'We Did It—Congratulations': David Schweikert Decries US Reaching $35 Trillion In National Debt

3 months ago

In a fiery speech on the House floor, Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ) denounced the level of government spending, and lamented the massive amount of national debt the US has accrued.

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Transcript

00:00Mr. Speaker, and to my friend from Missouri, thank you.

00:07Actually, sometimes I come behind these microphones and often what I want to share, what I need

00:12to share, it's my therapy, is a bit dour, and it's sometimes fun to listen to someone

00:19that actually has happy and joyous.

00:21All right, now that the uplifting portion of this program is over, let's get to the

00:25facts.

00:26Mr. Speaker, or now Madam Speaker pro tem, you see the number, $35 trillion, guess when

00:36we hit it?

00:38We should be very, very excited and proud of ourselves.

00:42We did something that so many economists said we would never get to this quick.

00:47My math says this coming Friday, 3 p.m., the United States gross debt will cross over

00:55$35 trillion.

00:58Now understand, that's not the way Europeans calculate our debt, which they calculate our

01:03debt dramatically higher because of our obligated, unfunded liabilities.

01:07But you're going to watch the Treasury Friday about 3 p.m. post up a number, $35 trillion.

01:16We did it, congratulations.

01:23And how many people have you heard come find the microphone today or this week understanding

01:29wanting to talk about that?

01:31What we've gotten is people coming behind the microphone and not telling the truth.

01:36We all want to protect Social Security.

01:38The way you protect Social Security is you know the math and how it actually works.

01:47We're on track in a decade to double senior poverty.

01:51But God forbid any of us tell the truth about math.

01:58Because the truth gets you unelected and a bunch of really angry ads at home.

02:04So this place runs around and avoids telling the truth.

02:08So let's walk through another little factoid.

02:12My math basically says this year, 45.68% of all the income tax collections, receipts your

02:26government takes in just cover the cost of interest.

02:32I'd been coming behind the microphone and saying a interest in 2024 this fiscal year

02:37would be somewhere around a little less than $1.2 trillion.

02:41I apparently have that wrong.

02:43It's probably going to come in about $1,140,000,000,000 to $60,000,000,000.

02:49Either way, I'm off a fraction.

02:53But 45.68% of every dime we're collecting in your income tax now just pays interest.

03:06And I've tried to say over and over and over at home and other places, and you get people

03:11just stare at you go, huh?

03:14Who really runs this government?

03:16Seriously, it's an honest question.

03:20I need you to think like adults, maybe those who actually went to a finance class, who

03:26actually now runs this government.

03:29I'm going to argue the debt markets, the bond markets from around the world.

03:32If you have to bring almost $10 trillion to market this fiscal year, two, two and a quarter

03:39trillion virgin new issues because we're borrowing, it's like $75,000 to $80,000 a second right

03:45now.

03:46And the economy is good.

03:49The actual baseline data on GDP is good.

03:52And you're still burning almost $80,000 a second and borrowing.

03:58What happens the second you have a US debt auction that's undersubscribed or there's

04:04not enough people there?

04:05What happens to US interest rates?

04:06How much of the world goes into depression?

04:10But we're going to talk about that.

04:11Oh, God, no, no, no, because that would require math that require being serious.

04:18You know, we passed a bill here earlier today, I voted no on it.

04:23And look, they worked hard on it, they lowered the top line spending, but you got to deal

04:28with a really uncomfortable discussion.

04:32Every dime a member of Congress votes on is borrowed.

04:35Okay, let's process that.

04:40Every dime a member of Congress votes on is borrowed and depending on some of the projections,

04:46that's about a quarter of Medicare.

04:50Social Security has its own trust fund, it runs out in like nine, 10 years.

04:53And then we got to figure out what's going to happen there.

04:55And we can continue to get Democrats coming behind the microphone and lying about it,

05:00which makes it almost impossible to actually lay out the math and try to fix it.

