[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                        S. Hrg. 118-221
 
                   AGING AMERICANS AND A WANING WORKFORCE: 
                     DEMOGRAPHIC DRIVERS OF OUR DEFICIT

=======================================================================

                                 HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                        JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

                                 OF THE

                     CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                           NOVEMBER 15, 2023

                               __________

          Printed for the use of the Joint Economic Committee
          
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                     Available via www.govinfo.gov
                     
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                   U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
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                        JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

    [Created pursuant to Sec. 5(a) of Public Law 304, 79th Congress]

SENATE                               HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Martin Heinrich, New Mexico,         David Schweikert, Arizona, Vice 
    Chairman                             Chairman
Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota             Jodey C. Arrington, Texas
Margaret Wood Hassan, New Hampshire  Ron Estes, Kansas
Mark Kelly, Arizona                  A. Drew Ferguson IV, Georgia
Peter Welch, Vermont                 Lloyd K. Smucker, Pennsylvania
John Fetterman, Pennsylvania         Nicole Malliotakis, New York
Mike Lee, Utah                       Donald S. Beyer Jr., Virginia
Tom Cotton, Arkansas                 David Trone, Maryland
Eric Schmitt, Missouri               Gwen Moore, Wisconsin
J.D. Vance, Ohio                     Katie Porter, California

                  Jessica Martinez, Executive Director
                 Ron Donado, Republican Staff Director
                            
                            
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                     Opening Statements of Members

                                                                   Page
Hon. David Schweikert, Vice Chairman, a Representative from the 
  State of Arizona...............................................     1

                               Witnesses

Dr. Julie Topoleski, Director of Labor, Income Security, and 
  Long-Term Analysis, Congressional Budget Office, Washington, DC     2
Dr. John C. Scott, Project Director, Retirement Savings, The Pew 
  Charitable Trusts, Washington, DC..............................     4
Dr. Benjamin H. Harris, Vice President and Director of Economic 
  Studies Program and Director of the Retirement Security 
  Project, The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC.............     5
Dr. Kathryn Anne Edwards, Independent Economic Policy Consultant, 
  Washington, DC.................................................     6

                       Submissions for the Record

Prepared Statement of Hon. Martin Heinrich, Chairman, a U.S. 
  Senator from New Mexico........................................    30
Prepared Statement of Dr. Julie Topoleski, Director of Labor, 
  Income Security, and Long-Term Analysis, Congressional Budget 
  Office.........................................................    34
Prepared Statement of Dr. John C. Scott, Project Director, 
  Retirement Savings, The Pew Charitable Trusts..................    39
Prepared Statement of Dr. Benjamin H. Harris, Vice President and 
  Director of Economic Studies Program and Director of the 
  Retirement Security Project, The Brookings Institution.........    50
Prepared Statement of Dr. Kathryn Anne Edwards, Independent 
  Economic Policy Consultant.....................................    58

 
  AGING AMERICANS AND A WANING WORKFORCE: DEMOGRAPHIC DRIVERS OF OUR 
                                DEFICIT

                              ----------                              


                      WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2023

                            United States Congress,
                                  Joint Economic Committee,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The committee met, pursuant to call, at 2:35 p.m., in Room 
1334, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. David Schweikert, 
Vice Chairman, presiding.
    Representatives present: Schweikert, Arrington, Beyer, 
Trone, Moore, and Porter.
    Senators present: Heinrich, Klobuchar, Hassan, and Welch.
    Staff Present: Matthew Cernicky, Sebi Devlin-Foltz, Ron 
Donado, Colleen Healy, Jeremy Johnson, Jessica Martinez, 
Michael Pearson, and Alexander Schunk.

