Rep. Blake Moore talks presidential election, who will control Congress, and student loan debt

Rep. Blake Moore made a strong case for why students should get engaged in politics and care about taxes during a moderated talk at the University of Utah as a part of the Sutherland Institute’s congressional series.
“It’s the boring stuff that really, really matters,” he said jokingly.
Moore, who represents Utah’s 1st District, spoke “calmly, frankly and advocated bipartisanship on multiple issues,” as one student in the audience at the university’s Hinckley Institute of Politics put it during the Q&A portion of the program.
Moore told students the 2024 election cycle is crucial, unlike other years, because provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, or the TCJA, passed under the Trump administration, are set to expire in 2025, affecting more than 29 million households.
The GOP congressman, who is the vice chair of the Republican Conference, said he is frustrated this issue isn’t a bigger part of the national discourse.
Neither Vice President Kamala Harris nor former President Donald Trump are talking about the tax policy they want to pursue, he said.
As the Deseret News previously reported, the two candidates have shied away from detailing specifics for their preferred tax policies, although they’ve both made loud promises of not taxing tips and increasing the child tax credit.
The TCJA doubled the child tax credit to $1,000. The Harris and Trump campaigns have proposed raising it to $6,000 and $5,000 respectively.
Trump has said he would like to make permanent the tax package he negotiated with Congress in 2017, while Harris has repeated President Joe Biden’s pledge not to raise taxes on any households making less than $400,000 a year, and in her convention speech said she would cut taxes for middle class families. She has also said she wants to raise taxes on higher income families and on corporations.
Moore made the case for students to care about these expiring tax provisions. “This matters, because you will be entering the workforce,” he said, “And the decisions we make now will have a sound impact on you all.”
The GOP representative said the TCJA “did not solve our deficit.” Republicans instead focused on growing the economy, he said. But the power dynamic has since changed and “it’s been a political maneuver ever since.”
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the U.S. deficit hit $1.9 trillion as of June, a 27% jump from the federal agency’s projections earlier this year.
Student loan forgiveness programs were a contributing factor in this hike. Moore told students not to be afraid of incurring student debt. “Be smart about it. Work your tail off,” Moore said.
He highlighted a bill, the Secure Act 2.0, proposed in the House Ways and Means Committee, of which Moore is a member, as a valuable solution. This bill would allow employers to treat an employee’s loan repayments as 401(k) contributions and match the amount.
“Companies want to do it (and) employees should love that,” he said, “and you will start saving for your own retirement five, six years sooner than you otherwise would have.”
Nic Dunn, the moderator at the event and the vice president of strategy and communications at Sutherland Institute, laid out three hypothetical scenarios for 2025: First, Republicans have control of the House, Senate and White House. Second, Democrats have full control. Third, it’s a split government, similar to what it is right now. Dunn asked Moore what he could accomplish in these situations.
The congressman said tackling the debt ceiling would be a priority, before adding that the deal would not be as good as what they negotiated with the Biden White House in 2021, set to end on January 1, 2025.
“It would be a pretty standard debt ceiling increase,” Moore said. The GOP congressman said he hopes to eradicate waste that contributes to the U.S. debt problem.
Legislation can get stymied even if Republicans have the majority, Moore said. Most bills can only pass in the Senate if they have 60 or more votes. If that threshold isn’t met, any senator belonging to the minority can block the bill through the filibuster rule, he explained.
“If you’re in split government, tax policy-wise, you could eventually have something very similar to what we did this year,” said Moore.
The Biden administration and Democratic-controlled Senate have not proposed tax reform in recent years, mostly because they knew it wouldn’t be popular, Moore said.
They would rather reform provisions as they expire, he added. Democrats instead focused on trillions of dollars in spending, including the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act. Moore said he expects this trend to repeat under another divided government.
But Moore said he has faith the Senate will flip to Republicans this year. Right now, the Democrats have a two-vote majority, 51-49. With West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin not seeking reelection, “it’s a guaranteed 50-50,” Moore said.
He also said he expects Montana Democratic Sen. Jon Tester’s seat to flip, and for Republicans to keep control of Ohio should Vance become the next vice president of the United States in a Trump White House.
The race to be commander-in-chief has become a toss-up since Harris became the nominee. “Trump had the clear edge,” Moore said, adding Harris has “slimmed that gap a little bit. It’ll be a fun couple of months to see how it plays out.”