05:04And remember, raising the cap, doing the Democrats plan of $400,000 up and just raising the cap

05:10only covers about 38% of the shortfall.

05:16You had the president in that debate last month saying, if we just tax rich people 1%

05:24more, and I brought I have a chart in here will show it's a fraction of a fraction of

05:28a fraction of the shortfall.

05:30Remember, if you take $400,000 and up the Democrats definition of rich, and you tax

05:36them at 12.4%, you only cover 38% of the shortfall.

05:40So 1%.

05:42And this is the nature of our discussion.

05:50When every dime a member of Congress votes on is borrowed.

05:55Is it moral to borrow money here, to send it to entities around the country, even though

06:02their programs, many of them I love, I think they're the right thing.

06:07I just think the way we finance it isn't.

06:10Is it right to send them cash to that city to that state to that county, and they have

06:16their own taxing authority, they may have more cash in the bank than we do as a percentage.

06:22Do you borrow money because that's what we're doing today we're borrowing money.

06:26And the crazy thing when you do the adjustment for the ability for interest to be tax exempt

06:32from municipal debt.

06:34We have municipalities in this country that have a better credit rating, have a better

06:40credit rating than the United States.

06:42Remember Greece can sell a 10 year bond cheaper than the United States today.

06:48We are number 14 on the credit stack, meaning there's 13 other countries that can sell a

06:5310 year bond cheaper than the United States.

06:56And if you read the instruments, if you read the Moody's, the S&P's, their documents and

07:01the reps and warrants and and their analysis on US debt.

07:06They don't trust this place.

07:10They do not believe Congress, particularly because it's our job, we're supposed to be

07:15the adults in the room, we make policy, the White House carries it out.

07:20Remember that little thing the Constitution, maybe someone tried reading it.

07:25And they don't trust us, they don't, and they have no reason to trust us.

07:29How much discussion have you heard anyone who's been listening to these microphones

07:32this week?

07:34Heard people like me, which maybe I'm just an idiot for actually giving a damn.

07:42Get behind these microphones and actually walk through the math and explain there's

07:47a way we keep our our promises.

07:50There's a way we meet our obligation for the earned benefits.

07:54There's a way to make this work.

07:56You don't have a lot more time to keep screwing around.

07:59But if you do it in the next three, four years, this is another American century.

08:04I have my eight-year-old sitting over here.

08:06I also have a two-year-old.

08:09My wife's exactly my age.

08:10Yes, I'm pathologically optimistic.

08:15The math says her generation will be the first generation to live poorer than her parents.

08:23Great morality, guys.

08:25Very proud of us.

08:31And anyone who listens to my diatribes here, thank you.

08:34I think this is almost like my therapy session because I get angry all week long listening

08:41to absurdity and people saying things that mathematically have no basis in fact.

08:48One hundred percent of the debt, and this makes everyone angry, and it's factual.

08:54One hundred percent of the U.S. debt from today through the next 30 years is demographics.

09:00Huh?

09:02What's demographics?

09:05And this is your country's leadership.

09:07It's demographics.

09:09We got old as a society and we didn't set aside the resources to keep our promises.

09:13And since 1990, U.S. fertility has been falling.

09:17I won't use the word collapsing.

09:18But last year, we estimate 2023, 1.63%, maybe 1.62% fertility, meaning the United States

09:27now has fewer children than much of Europe.

09:33Now tell me how I build a pay-as-you-go system to keep our promises to those who paid into

09:39Social Security, those who paid into Medicare.

09:41And remember, the Medicare taxes you pay only cover about 38-40%.

09:49And there is, and okay, oh what the hell, why don't we do this right now?

09:55Social Security does not add to the U.S. debt, technically.

10:00But the paying back the money that was borrowed from the Social Security trust fund does.

10:07So there's some $3 trillion-some dollars that have been borrowed out.

10:11And for the last few years, every month, there's not enough tax collections coming in on the

10:17FICA tax at 12.4% to make the payments to Social Security recipients.