                       OPENING STATEMENT

    Vice Chairman Schweikert. All right. Let's bring our 
hearing to order.
    The good Senator was explaining to me that this is his old 
haunt, and I was sharing with him this is my first time ever in 
this room. So it is the difference between people who know 
natural resources and those of us who do a lot of tax work.
    For our witnesses, please, thank you for being here. I am 
going to do the basic introductions. We may do quick opening 
statements, and then we are truly interested in hearing and 
then we would really like some dialogue of some of the nature 
of the questions.
    All right. I would like to introduce our four distinguished 
witnesses. Dr. Julie--I'm going to get it right--Topoleski--did 
I get close? All right, I will practice on that--is the 
Congressional Budget Office director of Labor, Income Security, 
and Long-Term Analysis, and directs the annual publication of 
CBO's Demographical Outlook, which is actually--last year's--is 
on my table in my office.
    Before that, she led the long-term analysis on which is 
responsible for the long-term projections on Social Security, 
Medicare, Medicaid, and the Federal budget, as well as long-
term analysis of policy changes in those areas.
    She received her Ph.D. in economics from the University of 
Maryland. Thank you for joining us.
    Dr. John Scott is the director of the Pew Retirement 
Savings Project. His research focus is on retirement policy and 
aging issues, including Social Security retirement savings 
plans.
    Before joining Pew, Dr. Scott taught and conducted research 
in public policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel 
Hill with a focus on issues related to aging tax policy and the 
policymaking process.
    Where are you when we need you?
    Dr. Scott received his master's in sociology from the 
University of Maryland and his law degree from Pennsylvania 
State University.
    Dr. Ben Harris is vice president and director of the 
Economic Studies Program and director of the Retirement 
Security Project at the Brookings Institution. He most recently 
received his assistant secretary of Economic Policy and chief 
economist at the U.S. Treasury Department.
    Could you make the title any shorter?
    Prior to joining Treasury, Dr. Harris was the executive 
director of the Kellogg Public-Private Initiative, and a 
research associate professor at Northwestern University.
    Dr. Harris has held several senior positions in government, 
including chief economist and economic advisor to then-Vice 
President Joe Biden, senior economist with the White House 
Council of Economic Advisers, and senior economist at the U.S. 
Budget Committee. His primary area of research focuses on 
fiscal policy and retirement policy.
    Dr. Kathryn Anne Edwards is a Ph.D. economist, and 
independent economics policy consultant. She is also adjunct 
economist at the RAND Corporation and a lecturer at the 
University of Maryland's School of Public Policy.
    Dr. Edwards previously served as an economist and associate 
economist at the RAND Corporation, and as a research assistant 
at the Economic Policy Institute. And I think we are repeating 
ourselves.
    Her research focus is on the intersection of labor markets 
and public policy, including unemployment and underemployment--
or unemployment insurance, women's labor issues after children, 
poverty, and Social Security.
    Doctor, can we begin with your 5 minutes.

  STATEMENT OF DR. JULIE TOPOLESKI, DIRECTOR OF LABOR, INCOME 
SECURITY, AND LONG-TERM ANALYSIS, CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE, 
                         WASHINGTON, DC

