House Republicans' Achievements in 2023

Floor Speech

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Mr. MOORE of Utah. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I am grateful to host this last Special Order of 2023, and to allow my colleagues to speak on House Republicans' legislative efforts this week and achievements on behalf of Americans this whole entire year as we have taken over the majority at the start of 2023 and share a little bit about what we have accomplished.

This week we passed legislation to lower healthcare costs, increase price transparency regarding healthcare, allow schools to make their own choices on nutritional aspects, such as the type of milk that they provide to their students, and ensure Americans receive the answers they deserve regarding the inquiry into the Biden family's peddling schemes and nefarious business dealings.

Tomorrow, we will vote on the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2024, a comprehensive and robust bill that will provide for the needs of our servicemembers and enhance our national security efforts, while keeping liberal ideology out of our military.

I am pleased to have some of my colleagues here to speak on these bills and the ways that they have delivered for their constituents throughout the year.

No one has done that more than the Representative that will address this next, particularly on her strong focus with respect to defense. I have an Air Force Base that is part of who I am, part of where I grew up, so close to the community that I get to represent. She is in a very similar situation and has an intense focus on providing for her district and the needs of making sure that our men and women have what they need to secure our Nation and take the fight to our adversaries.

I yield to the gentlewoman from Virginia (Mrs. Kiggans).

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Mr. MOORE of Utah. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the gentlewoman's comprehensive view of the defense bill that we are going to be finalizing tomorrow. The Senate is currently voting on it right now actually.

This is one of those amazing things that Congress finds a way to get something done for our servicemen and -women. You talk about TRICARE, not only talk about TRICARE, but about the housing and the healthcare issues that our servicemen and -women face with rampant inflation going on. They get squeezed more than anybody.

They don't exist in the private sector. They can't go to their boss and ask for a raise. They are serving our Nation, and they are getting squeezed by the same type of fiscal policy that has created this type of inflation.

Our bill addresses so much of that, but it also goes to the lethal aid that we need to defend our Nation, the deterrence that you talk about. Particularly in my district, the F-35 program is so key and important, and the naval shipyards in Mrs. Kiggans' district, so I thank her for the work that she does.

I am thrilled to be a part of something at this time of Christmas to show our servicemen and -women that their Representatives care about them and want them to be successful. We look forward to finishing up that process this week.

I am going to spend some time tonight talking a little bit about the always fun question that we get to talk about. I remember lobbing this question over to the Democrats when they were in the majority quite often: What have you accomplished? You do a bunch of messaging bills, and none of them get passed in the Senate.

Now that we have had the opportunity to be in the majority for just less than a year, as it comes up on the end of the year here, it is good to take a moment to think about what we have accomplished. Can we answer that question?

What do we need to do to address any criticism that may be out there? Have you accomplished enough? Washington is a tough place.

I look forward to having a chance to look back on the year and share a few wins. I will try to articulate it here a little bit, but there is always a unique context.

The part I keep reflecting on is, I came to Congress in January 2021, and I have been here almost 3 years. What is important to look at is juxtapose 2023 with 2021. President Biden was in the White House. The Senate for the last 3 years has been controlled by a Democrat majority.

For the first 2 years of my time here, we had what I will call a triple majority, when you have the White House, Senate, and the House in one-party control.

2023 versus 2021. Immediately, as we entered into the 117th Congress, the Georgia Senate flipped, which I think was a surprise to the Democrats. It was a surprise to the Republicans, but we will work to rectify that.

However, within a month and a half, with budget reconciliation--where it does not have to go through the Senate filibuster because we didn't have the majority in the House--there was a $2 trillion bill passed immediately, a $2 trillion bill that was masquerading as a COVID relief bill. We had addressed the COVID relief bills in a bipartisan approach prior to that. There was a $2 trillion bill that got passed with no offset spending, completely additive to the national debt.

Within months after that, we saw the fastest increase in inflation that we have seen in 40 years to the point where you basically wipe out an entire family's salary for a month of each year with the amount of inflation that happened so quickly.

