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OGDEN — Fiscal responsibility has been a focus for Utah Rep. Blake Moore since he took office in 2021, and the Republican said he wishes that the federal deficit occupied more space in the discourse leading up to the 2024 presidential election.
Moore appeared Tuesday at the Olene S. Walker Institute of Politics and Public Service at Weber State University as part of the Sutherland Institute's series of conversations with Utah's congressional delegation, and spoke of the recent downgrade of the nation's credit rating by Fitch Ratings.
The rating agency cited a "steady deterioration in standards of governance" over recent decades, which Moore said he has experienced firsthand as congressional leaders engage in "brinkmanship" around the debt ceiling and budget talks.
"I remember having these conversations leading up to the debt ceiling all spring, and it's frustrating when you can see the potential of what's going to happen — you know about it for months — and we still sort of do the same thing over and over again," he said.
Moore said his brother asked him, "Why is it that you guys always wait to the very last minute?"
"This concept of brinkmanship is one of the most frustrating things that I have to deal with with respect to all fiscal matters," he said.
But much of the discussions around spending that have led to government shutdowns in recent years have centered on a relatively small amount of the federal budget, he said.
"What we actually haggle over when you get to a potential government shutdown is, I don't know, $40 to $50 billion of a $6 trillion budget," he said. "We don't have adults in the room back in Washington really addressing the major issues."
One of those major issues is the growing amount of interest paid on the nation's more than $32 trillion debt, he said, which totaled a record $213 billion in the last quarter of 2022.
Another major issue is that one of the key trust funds behind Social Security is scheduled to be depleted in 2033, meaning retirees would receive around 76% of their current benefits without action by Congress.
"That's just unacceptable in my opinion," Moore said.
Moore has said he wants to balance the federal budget, but cautioned that it can't happen overnight, saying lawmakers will have to "chip away" at it. That's exactly why he voted for the debt ceiling increase: although it didn't include all the budget cuts he would have liked, in May he called it "something that reverses debt culture."
And he's optimistic that Congress can eventually get there.
"There is a desire to make sure that the next generation has a path forward. It's not just going to happen in a vacuum ... it's going to take some leadership to say, 'Let's not wait until the last minute,'" he said. "That mentality is kind of what gives me some hope that we can solve some problems."