10:22So every month, I want you just to visualize this, Social Security says, hey, Treasury,

10:28I'm holding a bunch of your bonds.

10:30You owe us some money.

10:31And they cash them in.

10:32And Treasury goes and borrows money.

10:36And pays interest.

10:38And pays interest for that borrowed money.

10:41So Social Security doesn't create the debt, but Treasury does, because Treasury has to

10:45go out and borrow money to pay back the money they've taken out of the Social Security trust

10:49fund.

10:55And if you add it all up, plus interest, and forgive me, I'm partially doing this off

11:04the top of my head.

11:05I calculate maybe $6 trillion, three plus in principle, and then over the time the interest

11:12paid back, it's probably another three.

11:17How many times have you had anyone just try to be honest about it?

11:21It's not Republican math.

11:22It's not Democrat math.

11:23It's just math to be avoided because we're terrified of our voters to tell them the truth

11:28because we've lied to them for so long.

11:31How many times have you had a Democrat go around here and say, if we just tax rich people

11:35more, I've done entire presentations here, and for those on the Republican side, if we

11:42just cut discretionary spending, well, dammit, I can come up with about $300 billion in discretionary

11:49can be cut down.

11:50They'll be screaming.

11:52But that's still 1% of GDP.

11:54And for the Democrats, every tax hike they genuinely propose that could be executed when

12:00you adjust it for its economic effects would be about 1.5% of GDP.

12:05So you've got 1.5% there on tax hikes.

12:07You've got 1% in cuts over here.

12:09Hey, it's a big 2.5%, right?

12:12Right?

12:132.5%.

12:14We're borrowing 7% of the entire economy this year.

12:21Great job, guys.

12:25And I guess part of my anger is I love some of the people I work with here.

12:30They're smart.

12:31They care.

12:32But they run away from me when they see me coming because I want to talk about this stuff.

12:36This chart is the pie chart of America's spending.

12:40Do you see this number?

12:4274% is in the red.

12:44The red doesn't get a vote from a member of Congress.

12:47That is on autopilot.

12:49It's called mandatory.

12:51It's earned benefits.

12:53Some of the benefits you get because you're part of a certain tribal group or you fall

12:56below a certain income.

12:58But this is earned.

12:59You see the blue?

13:00It's defense and non-defense.

13:04Every dime of defense is borrowed.

13:08Every dime of what we call non-defense discretionary is borrowed.

13:12And a wedge of this over here is borrowed.

13:15And when you see over here when we say net interest, I've tried to explain.

13:19The difference between net interest and gross interest.

13:23Net interest this year will be $892 billion.

13:30That's interest we pay to people out in the world.

13:34Your pension fund, a nice family on the other side of the world, the union retirement fund

13:41over here.

13:42They buy U.S. debt.

13:45The other debt is we owe to the trust funds.

13:49We've borrowed the money from the trust funds.

13:51But we still have to pay it back.

13:53We still have to pay it interest.

13:56So it's one of the great cons we do in our budgeting here is, well, it's gross interest

14:01is only $890 billion, Schweikart.

14:04Why do you keep going around saying $1.2 trillion interest just this year?

14:08It's because that other chunk of interest, we've got to pay.

14:14And we're going to have to pay back the principal, just as I just did the explanation on how

14:18Social Security works.

14:19So once again, if you're a member of Congress and you're doing a town hall or putting out

14:24something and you're not showing this chart, you're not helping our brothers and sisters

14:33across the country understand how serious this election is.

14:39How serious putting people in office that stop pandering to your need for a dopamine

14:45hit in your brain, but maybe own a calculator.

14:50Once again, I can make this math work.

14:54But you don't pretend we can tax rich people.

14:58We can just cut our way there.

15:00You may have to do a bit of both of those.

15:02But it's policy.

15:05I've done presentation after presentation after presentation on how you could crash

15:09health care, how you could adopt artificial intelligence to reduce the size of this government

15:13dramatically and still have better customer service.

