberty.
Aside from the very serious constitutional concerns, there are very simple moral ones at stake. When we fight, it’s the American people who do the fighting. Not politicians. This means the American people must have a say in deciding who, when, and where we fight through their elected representatives in Congress.
If we go to war, the very least we owe our brave troops is ensuring we follow the framework they’re being put into harm’s way to defend.
International trade and good relations with foreign nations are absolutely vital to American prosperity and particularly to the prosperity of the Lowcountry.
Our region survives on the ability to bring millions of visitors from around the world here to spend time on our beaches, in our restaurants, and in our small businesses. South Carolina relies on unrestricted trade to send planes, cars, food, and countless other products made right here around the world. In fact, in 2018, South Carolina was the 14th largest state exporter of goods.
Doing anything to disrupt this flow of goods risks destroying an estimated 157,000 jobs and raising prices on things Lowcountry families buy each and every day. So, when Washington considers taxing products which come from abroad, or another country considers doing the same, it’s something which concerns all of us.
Keeping trade free, fair, and open with as many countries as possible is my top priority. Anything which might jeopardize this is something which shouldn’t be taken lightly, and must be discussed by Congress, not simply carried out by unelected bureaucrats.
Our Founders accomplished a monumental task when they drafted our Constitution over 230 years ago. The system of checks and balances and separation of powers they created has carried our country through immense challenges which would have caused other systems of government to collapse.
However, this system has been damaged by career politicians who have engaged in tricks and games to protect and expand their power in ways the Founders would be horrified by today. This has led to many serving decades in Congress, near-criminal degrees of waste and self-dealing, and a national debt our kids and grandkids will be forced to repay.
As a member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, I’m committed to advancing common-sense reforms which will put a stop to this waste, fraud, and abuse once and for all.
A balanced budget amendment, congressional term limits, single-issue bills, and a ban on proxy voting and earmarks are all simple changes we can make which will go a long way toward restoring the vision of limited government our Founders had all those years ago.
I believe our Constitution is a sacred document. So sacred, I swore my oath of office with my hand placed on it.
For too long, politicians in Washington have ignored the restrictions placed on them in our Constitution whenever they were inconvenient. They view our Founders’ vision for a limited federal government as an impediment to their ability to enrich themselves instead of the foundational principles by which our representative democracy protects the rights of We The People.
What’s worse, we’ve seen politicians from both parties passionately defend constitutional principles when they feel it protects their own ideals, only to work tirelessly to undermine those same principles when they give the same protection to people they happen to dislike.
Our Founders specifically protected our right to privacy, due process, and to bear arms specifically to prevent the rise of a tyrannical government. But from the Patriot Act to encroachments on our Second Amendment rights, our constitutional rights have been under assault for decades now.
We can’t allow politicians to use the Constitution as a political weapon or use fear to disregard it whenever they please, and we must applaud those who defend the Constitution even when it costs them politically.
Each and every American has the right to practice their religion and express their opinion without government interference. Each and every American has the right to privacy, due process, and a fair trial. Each and every law-abiding American has the right to bear arms. Each and every state has the right to govern themselves without interference from Washington, as laid out in the Constitution.
The Constitution is a document that protects all of us, not just those we disagree with. I’m determined to uphold it, for each and every one of us.
South Carolina has many wonderful public schools, but we also have many great charter schools, private schools, and a legion of homeschooling parents. The time has come to change the way we think about education funding and how we allow parents to determine where their kids are educated. As a single working mother of two school-age children, I strongly support educational choice.