U.S. Rep. Barry Moore (R-Enterprise) believes the contentious Speaker of the House vote last week was a good thing for Congress.
After 15 votes, U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif) was elected Speaker. Moore voted for McCarthy each time, but also admitted that there were some good results from the tough negotiations.
During a Wednesday appearance on WVNN’s “The Yaffee Program,” Moore discussed the leadership vote and also addressed the latest actions by the Republican-led Congress.
“70% of the members are new since Trump was elected in 2016, so the business as usual, those days are over,” Moore said. “I think it’s good for the American people to see us debate on the floor, to negotiate and get the best set of rules we can get to make sure we pass our voice long with our constituents, where we can hear and vote and have a say in the process up here rather than a rubber stamp.”
The congressman said the Democrats messed up the process when they were in charge.
“I mean Nancy Pelosi basically ran it like it was a despotism,” he said. “It was her way or the highway. And so to make sure we got those rules more member-friendly so we could actually have a voice in the process, and to actually have 12 appropriations bills, those sort of things are things we needed to have done and I’m honestly well pleased with the process, how it went.
“It was a long, drawn out process obviously, as the American people paid attention, but I think it’s going to be great for the country.”
Moore praised one bill passed by the new GOP-led House that defunds the hiring of 87,000 new employees by the IRS.
“As we were all campaigning across the country, we had the Commitment to America, much like the Contract with America, the very first thing on the agenda was to do away with the 87,000 IRS agents that were to be hired when the Democrats passed the Inflation Reduction Act,” he said. “They were going to hire 87,000 new IRS agents, and you know like I know, there’s not that many billionaires and millionaires, this was going to really stifle the small business owners. They were going to by hamstrung by more agents. \
“And so we felt like it was important to keep our commitment to America, that was the very first bill we passed yesterday.”
The congressman also laid out some of the other main priorities for his party this session.
“If you ask leadership, they’ll tell you that the three largest threats we believe right now to the country, obviously China is one of those, and then the national debt is another, education system is the third,” he said. “We’re working on trying to control the spending, we’ve got our IRS agents, we’re going to repeal those, but also just oversight in China and how they’re involved in the process. Whether is be COVID or whatever the case may be, we’ve got to get to the bottom of that, we need oversight. They are the number one global enemy right now of America.”
Moore expressed optimism for what is party will be able to accomplish this year in Congress.
“I want to let people know that although the process just seems broken, I think it’s really working,” he said. “I think the our caucus is coming together. I think they’re going to be well pleased with what they see out of conservatives within the conference this coming year.”
Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on Twitter @Yaffee
