Longtime Congressman John Spratt will have opposition in the 2010 election as Lancaster resident Mick Mulvaney announced his bid Monday for the U.S. Congress in District 5.

Mulvaney, a Republican, currently represents Lancaster and York counties in the S.C. Senate and is president of Mulvaney Company, a diversified small business with restaurant and real estate operations.

“I am running for office because John Spratt voted for the Wall Street bailouts, for the government takeover of GM and Chrysler, for cap and trade and he supports the government health care plan now being debated,” said Mulvaney, who was in Newberry yesterday to spread his news locally. “Enough is enough. It is time for him to go.”

Mulvaney said cap and trade regulations could haunt many in Newberry, and the other counties in the district.

He said the U.S. must stop job losses before it can create new jobs.

Mulvaney also aims to work to undo the changes the “Pelosi-controlled Congress” has brought with “Spratt’s lockstep support.”

“I will support private enterprise as the best way to create jobs for our workers, opportunities for our children, and healthy 401ks for our retirees,” Mulvaney pledged. “I will support clean coal, domestic natural gas and nuclear power as the best way for South Carolina and our country to develop environmentally sound ways to end the days of us empowering our enemies. I will support the free market, more competition, less government paperwork and bureaucracy and limits on frivolous lawsuits as a way to bring sanity to health care.”

Mulvaney said he knows taxes need to be paid, but that governments need to tax for only the amount they need.

Mulvaney served in the state House of Representatives from 2006 to 2008 and is a graduate from Georgetown University, University of North Carolina’s Law School and Harvard Business School.

Mulvaney and his wife, Pam, live in Indian Land and have 9-year-old triplets.

Congressional District 5 includes Newberry, York, Cherokee, Chester, Chesterfield, Darlington, Dillon, Fairfield, Kershaw, Lancaster and Marlboro counties.