Bernie Moreno Asks OPM Nominee If Paying $1 Trillion In Debt Interest Is A 'Sustainable Path'

4/7/2025

During a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing last week, Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) spoke about the deficit spending and the interest accrued on the national debt.

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Transcript

00:00Chairman I'll yield back. We're gonna go to Senator Moreno next and I may have to

00:07leave for a few minutes he will take over the committee and I will go to

00:10another committee and come back in just a few minutes but Senator Moreno you're

00:13recognized. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Scott you've invested give me a sense of how

00:18many companies Andreessen Horowitz has invested in since the time you were

00:22there starting the firm. Sense of scale like how many off the top of your head. It's been

00:25thousands. Thousands. Yes sir. Has any company you've ever invested in where

00:29you actually put your private capital and your partner's capital in ever been

00:34run the way the United States government is run in terms of excessive cost,

00:39inefficiency, bureaucracy, and ineptitude. Well thank you Senator. We certainly have

00:46had CEOs who sometimes have different skill sets in some of these areas but

00:50certainly as an investor one things we focus on as board members is ultimately

00:54you know return on investment and what that means in the private sector is do

00:57we have somebody who understands what they're spending why they're spending

01:00what they're getting out of that and we've certainly had times where those

01:03CEOs have had to make changes unfortunately in employment and

01:06otherwise in order to affect those outcomes. Do you think two trillion

01:09dollars a year in deficits paying one trillion dollars a year in interest is a

01:16sustainable path? No Senator and obviously as I've as you know I've

01:21talked and I as I reiterated my opening statement today I believe we are on an

01:24unsustainable fiscal path and I think we need to help the American people

01:28understand that just as they do with their own checkbooks that the federal

01:31government needs to be held to the same standards. And who's gonna pay the price

01:33like you say unsustainable path like who pays the price is it people of our

01:38generation you know 30 year olds like you and I who pays the price for this

01:42ineptitude? No sir ultimately look what we are doing is effectively creating an

01:46insurmountable debt for you know our children our grandchildren future

01:49generations and it's just fundamentally unfair and it's something

01:52I do believe we need to address. So the status quo is just no longer acceptable

01:57is that fair? Yes Senator. And then going back to the Office of Personnel

02:00Management you again thousands of companies I ran and owned several

02:06companies myself prior to being here how many companies have you ever seen ever

02:13like in the entire your entire career where 69% of the employees are rated

02:19above average how many give me a sense of like how many? Yeah I've never seen a

02:23company that's been successful that has that level of rating. Meaning if it were

02:28accurate in other words that's correct what would it what would you do if you

02:31found the CEO that could have created a team of people where almost 70% of the

02:37people are at the top rating? Yeah so either this is the most incredible set

02:41of workforce you've ever seen or as you're suggesting it just really defies

02:44logic at the end of the day and and look this important not only to ensure that

02:49we have accountability but it's also important from a compensation and

02:51incentives perspective right we want people who are doing well quite frankly

02:55to be recognized I think we should recognize federal employees who are

02:57fantastic and let's pay them appropriately let's give them

03:00promotions but we have to have a system that doesn't peanut butter out

03:03effectively incentives and that does distinguish between top performers and

03:06unfortunately people who are not doing their roles. Yeah and hiring is hard

03:09right I mean hiring is hard in my company we used to say take a you know

03:13hire take a long time to hire and a short time to fire because hiring is

03:17hard you you have a interview and you try to get the best sense of who's going

03:22to work there but ultimately it's you have a batting average and you want to

03:26do as well as you can have you ever had a CEO that was so good at hiring that

03:31only 0.4% of the workforce was below average? No Senator. 99.6%? No Senator.

03:39That would be remarkable I mean like that person would be CEO of the world

03:42ever right they would put a statue of that person so we have to fix that

03:47right because because nothing's worse in an organization than working with

03:52inept people because if you're a high performer and you're surrounded by

03:56people that aren't pulling their weight aren't doing the job they're supposed to

04:00do it's insanely demoralizing would you agree with that? I agree and if I if I

04:04could just Senator I mean look I think you're exactly right which is this is an

04:08issue of fairness to the people who are actually doing great work so this is not

04:11a demonization quite frankly of the workforce this is a recognition that

04:14when great people do great work quite frankly we should reward them for that

04:18and everybody knows that if you have an organization where people are not

04:21performing the right and the humane thing quite frankly to do is either if

04:24you can counsel them and fix them that's great but if they can't perform it is to

04:27go have them do some other place where they can actually exercise their

04:30appropriate skills. Well thank you Scott I look forward to confirming you thank

04:34you for doing this I'm sure there's a lot of other things in your life that

04:37you could do than this so thank you for serving your country.

04:39I might not call you Eric because you'll end up it's too complicated to

04:44pronounce but first of all your daughter's always a shining star in the

04:47cloakroom I don't know how she always smiles like that but she's great.

04:51Real briefly in 20 seconds or less do you think it's fair that the

04:56taxpayers of this country do not know that we have people here in Washington

05:01DC that are willing to send 40 or 50 billion dollars a year to foreign

05:05countries to help foreign citizens in foreign countries when our people need

05:11help our seniors are struggling our middle class is struggling we have a

05:16problem with housing and yet we have a government that prioritizes sending tens

05:21of billions of dollars to foreign countries do you think the average

05:25American understands that this government has done that? No senator I

05:29still don't believe that the average American understands it but I believe

05:33the average American understands where President Trump stands the agenda he

05:37set the objectives he's laid out the goals he expects all of us to accomplish

05:42and the mission set that we have to deliver courtesy of his mandate and as

05:47the temporary chairman I'm going to tell myself I'm out of time and I have to

05:50move on I will recognize my fellow Colombian Senator Gallego. Gracias thank

05:59you Mr. Chairman

Bernie Moreno Asks OPM Nominee If Paying $1 Trillion In Debt Interest Is A 'Sustainable Path'

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