15:18How the mechanics of talent-based immigration could actually grow the economy, but shutting

15:23down the borders, stopping importing competition to our working poor, making our working poor

15:30poor.

15:33But you've got to think like an economist.

15:35And the idiot, the folks here want to talk down to you, talk to you like you're a child

15:43and say, well, if we just did this, we'd be fine.

15:47It doesn't work that way.

15:49We are now so upside down debt-wise that unless you do something that's holistic with lots

15:55of moving parts, none of the math works.

16:00And we're uncomfortable telling that truth.

16:02So let's actually walk through a board I don't think I've ever shown before.

16:07Fiscal year 2024.

16:09Here's sort of where we're at to date.

16:13We've taken in $3,755,000,000,000.

16:19Do you see the red here?

16:21The red is the individual income tax.

16:24Your country is an income tax-based economic system where other countries may rely more

16:30on a value-added tax, which is a really regressive tax, crushes potentially the middle class.

16:39The blue over here, when you start to look at that, this is functionally, we call it

16:44social insurance and retirement programs and Social Security.

16:47Well, that's actually going out the door immediately.

16:51And we have to borrow some to cover it.

16:53The blue over here, well, that's actually corporate income taxes.

16:59Remember the United States back in about the late 80s, early 90s, we changed much of

17:05our corporate tax structure when we started having pass-throughs.

17:09Do you remember LLCs, subchapter Ss, partnerships, those things?

17:14So much of what is corporate activity in the United States flows through to that individual

17:19tax line.

17:21So when you get the brain trust here, it says, we're just going to raise corporate taxes.

17:25Great.

17:26Okay.

17:28And that's going to solve something?

17:30Remember, and we're trying to vet the paper I got the math from, but we have a paper from

17:38about a year, year and a half ago, that said in the 2017 tax reform we did, 67% of the

17:48corporate tax rate reduction went to wages.

17:54So when you have someone from the left who runs around here saying, we're going to raise

17:56corporate taxes, what they're doing is basically screwing over the working men and women of

18:02the country.

18:03That's how it works.

18:07When your wages go up, the old saying used to be it's inflation, well, that doesn't get

18:13you anything, or it's productivity because you built a tax code that said we can afford

18:18to buy the next better piece of equipment.

18:20We can build better processes.

18:22We can build better supply chains.

18:23We're becoming more productive, and you as a worker get part of that.

18:27But part of that productivity also is a tax system that maximizes economic vitality.

18:33Economic growth is moral.

18:36If you want to have fewer poor people in your society, if you want to close income inequality,

18:42you do it not through transfer payments.

18:44We have data over data over data that many of the transfer payments at the end of the

18:48decade make people poorer because you disassociate them, their lives from being part of the society,

18:55part of work.

18:57So the secret is have an economy that grows, that needs them.

19:03It's getting economics right is moral.

19:06But this is the reality.

19:08When you get people, when we start talking about, do you see these tiny little wedges

19:13there?

19:14Well, that's excise taxes.

19:16Some will think of it as tariffs.

19:18When you actually see some miscellaneous, your society is functionally financed.

19:23Income tax, this is FICA, and this is corporate.

19:34Mark my words, I'll probably be long gone from this place.

19:39What the Democrats are doing policy-wise, and honestly, the Republicans' unwillingness

19:43to actually do tough things, into this decade, you're going to all be having a discussion

19:49of having a national VAT, value-added tax, just like the rest of the world.

19:55And all the crap discussion of, well, it's not progressive enough.

20:00It's regressive.

20:01It hurts working men and women.

20:02Working men and women are getting their heads kicked in because it's the only way you can

20:08start to confiscate enough resources from people.

20:11So let's actually talk through.

20:12Let's knock down some of the craziness that keeps being said around here.

20:16This is a brand-new chart for me, U.S. fiscal dynamics, now and then.

20:20And we're going to go way back.