That doesn't just happen. That happens because of monetary policy. When you add and you load the system with that type of spending, you immediately get inflation. That is not just a Republican saying that; it is not just a Democrat saying that. That is the way economics works. When you load monetary policy and you have so much money chasing so few goods, prices for Americans skyrocket, particularly middle-class and lower-income Americans.

Just being in the majority, what has taken place in 2023? We curbed trillions of dollars of spending. When the majority at that time, the Democratic Party, had the White House, House, and Senate, they could virtually pass any type of fiscally related, budget-related bill that they wanted without having to go through the Senate filibuster to reach compromise.

In those circumstances, they can pass a bill on party lines. They chose within the first month and a half to pass a $2 trillion bill that led to the most rapid increase in inflation that most Americans have seen in their lifetime. You are seeing inflation still high. We are still reeling with the effects of that, but it has leveled off because Republicans are in control of the House of Representatives.

Just by being in control of the House of Representatives, and the hard work that it took to win back the majority, we immediately curbed all of that spending. It wasn't just the $2 trillion bill. They passed an Inflation Reduction Act, the IRA, that had nothing to do with inflation, but that was nearly a trillion-dollar bill. They thought maybe it was going to be $400- to $600 billion. It is now estimated to be well over that.

What that bill was was a failed Solyndra-type policy. It is broadly accepted among Republicans and Democrats that the Obama-era kind of mini Green New Deal with Solyndra and this tax break that was given to them was a massive failure. This isn't just, again, a Republican saying that. That is largely accepted that a $500 million bill was largely a failure. That is a lot of money, and that is a big failure for the type of policy you are trying to create. That was $500 million.

The Inflation Reduction Act, which basically mimics what took place with Solyndra, where you are trying to pick winners and losers in the energy world, was in the range of $400 billion, which is far more expensive than what it was even billed to be.

By being in the majority, we keep all of this stuff at bay, and we keep that amount of monetary supply from ever even reaching the system. With the addition of having to raise interest rates as high as we did, that will curb inflation. If I say nothing else, that is an enormous win for what our Republican majority is doing.

President Biden had a $5 trillion tax-and-spend plan--much of which he wasn't even able to accomplish because it wasn't popular enough even among Democrats to pass--that we were able to defeat over the last 3 years, but still that amount of spending got put through.

As I talk about some more things here, that is key. I hope that Americans can understand that by Republicans creating a split government, we make it so that we don't allow a Democrat agenda. That is, during the election, when it was former Vice President Biden and current Senator Bernie Sanders, they were going back and forth saying: Oh, I don't agree with your policies, you know, Senator Sanders. I am the more moderate candidate. I will be smarter with fiscal responsibility. That was what the former Vice President, candidate at the time, Biden said.

As soon as he got the White House, House, and Senate under one-party control, they basically implemented a Bernie Sanders-type approach. He probably wanted several more trillion, but to put a $5 trillion tax- and-spend policy together, it was catastrophic, and every single American felt it.

I could go on and on about the fiscal side of things. It is clear that in order to get inflation under control, Republicans in the majority are the best thing that we have going for us in the House. We level off that spending, and we try to curb that back down. I am hopeful that we can continue to be successful at that.

I am the father of four young boys. I am terrified of their future with the amount of money that we are borrowing for our national debt each year, what we are having to spend more and more to cover the debt servicing. It is really scary.

Let me take it out of the fiscal side. In January of 2023, Americans were done with COVID. We didn't need these COVID policies to still exist. We needed to move on. Republicans put a bill on the floor to end the COVID emergency that was still in place with President Biden after almost 3 years in the White House.

The very week we put that bill--we announced that bill was going to be voted on on Wednesday or Thursday. By Tuesday, the White House had announced, yeah, we are actually going to pull that back now. That type of stuff doesn't happen unless we are in the majority, and we force the White House to pull back. They recognize it is not popular. Even Democrats were going to support our resolution to end the COVID emergency, and the White House responded. They respond when we push back on bad policy.

These things are simple examples, but as you can see, we are in a position to be able to force the Biden administration to accept commonsense policy.

