WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republicans gathered inside a warehouse in Southwestern Pennsylvania on Friday to outline the legislation they’d try to enact if voters give them back control of that chamber following the November midterm elections.
Speaking from an HVAC factory in Monongahela, about an hour south of Pittsburgh, House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy said the first bill he’d bring to the floor if elected speaker would repeal part of a Democratic law that boosted funding for the Internal Revenue Service.
“On that very first day that we’re sworn in, you’ll see that it all changes, because on our very first bill we’re going to repeal 87,000 IRS agents,” McCarthy said, using a number Democrats have repeatedly said isn’t an accurate representation of what the funding boost would do. “Our job is to work for you, not go after you.”
None of the proposals that were sketched out came with a price tag showing how much a Republican House would change spending compared to current levels. Republicans also said they’d “protect the lives of unborn children and their mothers” but did not detail exactly what nationwide abortion restrictions they’d bring to the floor, or how they’d address maternal mortality rates.
Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, who would likely move from whip to majority leader if his party regains control, said Republicans would put forward bills to reduce inflation and bring down energy costs.
“We wanted to lay out a bold, conservative vision to show the country there’s hope again,” Scalise said. “The commitment to America is going to show the country, if you give us a Republican majority in the House, these are the things we will do.”
Democrats broadly panned the Republicans’ rollout of their plan.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, said during a speech in Pittsburgh that the House GOP’s “new platform, which isn’t new at all, is long on slogans and short on details.”
Campaigns underway
Democrats narrowly hold the House, maintaining 221 seats to Republicans’ 212 members, with two vacancies.
Both parties are pouring millions of dollars into swing districts throughout the country, hoping to convince voters that their vision for the country’s future is the best path forward following a tumultuous few years that included a pandemic, a Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection by Donald Trump supporters hoping to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and record inflation.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade this summer, ending half a century of abortion as a constitutionally protected right, is also playing out on the campaign trail.
Democrats have repeatedly urged voters to reject GOP abortion policies by keeping them in control of both chambers of Congress, while Republicans have tried to sidestep the issue in some more contentious races.
Pennsylvania Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate John Fetterman has been highlighting Republican candidate Mehmet Oz’s relative silence on a new bill from South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham that would cap most abortions at 15 weeks nationwide.
“Oz is a fraud who does not even have the guts to give a yes or no answer when it comes to how we would vote on the abortion ban bill that has been introduced in the U.S. Senate,” Fetterman said in a statement Friday. “He’s dodging this very real question and thinks Pennsylvanians won’t notice.”
That close race in the Keystone State and others likely drew both the Republicans and Hoyer to its southwest corner on Friday.
Four planks
The Republicans’ Commitment to America has four broad planks. Three focus on economic issues; national security and crime; and government transparency. The fourth includes health care, technology and education policy.
The economic category proposes a Republican-held U.S. House would reduce government spending, though it declines to say…
Read More: U.S. House GOP outlines agenda in bid for control in the midterms • Missouri Independent