Rep. Riley Moore celebrates opening of Morgantown district office

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20-03-2025

Mar. 19—dbeard @dominionpost.com MORGANTOWN — Freshman 2nd District Congressman Riley Moore held a ribbon cutting on Wednesday for his new Morgantown district office at Suburban Court — the building behind Kegler's and Suburban Lanes.
Moore offered a few remarks before wielding the giant scissors and then took some questions from the press.
He opened his remarks by playing off a comment by Morgantown Area Partnership Vice President Erik Carlson, who kicked off the ceremony and said, "We're so excited not only to be here with you, but that this office is here in Morgantown. I've talked to you a little bit earlier. ... We called us the center of the universe. And I tell you, we sure love that. And we won't tell anybody else if you call them that, too. That's perfectly fine with me.
"But we're so excited to be here, " Carlson said, "be a part of this. Morgantown Area Partnership is excited to be building its relationship with you and with the representative's office here."
Moore responded, "West Virginia to me is the center of the universe, and this is the center of my district and really I think central to the state, and Morgantown is the center of the universe to me."
He noted that he was born in Morgantown, and what was then Monongalia General Hospital. "I was just driving by the hospital, right where my life began, right here, and now here I am starting a new chapter in my life in the city that I was born in. So it certainly means a lot to me to be able to do this."
The 2nd District comprises the northern 27 counties and the office will offer various constituent services. "And we have a long tradition in this state of great constituent services, " he said. "So that's what I want to replicate in what we're doing here in this office. Please reach out to us anytime. We're so proud to be here in Morgantown."
Meeting afterward with local press members, he talked about the budgeting process and what he called mischaracterization of congressional efforts to trim "waste, fraud and abuses " — as the phrase goes — from the federal budget.
The mischaracterizations, he said, are "we're slashing Medicaid, we're slashing Medicare, and we're slashing Social Security. All three of those things are completely incorrect."
Asked to expand on that, he said, "The truth is that we're going through the reconciliation process right now. We've not cut anything. We passed a resolution, and contrary to what they're saying is, a resolution is not a law. It's a resolution. That's it. It's just for the budget."
The resolution, he said, "sets out the guidelines and the process for reconciliation [a House-Senate compromise budget bill that the Senate can pass with a simple majority ] so the committees can go out and do their work and determine how they're going to get these tax cuts, what they're going to do as it relates to Medicaid and some of these other things. But the president has been crystal clear about keeping these programs intact."
He feel confident they will pass a budget, he said.
There's a misconception out there, he said that the Trump administration wants to cut some $800 billion to $1.5 trillion in a single year. The truth [as The Dominion Post has reported before ] that the mission is to find $880 billion in savings for Fiscal Years 2025-2034. It's part of an overall goal to reduce spending by $1.5 trillion.
That amounts to $150 billion per year, he said. "So, if you're talking about trying to find $150 billion a year, that's not a huge number that we're talking about."
We asked, with the narrow House majority, how is it trying to maintain unity among the GOP side of the aisle. He said, "I know there's a lot of naysayers on that and thinking we're not going to be able to do it, but we've continued to do that on the budget resolution. ... And we're going to continue to do that and we've hung tough and hung tight together and I think you're going to see that."