20:22Let's actually do the previous, from 1984 to 2023, and then current.

20:30Our tax revenues are up.

20:33We're taking in more receipts.

20:35Technically, they're not revenues.

20:37Revenues are what you earn.

20:39Receipts are what you confiscate.

20:40So just a bit of tax lingo there.

20:43But it's our spending.

20:44You see tax receipts are up, but our spending is way up.

20:49And when you see the white line over here, deficits, it's just basically the derivative

20:55of, hey, tax receipts are up, but we're spending faster than those receipts are going up.

21:01Therefore, you get a deficit.

21:04If you get someone who says, well, those 2017 tax cuts, no, tax receipts are up.

21:13I have another chart.

21:14I'm going to show you corporate tax rates, or corporate tax collections.

21:18Don't think about the rate.

21:19It's about what you take in, are actually above the mean.

21:28And how much of this spending is the Orwellian-named Inflation Reduction Act?

21:35So the Democrats lost their mind when we did 2017 tax reform.

21:40Remember, it was actually a few trillion dollars, five, five and a half, five and a half trillion.

21:48But functionally, four of it were also covered with direct taxes.

21:52We just moved things around to maximize productivity.

21:56It was about getting companies to move back to the United States, move their organizations,

22:00their intellectual property, the things they were making money on.

22:03Get them back to the United States.

22:05We had to become competitive in the world again.

22:07The other trillion and a half, well, that's actually, oh, the Democrats, that's the driver

22:11of the debt.

22:12No, it's not.

22:13Because it turns out it wasn't a trillion and a half.

22:15The latest data is almost $900 billion of that has been covered by the economic growth.

22:22Yet, when the Democrats controlled this place in the last session, they dropped $2 trillion

22:29in subsidies, handouts to big business.

22:36And all that's borrowed money.

22:40How many people, when was the last time you had a reporter that actually covered any of

22:43this fairly?

22:44How many, when was the last time you met a reporter that owned a calculator?

22:47Public has no understanding what's going on out there.

22:52And I keep trying to provide this chart over and over.

22:55This is U.S. government revenues.

22:58The sign should say receipts.

22:59This is mislabeled.

23:01Green, individual income taxes.

23:04Remember, we're mostly an individual income tax country.

23:07When you see spikes like this, this is the dot-com bubble of functionally 1999 or 2000,

23:162001.

23:17Dot-coms.

23:18That's capital gains.

23:20This spike here, that's actually functioning people were getting lots of COVID money.

23:26So it was direct spend from the federal government.

23:28We borrowed it, gave it to them, they had to pay taxes on it.

23:32This line here, the blue, that's FICA taxes.

23:36That's your Social Security, that's your Medicare.

23:37Very stable.

23:39Down here, this is corporate taxes.

23:41Do you see the line?

23:43Remember, this is the regime of the new corporate tax rate since 2017.

23:49Tax receipts, the actual tax dollars are up.

23:53And it's above the mean of the last couple decades.

24:01You need vitality.

24:04You need dynamism.

24:07And there's, look, there's lots of things we could do policy-wise.

24:09The United States is becoming a bit more oligopoly.

24:13So many of our businesses are becoming far too big and far too protectionist.

24:17But that's government.

24:18Government likes big organizations because they're easier to manipulate to get them to

24:22do what they want.

24:23Hey, here's a subsidy.

24:26Wink wink, nod nod, engage in our social policy, engage in our political policy, and we're

24:32going to hand you billions.

24:34Instead of what you do when you do tax reform, everyone, knife fight, battle it out.

24:39The best product, the most dynamic company, the one that moves fastest, the most innovative,

24:44wins.

24:45That's the way an American economy, a market economy is supposed to work.

24:49Instead now you have a, and you'll actually have our brothers and sisters on the left

24:53here actually go behind these microphones and use, our industrial policy is this.

25:00Our planned economy is this.

25:02God, I keep waiting for them to build a five-year plan and hold up the little red cards.

