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Congressional Daily Record
This section captures a floor statement or debate entry. It mentions members such as Blake D. Moore.
Issued
September 2, 2026
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Download official House Record PDFReturn to issue contextUnder the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, Mr. Moore of Utah was recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.)
General Leave
Mr. MOORE of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the topic of this Special Order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Utah?
There was no objection.
Mr. MOORE of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I am excited to welcome my colleagues to speak with me tonight during this Special Order. I understand some of my colleagues have commitments, and I want to be respectful of their time. I will have them start us off before I provide some of my own comments.
Mr. KNOTT. Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to recognize and salute the Little League Softball World Series Champions from Johnston County, North Carolina, today. Earlier this month, they won a rigorous contest to become the champions, making all of North Carolina's 13th Congressional District proud.
and their coaches are from the greater Johnston County area. Many of them are classmates, neighbors, friends, and family. For the entire season, they worked, competed, and improved together.
On August 8, they took the field against Kentucky in the championship
game of the Little League World Series. They did not just win. They won in dominant fashion.
shutout. The team's defense allowed one Kentucky runner to reach scoring position for the entire game. The final score was 2-0. This was, remarkably, their second straight shutout of the tournament.
But the scoreboard is not the whole story. In the first inning of that championship game, the girls from Johnston County lost their starting second baseman to a serious injury. Her team did not fold. They rallied around her, dug in, and secured the victory.
Mr. Speaker, I congratulate these champions, their families, their coaches, and the greater Archer Lodge community. All of North Carolina is proud of them.
Mr. MOORE of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I concur. The greatest sporting event of the year is always, of course, the Little League World Series. Thank you to the gentleman from North Carolina for highlighting it, and congratulations to that incredible team.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Virginia (Mrs. Kiggans).
Federal Government Should Work for American People
Mrs. KIGGANS of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on one of our Nation's most sacred founding principles: the idea that the Federal Government should work for the American people, not the other way around. It is an ideal that dates back to the founding of our constitutional Republic and one that I never thought would need to be reaffirmed.
I voted to advance a resolution condemning and denouncing socialism in all of its forms.
government. In socialist economies, the means of production are wholly owned and controlled by the State, completely dismissing the potential for human innovation and without the accountability and opportunity that only come from free market capitalism.
the failure of the very socialist policies that some are advocating for today. We saw the poverty-stricken cities of eastern Europe, the underserved healthcare system of Cuba, and the violence committed against political dissidents that bravely spoke out against their failing governments.
that are fundamentally at odds with economic freedom and individual liberty upon which our great Nation was founded.
works best when it gets out of your way. We should never feel government. Unfortunately, so many rules and regulations have been put in place on local, State, and Federal Government levels that are growing the size of our government.
responsibilities end and where people's freedoms begin. That means cutting unnecessary red tape and protecting taxpayer dollars from waste, fraud, and abuse. Choosing to ignore identifiable fraud in our government isn't just wrong. It is theft at the expense of the American taxpayer.
it recognizes that they are the backbone of our local economies, driving job creation and opportunity across our Nation. A small government gives businesses the freedom to invest, grow, and put more men and women to work. A small government protects our environment without stifling growth and development.
can fulfill, from taking care of our veterans and securing our borders to providing a strong national defense and standing by our allies. We, as elected officials, have a duty to meet the constitutionally outlined obligations entrusted upon us every election day.
as a commonsense Conservative, and they are the very same values that our brave men and women in uniform have gone to some of the most dangerous places around the world to defend. I have worn that uniform, my husband has worn that uniform, and my son proudly wears it today, as do so many across Virginia's Second District.
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have been able to accomplish in pursuit of these ideals. We passed the Working Families Tax Cut Act to keep the Federal Government out of your bank accounts and out of your pocketbooks by doubling the standard deduction, expanding the child tax credit, and establishing a new deduction for seniors because we believe that you, not the government, should keep more of your hard-earned money.
tape so we can incentivize developers, lower costs, and put the American Dream of homeownership back within reach for millions of Americans.
transparency in Washington because public office should never be a pathway to personal profit.
to have a limited government. They reflect the belief that you know how to spend your money better than the government does, the potential for growth and innovation when Washington gets out of the way and, most importantly, the assertion that at the end of the day, we work for you.
achieved and what Americans will continue to achieve. Limited government isn't just a talking point. It has been proven to deliver prosperity and economic freedom for millions around the world, and it is firmly ingrained in the fabric of the American way of life.
of the power and scale of our government, but because we empower the people to live their lives by embracing freedom, ingenuity, and hard work here.