    Dr. Topoleski. Chairman Heinrich, Vice Chairman Schweikert.
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. You may have to do two things. 
Make sure your mike is on, and pull it very close to you. The 
mikes can sometimes be quite sensitive.
    Dr. Topoleski. Is that better?
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. Wonderful.
    Dr. Topoleski. Okay. I will start over.
    Chairman Heinrich, Vice Chairman Schweikert, and members of 
the committee, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before 
you today. I will discuss the Congressional Budget Office's 
preliminary demographic projections to the United States, which 
we finalized in January.
    I would like to make four main points. First, our 
population projections drive our budget and economic 
projections. For example, the number of people who are employed 
and paying taxes on their wages depends on the size of the 
working-age population. That population, the number of people 
ages 20 to 64, grows more slowly in our projections than the 
number of people age 65 or older. The number of beneficiaries 
of Social Security and Medicare depends on the size of that 
older population.
    Second, the population of 342 million in 2024 grows by 46 
million over the next 30 years in our projections. Population 
growth is determined by births, deaths, and net immigration. 
Over the next decade, immigration accounts for about 70 percent 
of the overall increase in the size of the population. The 
greater number of births and deaths accounts for the remaining 
30 percent.
    Digging in on that a little bit, the total fertility rate 
for women ages 14 to 49 is around 1.7 in our projections. That 
is below the rate of 2.1 births per women needed for the 
population to replace itself and lower than it has been 
historically.
    Also in our projections, mortality rates continue to 
decline, and life expectancy at age 65 increases. And to note, 
beginning in 2042, net immigration more than accounts for all 
population growth. Put another way, without immigration after 
that year, the population would shrink.
    And just to note a comparison with projections the Census 
Bureau released last week, our total population numbers over 
the next 30 years are similar to those in the Census Bureau's 
high immigration scenario.
    Third, our estimates of net immigration for 2022 through 
2026 are greater than we estimated last year. In 2024, for 
example, net immigration is larger than we projected last year 
by 2.1 million people, primarily because net immigration of 
foreign-born people without legal status is larger in our 
projections.
    In our projections after 2024, the amount of net 
immigration largely returns to its historical average by about 
2027.
    Just to highlight one factor that has led us to make this 
change in our projections this year, we know that in 2023, 
officials of U.S. Customs and Border Protection have 
encountered more people attempting to enter the country at the 
southwest border than in previous years. And they are releasing 
more of those people into the United States with humanitarian 
parole or with a notice to appear before an immigration judge.
    Fourth, our projections are highly uncertain. Rates of 
fertility, mortality, and net immigration could all be higher 
or lower than we are projecting. Our estimates of net 
immigration or foreign-born people without legal status are 
particularly uncertain.
    Thank you for the opportunity to talk about the role of 
population in our budget and economic projections, the growth 
in our total population, the key role of immigration in those 
projections, and the uncertainties involved. I will be happy to 
answers your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Topoleski appears in the 
Submissions for the Record on page 34.]
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. Thank you, Doctor.
    Dr. Scott.

   STATEMENT OF DR. JOHN SCOTT, PROJECT DIRECTOR, RETIREMENT 
       SAVINGS, THE PEW CHARITABLE TRUSTS, WASHINGTON, DC

    Dr. Scott. Chairman Heinrich, Vice Chairman Schweikert, and 
members of the committee, thank you for the privilege of 
appearing today.
    Pew is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization that 
uses evidence-based solutions to address pressing public policy 
problems.
    In summary, the United States is aging both in terms of the 
absolute number of older persons and in terms of their number 
relative to the working-age population. And these trends, 
combined with insufficient retirement savings, will have 
serious implications for both Federal and State budgets.
    The Nation's 65 and older population will increase by an 
estimated 50 percent from 2020 to 2040, going from 54 million 
to an estimated 81 million. This rate of growth is nearly 10 
times as fast as the growth of the population under age 65.
    Population aging will not be uniform across all States. For 
example, Nevada's older population will increase by 102 percent 
with over 1 million older residents by 2024. In contrast, West 
Virginia will see an 18 percent increase.
    The relationship between older and younger households will 
also shift. Working-age households form the core of the Federal 
and State tax base, but they will not keep pace with the 
growing older population. In 2020, there were 37 older 
households for every 100 working-age households, but by 2040, 
there are projected to be 54 older households for every 100 
working-age households, a 46 percent increase.
    Different forces affect population aging, and I will focus 
here on birth rates and life expectancy. After the end of the 
baby boom in the 1960s, women in the late 1970s, on average, 
gave birth to 2.2 children over their lifetimes. Women today 
are forecast to bear 1.4 to 1.9 children. These lower birth 
rates mean that younger generations will not offset a growing 
older population.
    Increasing life expectancy also adds to the growth of older 
households. In 1935, the year that Social Security was created, 
life expectancy at birth was 62 years. By 2021, life expectancy 
increased by 14 years to an average of 76.
    Those who reached the age of 65 have seen a similar trend. 
In 1960, the average life expectancy at age 65 was 14 years. By 
2021, a 65-year-old could expect, on average, to live another 
18 years.
    These aging trends impact retirement readiness. Research 
shows that retirees are not saving enough. And according to 
Pew-sponsored research, in 2040, households will fall short of 
recommended levels of retirement income by an average of $7,050 
a year.
    Insufficient retirement income will reduce the quality of 
life for many retired households, but it will also affect 
government budgets. A lack of savings increases the likelihood 
that a household will need social assistance.
    Insufficient savings are expected to cost means-tested 
Federal programs for older Americans, a cumulative 990 billion 
over the 20-year period from 2021 through 2040.
    Insufficient savings will also cost State budgets. My 
written testimony provides a State by State breakdown of these 
costs over this 20-year period, but the aggregate cost of 
insufficient savings for the States is an estimated 334 
billion.
    Additional work at older ages could help reduce these 
fiscal pressures, and labor force participation among older 
Americans is rising, but health issues associated with aging, 
such as an increased risk of disability and chronic health 
conditions could limit work.
    Increased retirement savings can also reduce the fiscal 
cost of inadequate retirement incomes. Our analysis found that 
households saving an additional $140 a month could erase that 
7,000 income shortfall.
    Recent initiatives could boost retirement savings, 
including pooled employer plans, a revised Federal savings tax 
credit, and State savings programs for workers without 
retirement benefits. It is too early, however, to tell the 
extent to which these initiatives would significantly reduce 
these fiscal impacts.
    In conclusion, the aging population in the United States is 
growing, as is the ratio of older households to working-age 
households. These factors put pressure on programs designed to 
support older Americans, and those pressures will increase in 
the future.
    Policymakers would be wise to consider measures that 
encourage savings to lessen future demands on State and Federal 
programs.
    I would be pleased to answer your questions. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Scott appears in the 
Submissions for the Record on page 39.]
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. Dr. Scott, thank you.
    Dr. Harris.