25:09You don't get that reference, go look it up.

25:13So, this is the driver of the debt.

25:21Remember I showed you tax receipts are up, but our spending is up more.

25:27Well, where's that spending?

25:29It's in what we call mandatory.

25:32In many ways, this isn't Republican or Democrat.

25:35It's what we are as a society.

25:38We calculate in about 10 years, 22, 23% of our population will be 65 and up.

25:51But the politics will weaponize that very sentence I just gave you, but it's math.

25:55It's what we are.

25:56It's demographics.

25:58We're having dramatically fewer children than have for the last couple decades, and we got

26:03older.

26:04If we tell the truth about that, we can look at what is the cost driver.

26:09So when you get folks that come in and say, well, almost all the cost driver is interest

26:15in healthcare costs.

26:17And a decade from now when the Social Security Trust Fund is gone, do we backfill it?

26:21So the brain trust here will say, well, let's do this.

26:24We'll do the ACA, Obamacare, or the Republican alternative, or Medicare for All.

26:28Those are financing bills.

26:32Once again, if our body here would tell the truth, that's who gets subsidized and who

26:36has to pay.

26:37They don't change what we pay.

26:40Technology, cures, disruptions, better ways to do it.

26:46But we keep much of the technology that could crash the price of healthcare here, we keep

26:49it illegal.

26:52Because there's armies of lobbyists in our hallways who don't want to compete against

26:57your ability to use technology to keep yourself and your family healthier.

27:06How many ... I've been able to attach a handful of AI and algorithm bills to provide customer

27:14service at the IRS, or the VA, or other things.

27:18And the hate we've gotten from the government employees unions, from these.

27:22But the fact of the matter is, it's moral.

27:25It would be better customer service for our constituents.

27:29It would be faster, better, cheaper.

27:33And the fact of the matter is, there's no pension with it.

27:36There are solutions that's not tax or cut and burn.

27:40It's a policy.

27:42And this place won't engage in the policy because we're afraid of the ... We are protectionists.

27:49We are protections of the government bureaucracies and incumbent business models.

27:54Is that Republican or Democrat?

27:56It's math.

27:57Oh.

27:58Yeah, I'm not going to bother you with that.

28:04Madam Speaker Pro Tem, may I ask how much time I have?

28:14Gentleman has 23 minutes remaining.

28:17All right.

28:18And for those who are trying to take down my words, I'm sorry for talking so fast.

28:25Tax revenues projected billions of dollars.

28:29I'm just, once again, want to make the point.

28:32Individual income taxes projected to be up dramatically.

28:36Payroll taxes up fairly substantially.

28:39Corporate income taxes fairly healthy, just that they're staying within.

28:43Other types of receipts are also up.

28:44But where I really want to get back to is trying to make this point, and then we're

28:49going to do some actual tax history.

28:53This is from CBO, Congressional Budget Office.

28:56It's not Republican or Democrat, it's math.

28:59100% of the next 30 years of debt, health care and interest, and then in 10 years if

29:05we backfill Social Security.

29:07The rest of the budget is calculated to have almost $9 trillion positive balance.

29:19So when was the last time this place actually was willing to have one of the most difficult

29:22discussions?

29:24About a month, month and a half ago, the joint economic economists on the Republican side

29:29took the leap and told the truth.

29:31We wrote a detailed report about demographics, tax policy, maximizing economic growth, and

29:36then we talked about health.

29:40And this is where I get the crap kicked out of me.

29:44Tell them the truth.

29:47Obesity in the detailed line item, and we spent months and months and months and months

29:52working on these numbers and vetting them, could be as high as $9.1 trillion of additional

29:58health care costs over the 10 years.

30:01Having a society where we're about to have the fifth year in a row where prime age males

30:05are dying younger.

30:06Is that moral?

30:08Having a society where we calculate in three to four years 50% of America will be obese.

30:15Is that moral?

30:16What we do in the Farm Bill, what we do in nutrition support, and what we do in trying

30:20to have a healthier society.