Mr. MOORE of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from the Commonwealth of Virginia for her remarks. I appreciate all of the work that she does. She cares. I have been able to go throughout her district with her to her military bases. I know of nobody who understands the issues more than her and who cares about the issues of our servicemen and -women more than Jen Kiggans. I thank her for sharing that message with us tonight.
I now yield to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Kustoff).
Mr. KUSTOFF. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend and colleague from Utah organizing our time this afternoon.
get done, which is fair. I think it is good to celebrate the things that we can accomplish that are good for the American people.
Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased that last year House Republicans worked with President Trump to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which stopped the largest tax increase that could have happened in American history.
our Nation's founding principles, and that is limiting Washington's reach into the lives and also the paychecks of Americans, which gives people the freedom to shape their own future, quite frankly, allowing people to keep more of their hard-earned money in their own pockets.
secure lasting tax relief and certainty for individuals and for small businesses.
west Tennessee, talking and meeting with farmers, manufacturers, small business owners, and people. Time and again, I heard how heavily their decisions depend on a tax code that they can count on and also depend upon.
For a family farm, the tax code affects plans for the next season. On Main Street, the tax code affects the next payroll. Workers' livelihoods depend on decisions that cannot wait for the next vote in Congress.
Mr. Speaker, from no tax on tips to no tax on overtime to a doubling of the
levels, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is a benefit to working Americans across the board.
Act—and there are a lot—for small businesses was something known as section 199A. It allows eligible small businesses to deduct up to 20 percent of their qualified business income.
Now, for a small business, permanence is paramount. Farmers and local employers can now plan ahead rather than wait for the next congressional deadline.
For everybody who voted “no” on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, I will tell them that my Republican colleagues and I worked with President Trump to make section 199 permanent, which delivered substantial relief for small businesses as well as American farmers. I also worked to strengthen the employer-provided childcare credit under something known as section 45F.
Child Care for American Families Act to make this credit more useful for employers, especially for small businesses. Language from this bill was included in the final law.
40 percent of qualified childcare credit expenditures and raised the annual cap from $150,000 to $500,000. Eligible small businesses can now claim a 50 percent credit with an annual cap of $600,000.
businesses to provide childcare. That is so important because when childcare is reliable, parents can stay in the workforce and employers can retain valued employees.
Street, and for manufacturers. I am proud of what House Republicans and President Trump were able to accomplish.
so small businesses can create jobs and people can keep more of what they earn. I am proud of this. We showed that Congress can work with the American people and accomplish a lot under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Mr. MOORE of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Tennessee for his remarks. I loved the opportunity to work with him on that bill.
As he brings up 199A, it is always fascinating. The one thing I wish we didn't have to go through back here—there is a long list of that, I guess—is the misrepresentation of that bill. The vast majority of it is targeted at small business and middle- and lower-income Americans. There is a constant, let me call it, like I said, misrepresentation of “this goes to the billionaires and doesn't help the working class.”
middle- and lower-income Americans are the ones who take advantage of it. Then you add in the standard deduction, things like 199A, those are all targeted at small businesses and lower- and middle-income Americans. It is frustrating and disheartening to constantly hear the misrepresentation from the left on that tax policy. It is what it is, unfortunately, but it is one of the things that really wears on you because it is just not accurate, and they know it, but it is where we are. I thank the gentleman from Tennessee for sharing that.
State, I think we can call it the greatest State in the United States of Utah (Mr. Kennedy).
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Mr. KENNEDY of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Moore for the opportunity to speak in this Special Order and also for the gentleman's advocacy for our outstanding State. I am proud to be with my friend and the congressional delegation from the great State of Utah.
