While Mike Pence's loyalty to his boss may color the electorate's perception of the former vice president, Pence doesn't hesitate to reckon honestly with the Trump administration's record of fiscal policy. In conversation, he doesn't deflect blame onto former President Donald Trump , either. Instead, Pence, who is openly weighing a bid for the Republican presidential nomination , uses it as an opportunity to discuss what his economic agenda would look like if he does return to Washington.

"The Trump-Pence administration did not do a good job controlling spending," the former Indiana governor told the Washington Examiner in an exclusive interview. "And it was my hope that in a second term of our administration, we would begin a discussion of entitlement reform. But I could see that when you look at our spending record on domestic issues and the lack of engagement on entitlement reform, we could have done a better job."

But given the mandate Trump brought to the White House, Pence maintains the administration succeeded.

"When we were forming our administration and I was leading the transition team after the election in 2016, the president made it very clear that other than rebuilding our military after years of reckless budget cuts, his top priority for the administration was growth," Pence said. "And that's where we went to work, unleashing energy, rolling back regulations, and then passing the largest tax cuts and tax reform in American history, all in our first year. It was about renewing economic growth, seeing 7 million jobs created, wages rising, lowest unemployment rate in 50 years."

Pence contends that whatever Republican wins the White House has to focus not just on restoring Trump-era economic growth, which was severely hampered by the pandemic and then the inflation and energy regulation during the Biden administration, but also "embrace common sense and compassionate reforms of entitlements."

"As I'm traveling around the country, I always remind people that the American people have a long history of being willing to do hard things, but it all begins with leadership," said Pence. "We need to produce leadership in this country, be straight with the American people to understand that we have a national debt today the size of our nation's economy. But that could rise to more than five times that amount by the time my three granddaughters reach their 25th birthday."

Pence asserts that the job will fall to a Republican president, as Joe Biden refuses to engage in talks with a bipartisan coalition of senators ready to tackle entitlement reform. Pence calls Biden's fiscal policy mere "insolvency."

"I really do believe that to kick the can to future generations would be morally wrong," said Pence. "If we do nothing to bring common sense and compassion reforms to Social Security and Medicare, those programs are projected to produce roughly $115 trillion dollars in deficits in the next 30 years. So we are on track for nearly $150 trillion in debt. And that's barring unforeseen circumstances that could impact our country and could impact our economy and the life of our nation. I really do believe that if we engage in a discussion now, we can reform Social Security without ever touching the benefits for people that are in retirement today or anyone who will retire in the next 25 years."

"If you talk to most young people, including the young people in my family, most young Americans don't think they're gonna get anything from Social Security," Pence adds. Indeed, fewer than one in six Americans under 50 polled by Pew Research Center in 2019 believed that they would receive the current level of Social Security benefits by the time they retire. When Social Security reaches insolvency within the decade, benefits will be slashed by a quarter across the board unless Congress acts to reform the program.

Pence doesn't solely blame Republican inaction for the expanding scope of the federal government.

"There was the Keynesian view of the economy that deficit spending was a good thing," said Pence of the Republicans who galvanized the Tea Party. "Back when I was in Congress, I fought against what I called Big Government Republicanism. Whether it was No Child Left Behind, whether it was the Medicare Prescription Drug bill, whether it was the Wall Street bailout, I am a limited government conservative. I fought against runaway spending under Republican control as hard as I did under Democratic administrations. I really do believe that the American people are on to it now. I think that when people see the cost of an egg goes from a nickel to 30 cents — when they see their grocery bills going up, when they see energy prices rising, when they see this inflation, they’re feeling it at home — they understand that there is a direct relationship to their cost of living and the runaway spending in Washington, D.C. And that's why I think, with the right leadership, with being straight with the American people, being confident that when we tell the American people the truth, and we lay out common sense and compassionate solutions, that they'll rise to the challenge. I really do believe that we can put our nation back on a path of fiscal integrity and growth."