Vice President Mike Pence Visiting Baton Rouge
Vice President Mike Pence has made it to the Bayou State.
Pence's office says he's meeting with local business people today to discuss health care, jobs and the economy.
He's also speaking in Port Allen at Cajun Industries, a construction services corporation.
Pence is accompanied by members of the state congressional delegation and Seema Verma, the head of Medicare and Medicaid in the Trump administration.Vice President Mike Pence landed in Louisiana this morning and his first stop was in Denham Springs to visit with flood victims.
He’s with Congressman Garret Graves who plans to discuss matters our state faces from devastating flooding, to new energy policies.
Gov. John Bel Edwards spoke about Pence's visit: “I appreciate Vice President Pence coming to Louisiana. I shared my concerns with the Vice President about the administration’s budget proposal, and I promised to work with him and President Trump to craft a plan that doesn’t unfairly target our state, but achieves our shared goal of fiscal responsibility.”
LSU Political Science Professor Robert Hogan on the visit.
“Enable him to appear before a friendly audience, the Trump-Pence ticket did very well in Louisiana in the November elections and there is a great deal of support for him.”
The White House says during the Vice President’s visit, he’ll hear first-hand stories about health care, job creation and the economy. Hogan says the Trump administration wants to show they listen to the public.
“It’s a way of saying hey we go out into the states and we listen to people’s concerns and we go back to Washington and use what they’ve learned in order to craft policies.”
The governor’s office says John Bel Edwards plans on meeting with the Vice President at the Baton Rouge airport.
Edwards released a statement claiming the President’s proposed budget ignores Louisiana needs by reducing Medicare funding and dollars for Louisiana’s coast. Hogan expects the governor to ask Pence about this.
“This would give an opportunity to say hey, your administration is thinking of doing something that may have negative repercussions for the state of Louisiana.”