Today, Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on a principle that is as old as our Republic: Small government delivers big results.
physician in Utah. Throughout those years, I saw firsthand what happens when Washington inserts regulations and when the bureaucracy inserts themselves between people and their lives.
doctor years ago with an individual with whom I spent a significant period of time in the room trying to understand the symptoms that this person described and trying to help them move forward in their health and well-being.
worried me or had me concerned about a possible cardiac condition, some problem with their heart. I ordered a stress test, which is an expensive test. It is a test to look at the function of the heart to see if there are any blood flow issues or aspects of the heart that would threaten for a heart attack.
I ordered that test, and, Mr. Speaker, I waited for days, ultimately 13 days, for the insurance determination as to whether they would pay for that test. On day 13, I received notification from this person's insurance that they would not pay for the heart test. Come to find out, the very next day this individual suffered from a heart attack.
line to reject the judgment that I had as a professional to determine that this person needed a preventative heart evaluation to make sure that they wouldn't have a heart attack. Instead, they denied my efforts to diagnose this problem before it became a critical problem, saving themselves a few thousand dollars potentially on a heart test and subsequently threatening the life of this patient, as well as spending tens of thousands of dollars.
Ultimately, the person went through the heart symptoms that they had. They went to the emergency department and were admitted to the hospital. They had a coronary artery bypass graft, the procedure that was done saving this person's life, but after serious debility associated with that—and also this person's life was threatened. Subsequently, the insurance company spent tens of thousands of dollars instead of a few thousand dollars on that person.
doctor and that doctor's patients. There are rules. We have approvals. We have requirements and determinations that are made somewhere far away by someone who has never met the patient and never sat with them or their family. In many cases, these individuals have no medical training at all, yet that person or those systems can still override the judgment of the professionals or the people.
intention, someone who is trying to fix a real problem and believed that another rule, another program, or some other layer of government was going to be the answer to the problem.
Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, good intentions are where Big Government contributions end. That is because when those ideas are put into practice, Americans are too often left with a government that is slow, a government that is costlier, and a government that is more obstructive than is needed.
that the size of the program measures its success and that the more money Federal agencies spend, the more the American people will benefit. Progress does not come from expanding bureaucratic power in this way. Progress comes from individuals, from their dreams, and from their aspirations and their inspiration.
tangible benefits that Americans are already seeing through the working families tax cuts. When we passed that landmark legislation, we made simple promises to the American people: They should keep more of what they earn, and we, Congress, would rein in Federal overreach, eliminate wasteful spending, and return resources to the people who worked to earn them.
Mr. Speaker, the government cannot create lasting prosperity. The American people are who create lasting prosperity. When Washington steps back, American families will step forward.
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Utah (Mr. Moore). I am grateful
for the opportunity to address this issue.
Mr. MOORE of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Kennedy) for his excellent words. They come from a place of firm understanding, being a physician and recognizing that the answers are not derived from Washington. I had it couched. I was talking with a colleague the other day, saying that the legislation of the working families tax cuts that we accomplished last year had the largest spending reductions in history. At the same time, it has provided more relief to families with respect to the tax policy than any piece of tax legislation that we have seen.
It is all focused on middle- and lower-income Americans. That is where the bulk of that comes from, and it gives them more opportunities and options to be able to choose their course, their decisionmaking, and their potential upward mobility.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for highlighting all of that.
Mr. Speaker, this week, we passed legislation to prevent another government shutdown and provide more time to make intentional decisions about the other Federal spending aspects that still need to be accomplished.
needed to keep America running, putting the interests of families and businesses first. There was no last-minute crisis, just responsible government well ahead of the shutdown date. That keeps America moving forward.
security. It preserves programs for senior nutrition; women, infants, and children in the WIC program; housing assistance; veteran services; and disaster relief.
obligations and maintain America's strength. It extends major highway, rail, and transit authorities, which gives States and communities certainty while longer term legislation will continue to move forward. Now, we will continue debating, discussing, and moving forward on that larger appropriations process. We are ensuring the process is committee-led and Member-driven, as it should be, with more transparency and accountability.
Last year's government shutdown hurt American workers and families. I am grateful both sides of the aisle came together to avoid another one.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.