Another one, Chairman Comer and the Representative from Georgia, Andrew Clyde, put together some very sensible, well-thought-out resolutions to push back on the direction that Washington, D.C., was approaching some of their crime legislation and how they were dealing with basic crime in the city.

All of a sudden, we didn't know how it was going to play out, but they put that up. Democrats recognized it. They actually read it and said: Do you know what? This actually makes a lot of sense. We can't be this soft on crime.

Just by us putting forth that legislation, the White House came out and said: You are right. We are going to sign that into law.

This doesn't happen that often. Usually, there is just kind of: If the Republicans suggested it in the House, we are just going to veto it.

We are putting forth commonsense policies that the American people broadly agree with. By doing so, we are forcing the Biden administration to come onboard.

How many times did President Biden say: We are doing a clean debt ceiling. We are not going to address anything in the debt ceiling.

The debt ceiling gives us an opportunity to address the fiscal state of our Nation. Republicans stood firm. We put together a really strong bill, sent it over to the Senate, and let the White House know that we are going to demand significant changes in our trajectory. That was met with months and months of inaction from the White House.

What took place after they started negotiations? They recognized that President Biden was not going to be able to continue to spend like he was. He was going to have to accept that Republicans are going to stand firm to lower discretionary spending.

For the first time in over a decade, maybe more, we are going to spend fewer dollars in our discretionary budget than we did the year before. Usually, these grow at a rate of 1 to 5 percent. This is a time where we are actually going to reduce it, saving over $2 trillion in a 10-year span, cutting out that much from the budget, putting caps on it.

We got that accomplished, and we are working through that process right now. I look forward to finalizing that in the first part of the year and realizing those true cuts.

Are there bills that we force President Biden to sign? Yes. I am really proud of the work that we have done.

Are there things that we have accomplished here in the House that are historic? Look at H.R. 1 and H.R. 2. They are the two best energy and border immigration bills that you have ever seen come out of this place.

If we adhere to it, we would be living in true prosperity with respect to how we approach our energy. We would be doing it cleaner, safer, and with better standards than anywhere in the world.

We would be trusting our industry instead of outsourcing and sort of outsourcing that guilt. ``I am okay with Iranian oil. I am okay if Russia continues to do that.'' We don't sanction the Nord Stream pipeline, but we sanction and get rid of our own pipelines. It does not make sense. The energy policies of the Biden administration do not make sense.

What are we doing as a majority to push back? We stood firm on the debt ceiling to make sure that we got portions of H.R. 1. We would love for that whole bill to be passed. It is apparently not going to, but we took portions of that.

Some of the worst going on in our economy right now is this horrible permitting process through these archaic NEPA standards. We stood firm and said this doesn't go through unless you give us this type of permitting reform.

We are doing the exact same thing right now, using our majority. For the first time that I have been here in 3 years, Democrats in the House and the Senate are saying: If we are going to move forward on Ukraine, I get that Republicans are going to stand firm on the border.

We were having 1,000 to 2,000 encounters from the last three Presidents, Republican and Democratic Presidents, mind you. We are over 10,000. We have had millions and millions of encounters. We do not have control of our southern border, and Republicans are saying, with our majority, we are going to stand firm.

That is going on right now, similar to how we used the debt ceiling leverage to be able to accomplish some very good policy changes.

It is not easy to be in split government. It is a lot of back and forth and a lot of, ``This is your fault. It is not our fault,'' a lot of name-calling, a lot of back and forth on this.

We are standing firm on the key things that matter to our Nation-- energy and immigration and border policies that make sense and are humane.

We cannot have the cartels running the border. They are making billions and billions of dollars by taking advantage of policy. It is so simple. It would actually improve President Biden's approval rating if he would recognize that the Migrant Protection Protocols that were in the previous administration were actually quite positive. They saved lives. They saved our National Guardsmen and -women's lives. They saved immigrants' lives.

It is nonsensical that we can't do it. We are going to use any opportunity we can to do that. That is how we are using our majority.

I have talked about H.R. 1 and H.R. 2. Those bills should be passed. If they truly went on policy, the Senate would recognize that, and we would have a much better outlook for some of the key things that we are doing.