    STATEMENT OF DR. BENJAMIN H. HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT AND 
   DIRECTOR OF ECONOMIC STUDIES PROGRAM AND DIRECTOR OF THE 
RETIREMENT SECURITY PROJECT, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION, WASHINGTON, 
                               DC

    Dr. Harris. A heart-felt thank you to Chairman Heinrich, 
Vice Chairman Schweikert, and members of this committee for 
inviting me to testify at today's hearing. I am honored to 
appear before you to discuss topics I have studied throughout 
my career in public service and academia. In particular, the 
intersection between an aging population and longstanding 
fiscal imbalances.
    Over the next few decades, the United States will be forced 
to address the fiscal challenges of an aging population. Our 
Nation is in the midst of a rapid demographic transmission 
where the share of Americans age 65 and older increases by 
roughly 0.4 percentage points per year between 2012 and 2030, 
over which time their population share will increase from 13 
percent to 20 percent with a slower rate of aging both before 
and after this quarter-century period.
    In the absence of corrective action, the spending increases 
required by an aging population pose a threat to our Nation's 
long-term fiscal health.
    Mandatory spending currently makes up about 70 percent of 
all noninterest spending. And major entitlement programs, 
Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid comprise 72 percent of 
all mandatory spending. The current demographic shift will put 
increasing pressure on these entitlements. All three are 
projected to reach all-time high levels of spending as a 
percent of GDP in the next 20 years.
    Stagnant rates of revenue growth with tax revenue as a 
share of GDP that are lower than many competitor nations have 
played an outsized role in driving persistent imbalances. The 
Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 projected increased deficits by 
roughly 1.8 trillion over 10 years has exacerbated the 
insufficient nature of the tax code.
    This ongoing demographic transition has contributed to a 
sobering and, perhaps, even dire fiscal outlook. The 
Congressional Budget Office's long-term budget outlook projects 
that the national debt will reach 181 percent of GDP by 2053, 
far above recent historical experience, and multiple 
independent analyses paint an even more pessimistic picture.
    At some undetermined point, persistent and rising fiscal 
imbalances will demand policy action. I will conclude by list 
these in turn but will first note potential approaches that 
should not be adopted because they are insufficient to address 
the magnitude of the shortfall or because the negative economic 
consequences would prove too severe to warrant their adoption. 
These include cuts in nondefense discretionary spending, 
utilizing the debt limit as a tool for fiscal changes, and 
abandoning Keynesian stimulus in times of economic downturns.
    More promising approaches, in my opinion, for achieving an 
improved fiscal outlook include raising tax rates on income or 
wages, reversing the steep reduction in the corporate tax rate 
enacted in 2017, eliminating major tax expenditures, providing 
sufficient funding to tax administrators to enforce the tax 
code, introducing a new tax base on consumption or carbon 
emissions, increasing rates of legal immigration, slowing or 
reversing inflation rates in health care, or gradually changing 
the age at which Social Security benefits can be claimed.
    Thank you again for the opportunity to testify. I look 
forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Harris appears in the 
Submissions for the Record on page 50.]
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. Thank you.
    Dr. Edwards. Get close to the mike.