30:22Is that Republican or Democrat?

30:24I often accuse my Democrats of wanting to engage in policy to maintain people's misery

30:29where those of, at least myself, I want to cure the misery, I want to end the misery,

30:33cure diseases, move the types of investment, but also the policies so the FDA can use technology

30:40to bring cures to market faster.

30:43We have a whole portfolio of these ideas.

30:48Not one of those was a tax, not one of those was a major cut.

30:57We calculate that 16% of all U.S. health care, $600 billion, is people not staying

31:04on their statin or taking their insulin properly or their calcium inhibitors so they're having

31:09a stroke.

31:12So 99 cent pill bottle cap that beeps at you.

31:16And I can't get a damn hearing on that for years.

31:19Simple ideas that could crash the price of health care.

31:23Our society is dying.

31:25In 15 years, we calculate we have more deaths than births.

31:29Oh, but that doesn't work in the next election.

31:33That's not what I'm going to use in my propaganda.

31:36The attack ads that are going to come at you, Schweikart, well, we're going to say you mentioned

31:41the word Social Security and Medicare, but we're going to lie that you're one of the

31:44few idiots here trying to find a mathematical way to save it.

31:49This place is absolutely immoral.

31:59I've done this before.

32:00I've tried to walk through the actual cost to the poor on what we're doing at our border.

32:07I'll do this quickly.

32:11You're the individual.

32:12You're the couple.

32:13You didn't finish high school.

32:15What you sell is your talents.

32:17You're willing to go out and hang drywall.

32:19You work yourself off as hard as you can, and then you get a White House that engages

32:26in border policy where millions of people with the same skill set as you have come in

32:31and they consume the housing stock.

32:34So you want to know why the lowest tiers, the least expensive housing has had some of

32:38the highest inflation, why they can't find a place to live, and now their wages are going

32:43down because you're competing against millions of people of the same skill set.

32:48The cruelty of the current border policy crushes the working poor.

32:57Can we have a discussion like economists instead of, well, you're immoral, you want to, no.

33:04And on the flip side, we have entire charts that talk about a talent-based immigration,

33:09and talent could be a skilled carpenter or a synthetic biologist, grows the economy.

33:16And I will argue a number of the economic policies I propose, I cannot make work math-wise

33:23unless I actually, unless we actually.

33:27Because in the 70s, 80s, the world fought for hydrocarbons.

33:32Last decade we fought for rare earths.

33:34I can build you the math model that says this decade and the next three decades we're going

33:38to fight for smart people.

33:40The entire world.

33:42We educate people here and then we send them away?

33:45Are we out of our minds?

33:53Madam Speaker, Pro Tem, I'm going to just, I'm going to skip a bunch of the boards and

33:56just try to close this out with just a couple more.

34:00This is 2023.

34:03Total outlays, total spending, $6.1 trillion.

34:10Total receipts, $4.4 trillion.

34:13So what is that?

34:14That's a $1.7 trillion borrow.

34:17This year, borrowing is going to be about two and a quarter.

34:20And this is a time where the economy is doing remarkably well.

34:25Now it's subsidized, so it's basically a sugar high, but it's still doing well.

34:29And now our problem is, in 2023, gross interest was about $700 billion.

34:39This year we're heading towards $1 trillion, $140, $160 billion.

34:46But this differential here, almost every dime of that $1.7 trillion borrowing, the growth

34:57on it, now much of it is Inflation Reduction Act, the shortfall from tax reform, but we've

35:04never been given the run to show how it's growing tax receipts, and I've shown you even

35:10corporate tax receipts with the different rates are up.

35:14Turns out it's healthcare and interest now.

35:16And now as we're moving back to more normalized interest, how many of you live in a fantasy

35:19world where you think interest rates are going back to zero?

35:23You realize the current interest on 10-year notes still aren't at historic norms when

35:29you take away the years of suppression on the rate.

