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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NewsTranscript
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.