LEILA FADEL, HOST:
For more on Republican efforts to advance a $95 billion reconciliation package, I'm joined by Congressman Blake Moore. The Republican from Utah sits on the House Ways and Means Committee and the Budget Committee. Good morning, Congressman. Welcome to the program.
BLAKE MOORE: Thank you for having me. Good morning.
FADEL: So a lot of disagreement on this reconciliation package, including within your own party. Members of your conference have raised concerns about the costs of this latest reconciliation package...
MOORE: Correct.
FADEL: ...That it will add to the national debt without offsetting that spending. Do you share that concern?
MOORE: Oh, I share every concern that there ever is about adding to the (laughing) national debt, so yeah. No, it's definitely something that's dominating the conversation with respect to this reconciliation package. As you mentioned, the committees I'm on, one of them Budget, one of them Ways and Means. Ways and Means, we would've liked to have been a part of the instructions for this. But there's also a sincere effort to keep it very narrowly focused.
FADEL: So you weren't consulted?
MOORE: Well, no, I was consulted the entire way. All of us have been consulted. It's just a - it's a tough needle to thread, if you will.
FADEL: Yeah.
MOORE: I'm going to use that term because we have - we're trying to keep it very narrow for all the reasons that that reporter just accurately described on not making this into a massive experiment or every single committee, you know, getting into their priorities and doing that kind of. So we got to keep it more narrow and just keep it on, you know - focus on the military, some food security pieces with our ag and farmers. And then, of course, the - as you mentioned, the voter ID piece.
FADEL: Do you believe Mike Johnson has the numbers to pass this through the House in its current form?
MOORE: I'm always amazed at what we can get accomplished. We're always sort of counted out and then we find a way to get it done. I assume - I believe we can get it done. I think there is - if you look at the Budget Committee, it's a swath of - it's kind of like a good representation of the entire GOP, House GOP. And so you've got members from various districts, swing districts, very deep-red districts. And we all came together to get the resolution out of committee, which should reflect what we can get done in the House on the floor this week. Now, the particulars of these various elements do matter and what the Senate ultimately does, does matter. But I think we can get it out of the House floor this week and hopefully move the legislation and get it done as soon as possible.
FADEL: Is it an exercise in futility if it goes to the Senate and is doomed there?
MOORE: No, I actually don't think so. I think there's a lot of talk about the SAVE America Act. But the way that, you know, there's - that it has to go through...
FADEL: And that is a top priority for the president, an election integrity bill.
MOORE: Correct, yes, which was accurately described as well previously. The way that this could work through the Byrd process, which means - that's the Senate rules that require bills to only be focused primarily on budgetary issues and not policy issues - is obviously a strong consideration in how we're working through getting that done, providing money for states to, you know, act appropriately with respect to voter IDs and cleaning voter rolls and things like that. And then there's a budgetary element to it, and I think you could see some of that play out pretty well as well. So I'm hopeful that there's still a way to navigate this in the Senate, it's not dead on arrival. But it does take some work, so we'll see how it goes.
FADEL: Some GOP leaders have already floated the idea of a fourth reconciliation package. Is that a tacit acknowledgment that this package isn't going over well?
MOORE: No. I think there's - well, a part that isn't going well is people wanted to have more specific offsets. And offsets meaning there are things that we reduce spending...
FADEL: So that we can add here. Right.
MOORE: ...So you could, you know, put money here. And there's more - there's a big motivation always to do as much of that as possible. And I look at it - there's a lot of stuff going on in parallel. The administration and, like, individuals within the administration - in CMS and Kim Brandt, Dr. Oz - they are doing a really good, substantive job of reducing fraud and saving a lot of money and putting that money back into the trust funds.
And so there is good sort of spending reduction, deficit reduction work going on already. It's just not going to be part of this bill. But we're confident that we're still moving in that direction. And then if we add this, the numbers from this bill, knowing that there's already good other work going on - so it's like, you have to nuance it that way a little bit. A fourth reconciliation bill should always be on the table. Let's take every advantage that we can and every opportunity that we can to move some key legislation.
FADEL: That's Republican Congressman Blake Moore of Utah. Thank you for your time and your insights.
MOORE: Thank you so much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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