LEWISBURG (WVDN) – The Greenbrier County Republican Club welcomed Rep. Carol Miller to their Christmas celebration at the Lewisburg Elk’s Club on Friday, Dec. 9.
Miller was there to give the evening’s keynote speech and met with the West Virginia Daily News prior to the event to discuss the Republican party’s newly won control of the House, her plans to work with President Biden and her Democratic colleagues and her vision for Southern West Virginia.
“We’re getting back on track to all of the things that the American people care about right now.” Miller said about the House Republicans’ newfound power. “Our majority is not huge, and we will work hard. There are so many issues that are not political that need to be tended to,” she said, pointing to taxes, interest rates and overall rising costs of goods and housing.
“We have an older state with elderly people on fixed incomes,” she said.
While she worries about the cost of living, she said she also wants to see people who can work get off of public assistance. “How can we get employers to work with the government? One of the bills that I (worked on), which was very bipartisan, would be for the government to pay, for a half to a full year, part of the salary of the people helping them get off welfare.”
“I understand Southern West Virginia,” Miller continued, pointing to the 12 years she worked in the West Virginia House of Delegates, “and I understand how they had been affected by bad policy.”
Miller said that government mandates directing consumers to electric vehicles and the war on coal are ways in which the federal government has rushed into such policies that, she said, leaves many West Virginians behind.
Miller argued in favor of using scientific innovation for clean coal and natural gas; she said she wants to balance West Virginia’s energy resources with keeping the state beautiful.
As for the economy?
“I’ve been wearing a button that says, ‘It’s the spending stupid,’” Miller said. “What we did initially with the Cares Act was so important … but we’ve got to stop the frivolous spending.
“With the COVID bills, the money that is now going to build things like zoos or golf courses … it’s like free Monopoly money,” Miller said.
“A lot of the pay-it-forward kind of philosophy is not a good thing, because we are saddling our children and our grandchildren with debt,” Miller said.
Interestingly, according to PolitiFact, Miller is one of 13 Republican congresspeople who had pandemic loans forgiven by the federal government. Five car dealerships owned by Miller’s husband received a combined $3.1 million in Paycheck Protection Program loans. The loans to DM Motor, Dutch Miller Chevrolet, Dutch Miller Subaru, Dutch Miller of Charleston and Dutch Miller of Charlotte were all forgiven, the Austin-American Statesman said last September.