It is not a reality, I get that, but what from those bills can we make sure that we get done? That is the stuff that we are working on. That is where we are pushing our majority.

Another one that I have been heavily involved with--and I think back 3 years ago. It was considered a conspiracy theory that there were any nefarious business dealings going on with Hunter Biden. The media wasn't reporting it. Social media entities were kind of squashing it. They were suppressing this information. This was all during an election year.

Fast-forward 3 years. You have now Hunter Biden not willing to show up to a deposition, but he is here saying he did a lot of wrong things, admitting fully.

Another nine indictments have just come out. It would have been more if the investigation wouldn't have been slow-played so that the 2014 and 2015 tax crimes weren't covered under a statute of limitations or limited from that statute of limitations. There would be significantly more to be able to prosecute Hunter Biden on.

The American people 3 years ago thought that that was just a hoax. If we are not in the majority--if Republicans are not in the majority, there is no admission that what Hunter Biden had done with his business dealings was illegal. There would have been no subpoena power to be able to share that.

In the Ways and Means Committee, we have jurisdiction over the IRS. Some very brave IRS whistleblowers came forward and provided some testimony.

We have to keep that completely quiet. We are not publicizing this. These are private meetings. We are not trying to get clicks because of this. We got ahold of this testimony, and we had to be mum about it. We couldn't say a word. From Thursday the week before all the way until Thursday the next week, I wasn't allowed to say a word about it.

We knew on that Thursday we were going to be releasing the whistleblower testimony that basically claims that there was an investigation into Hunter Biden and that the Department of Justice was slow-playing it, was giving preferential treatment. There were inconsistencies on how they were prosecuting or moving forward with this investigation.

That was to take place on Thursday. We were going to release all this information. For the last 3 years, there could have been a plea deal announced with Hunter Biden.

It was Tuesday morning. This was to be released on Thursday, but Tuesday morning, all of our phones blew up with a notification that said Hunter Biden just went into a plea deal.

I called our committee and asked if we knew about that. I mean, we are set to release this information, the whistleblower's testimony, on Thursday. Did we know about this? No, we didn't. This just came out.

It immediately reminded me of why it is important for Republicans to be in the majority and what we are doing in this majority.

We said: We have to end the COVID emergencies. We are going to put a bill on the floor.

Within a day of when the White House realized we were going to put a bill on the floor, they decided to end the COVID emergency measures.

Fast forward to June when this whistleblower information was going to be released. There was, all of a sudden, a plea deal on Tuesday before we were going to release it on Thursday.

What has happened since? We released this information. It is very credible information. They have been vetted over and over again.

The information they provided is disturbing. It shows illegality. It shows a connection from Hunter Biden to what extent President Biden-- maybe Vice President at the time, from 2016 to 2020, before he ran--is involved.

There are alias emails. There are WhatsApp messages. This reeks. The American people recognize that. The vast majority of people say: Okay, there really was corruption going on here.

That was to be released on Thursday. We released it on Thursday. That plea deal has fallen through. There have been significantly more allegations and indictments that are going to be posed to Hunter Biden.

It was clearly a plea deal that was not sound. Now that the whistleblower information is out there that we used our Republican majority to release to the public, to let them make the decision, we all of a sudden are changing the way that Americans know what is going on with their government.

I get a little frustrated when I hear, ``What are you doing with your majority?'' We are creating government accountability.

Go look at the Commitment to America that we started off with, that Speaker McCarthy pushed hard to get ready to go for when we took back the majority. You can go down the list, from energy, pro-growth tax policy, immigration and border, and government accountability.

We created, in the first of this term, a competitiveness against China. It was very bipartisan, very sincere, no messaging along with it. They just put out a report on how to go about doing it.

Our Ways and Means Committee is working with GSP to incentivize closer allied countries, to bolster them up, get them involved in our trade agreements so we can move some of our manufacturing from China.

These are the ways that we are creating a productive way forward on how we are leveraging our majority to deliver for the American people.

