The four questions, in general, were:

1. What are you doing and how are you checking the power of the president and executive branch? Its an overarching concern that Congress is relinquishing its power.

2. What’s your role as co-chair of the DOGE caucus? The cuts here at IRS, Hill, all level of school programs, Social Security/Medicare.

3. Your thoughts on use of the NG, especially from Utah, deployed in blue states as perceived retribution?

4. Thoughts on how ICE is conducting raids, being masked up, the lack of due process, and the overall intimidation factor being use here?

The representative was very clam, deliberate, and factual in his replies. He commented on No. 1 by saying there were many calls to the White House liaison about executive actions and concerns were passed in person to the Speaker. Much goes on in Washington behind closed doors and not in front of a mic. He was clear that his priorities were especially Hill and other federal agencies in his 1st District. He stated that because many of his concerns were in front of a court, he and others would wait for the respective court rulings. We were all told in high school that the House controls the Executive by the power of the purse. The president just signed an intention letter concerning a pocket rescission. This will be a test to see who actually controls the purse.

Concerning No. 2, the Hill and federal jobs comments above pertain here also. He hoped and pushed for DOGE to be a little more surgical in their cuts but that didn’t always happen. He promoted a more reasoned and studied approach to actually cut the waste and duplication in federal spending but the support wasn’t there for this way. He’s still interested and believes its better to be in the tent than outside in order to have a positive impact here.

He has been in contact with the governor’s office about the National Guard (No. 3) being used outside of Utah. He hopes they are not “deployed” but that’s a governor’s decision. The reality of the situation is that the governor here has other governors to consider and the fact that sometimes its more of these people being on our state lines and Washington being 2K miles away.

He was not supportive of the way ICE was conducting business. This especially in regard to specific incidents seen by a coffee party member in Park City. He hopes ICE will restrict itself in these types of conditions and be more open in its duty of keeping the country safe. More and closer oversight is desired and would go a long way in gaining, if not keeping, public support for law enforcement.

At the end, the debt and BBB came up. Blake spoke of programs or laws that I was not familiar with in regard to my question that if we can have a $4 trillion budget plus $2 trillion in deficit spending, and being the richest country on earth, why can’t we just raise taxes within our gross domestic product to balance the budget? He replied that it couldn’t be done without blowing up the economy when considering the new, broad tax base and lower taxes bring in more money and not wanted to discourage foreign investors.

I let the conversation end here as he had to depart for another meeting. I still contend that since where to cut spending is a bigger hill to climb than just raising taxes and so that’s the easier way to go. As he mentioned it was Clinton (and the Republicans) that had two years of, and gave Bush, a balanced budget.

The coffee party group thanked our host Suzy and Rep. Moore for taking the time and providing more than just fluff answers. It was well worth the effort and the group stayed another two hours to discuss what was discussed. All sides agreed that we’d like to do this again.

Being in Washington and trying to get things done is a much more complicated process than the overall majority of us think it is.

JH Thompson is a resident of Ogden.