35:36And for my brothers and sisters on the left who like to say, well it was tax, you gave

35:40away to rich people, today the rich, the rich as defined by you, pay a higher percentage

35:47of federal income taxes than they did before.

35:49The Republican tax reform was more progressive than the previous tax code.

35:55And when we get to some of the other charts, here's my chart showing that President Biden

36:00in the debate said something insane about covering Social Security.

36:04Let's see if I can find, 10 years gross debt will be $56.8 trillion.

36:12But here's one of the points I desperately want to make.

36:17Historically when we've had very high marginal rates, eh, we get 17.6, 18, 18.2% of GDP in

36:25taxes.

36:27When we've had very low marginal rates, eh, we get 17.6, 18.2% of the economy in taxes.

36:36Because the economy changes in growth.

36:39So when you look at it, the black line is receipts, revenue.

36:43The line above it is interest and healthcare.

36:51So when our friends keep saying, well we're going to tax the rich more, great, but I've

36:54already shown you if every tax worked absolutely to its maximum efficiency, you get a point

37:00and a half a percent of GDP, and we're borrowing seven this year.

37:16We'll make this the last one.

37:22Until we're actually willing to first have the same definitions of, here's the drivers

37:33of debt, here's the innovations we're willing to bring into our society.

37:44This is our future.

37:46Our future is just absolutely crushing.

37:50And it's percentages of GDP.

37:52We expect Social Security and Medicare outlays as we start to head to the 30-year budget.

37:5817.6% of the entire economy.

38:01Where revenues are 6.3.

38:03Okay, no one has any idea what you're talking about.

38:06But my basic point is, today through the next 30 years, it's demographics.

38:14It's mostly healthcare, and then the cost of financing that shortfall.

38:21Helping people live longer, live healthier, live freer of disease is moral.

38:31Is it Republican moral, Democrat moral?

38:32It's just moral.

38:37And yet every piece of legislation I've brought here over the last few years can't get a hearing

38:43or get shot down because the bureaucracy despises it, the interest groups care more

38:52about their money than they care about my eight-year-old's future.

39:03There is a path where the math can be made to work.

39:10But for everyone around here, you think there's a simple solution.

39:14My father used to have this great saying, for every complex problem, there's a simple

39:19solution.

39:20That's absolutely wrong.

39:23We will have to do complexity to save our future, save my retirement, save my children.

39:36We have put it on paper.

39:38We've done economic modeling.

39:39We've had multiple PhD economists do the math.

39:43There's a way it works.

39:47Will this place step up and buy a calculator, put batteries in it, and then sit down with

39:51those of us who want to save our future and make this another American century?

40:01But we run around terrified from doing what's hard.

40:06Madam Speaker, thank you for the therapy session of letting me vent.

40:12I'm going to bite my tongue from saying what I had to say, but I am going to throw one

40:20last thing.

40:25There's a number of people who watch these presentations on YouTube.

40:30Half the comments are bots.

40:31They're fake.

40:32They're Russian troll farms.

40:35About half the remaining half are people who care more about saying ideological insanity,

40:44but there's about a quarter of them that help, that actually have sometimes brilliant ideas,

40:51are engaged in saying, what if you did this?

40:53What if you looked at that?

40:54We're diving into ideas on things of consolidation, things of mandatory, and those ideas actually

41:01came from the population that's been willing to watch these presentations over the years.

41:09One of my last great hopes is when I would do these economic presentations five years

41:18ago, I'd get 12 people who would watch them.

41:22Today I'll have several hundred thousand.

41:25Maybe, just maybe, our Democrats, our Republicans, the people who are independent, are tired

41:34of being treated like children, and they're ready.

41:38They're ready for us to start talking to them like honest brokers of policy.

41:44With that, Madam Speaker, I'm going to yield a couple minutes to Congressman Mooney, and

41:51he can consume what time I have left.

'We Did It—Congratulations': David Schweikert Decries US Reaching $35 Trillion In National Debt

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