The last 3 years have been tough to watch on an international stage. National security and foreign policy is something that I get heavily involved in. I have a background in it. I love seeing our Nation work to solve some of these problems.

Our allies in Israel know that they have our support. This has largely been bipartisan, and I have appreciated the dialogue that it has created with our colleagues.

Ukraine is in a tumultuous place with the regime, with President Putin and what he has done. They have been able to fight back with our assistance.

We need to make sure that we don't let--the reality is that we have a major border problem. The fixes are actually quite simple.

I still remember talking to Vice President Pence and the process they went through to create a simple policy that said: Make your asylum claims, but you have to remain in Mexico during that process.

That alleviates the pressure at the border, and that disincentivizes the cartel activity so they have no real leverage down there.

Now, they are lying to people, saying as soon as you get across the border, you get lost in the system, but you will be in America, and all will be well. That is a lie to those immigrants who are coming here, hoping for a better future.

It is a simple fix. That is all we are asking for, and we are going to require it as we move forward on supporting our friend and ally Ukraine.

We are taking control. We are making sure our government works, and we are using our majority to solve problems.

There are a whole bunch of additional things on this chart. As I look back, I am extremely proud of the work that we have done over the last year.

I will end with the National Defense Authorization Act. It has authorized $886 billion for critical national defense priorities. That is an increase of $28 billion over the fiscal year.

While we are still finding wasteful cuts within the entire discretionary budget, this bill sets the standard for the readiness and modernization improvements that Congress needs to make sure that our defense has what they need to excel.

This includes a 5.2 percent increase in servicemember basic pay to account for inflation. It can't account for all the inflation, but like I started with, we try to level that off using our Republican majority to squash massive funding measures that go out from the Biden administration.

We are also trying to increase what we can provide to our servicemen and -women. It commits $360 million to bolster housing assistance and childcare support for military families and funds crucial military construction improvements across the country.

It accelerates advanced radar and technology development to address emerging threats to our homeland, provides DOD with a multiyear procurement certainty to increase stockpiles of critical minerals and rare earth elements, and funds the ground-based strategic deterrent.

The bill also prevents land purchases by Chinese-backed entities and prevents DOD research grants from going to universities that partner with Chinese entities.

The NDAA for fiscal year 2024 also includes several conservative wins, such as banning the teaching of CRT in the military, ending the bureaucratic DEI overreach, establishing a parents bill of rights for military schools, and preventing the military Green New Deal.

It is not where we need to be establishing energy policy. You can just grab H.R. 1 if you want to establish a real energy policy.

All these wins are with a Democrat-controlled White House and Senate. These are significant wins.

When you really think about it, I didn't expect to have so many under a split government. It goes back to what Leader Steve Scalise said, that these are commonsense policies. When you cut through the politics of it and you can build better relationships with our partners on the Democratic side of the aisle, you can really look through and see that, yes, this makes sense.

I was kind of told by my media network that this is bad. Some voices back in my primary would say that I can't support anything that a Republican does. But this is actually quite reasonable. We need more of that.

We are sincerely trying to push more of that, and that is why we have been able to accomplish so much with opposition of the party in the White House and the Senate.

This is just the first 11 months of work, but my colleagues and I look forward to--first, a merry Christmas and a happy new year; I hope that we get back to be with our families--coming back ready to build on these wins and finish a lot of what we started: to get our fiscal house in order, ensure we have a strong defense, and deliver for the American people.

That is something that every single one of us, regardless of party, wants. We differ on the approach many times, but we want the same end goals.

I urge my Democratic colleagues to recognize that the stuff we are putting forward is truly common sense, and not to let politics continue to get in the way. As we approach how to navigate and get that done in the crazy political system like we have, common sense will win out.

My colleagues and I are really just thrilled and proud to be able to emphasize and show what we have done, and I look forward to building on these.

As we wrap up the NDAA this week and look to finalize the funding for much of this, let's continue to keep the American people as the guide on what we want to accomplish, not our own personal political endeavors, but to truly know what is best for the American people and do a better job of that.

We as a Republican majority will continue to deliver with those types of commonsense policies.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

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