     STATEMENT OF DR. KATHRYN ANNE EDWARDS, LABOR ECONOMIST

    Dr. Edwards. Yes, of course.
    Thank you so much for having me.
    The U.S. budget is not age neutral. How a person interacts 
with it, from the taxes they pay to the benefits they receive, 
changes over the course of their lifetime. This wouldn't matter 
much if the population were steady and all birth cohorts 
identically sized, but we know that that is not the case, and 
we are facing the drastic effects of a large generation getting 
older and a smaller one coming of age.
    Today the youngest boomers are 59 years old, drawing our 
focus to their aging and retirement. For decades, however, the 
boomers' vast numbers in our workforce obscured weaknesses in 
our labor market. Rather than their size necessitating policy, 
as it does today, it obviated the need for it when they were 
young. Now that they are retiring, those weaknesses are laid 
bear.
    There are policies that can counter the demographic pull on 
the deficit, policies that have long been good ideas but have 
been seemingly less urgent. Chief among them is labor supply. 
The U.S. should increase the number of people working and, by 
extension, paying income taxes.
    Understand first that prime age labor force participation 
is at a historic high right now. Young people today are working 
just as much as the boomers did when they were younger. There 
are simply fewer of them.
    The first step in expanding labor supply and increasing the 
number of people working is retention. There are tens of 
millions of Americans who, because of some incident or shock or 
hardship in their life, have had to leave their job and never 
come back, representing years of lost work if not decades of 
lost income taxes.
    Among the more common reasons for leaving, having your job 
eliminated, you, your partner, parent, or child becoming 
acutely sick or disabled, being incarcerated, having children. 
Each circumstance presents distinct needs that are worthy of 
their own policy agenda. At the same time, however, policies to 
address any one of them will have broad spillover effects 
because the problem is essentially the same. Once you leave the 
labor market, it is very hard to come back.
    Retention policy aims to keep people from leaving, making 
it easier to return when they want to. The cornerstone of 
retention policy is paid leave. It is a program that 
acknowledges that workers may need to leave for a period of 
time, but through a partial wage replacement and job protection 
keeps them anchored in the labor force. The U.S. needs paid 
medical leave and paid family leave.
    Among the most broadly beneficial bang-for-the-buck 
retention policy is accommodation. Accommodation policy 
codifies into law the right to work part-time, the right to 
request flexible and remote work arrangements, and a minimum 
number of paid sick days.
    Last year the U.S. had the highest labor force 
participation in history for workers with a disability because, 
primarily, of new remote work options, a lesson for us that 
when workplace accommodations expand, it expands who gets to 
work in our labor market.
    Given today's theme, it is also worth noting that neither a 
social insurance leave program financed via a payroll tax, nor 
an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act to guarantee 
accommodation would necessarily add to the deficit, but it 
would add workers to our economy.
    But there are also investments that are costly in the short 
run that you can no longer defer. A job search stipend for 
long-term out-of-the-labor-force workers who are looking to get 
back in, a long-term unemployment retraining program for 
workers whose jobs has been eliminated because of technological 
change, like the potentially 2.4 million jobs that will be 
eliminated for our economy by the end of the decade due to 
regenerative AI.
    But, of course, the most urgent policy and probably the 
smartest investment that the U.S. does not make in demographics 
is childcare. Accessible, affordable childcare would increase 
the number of women working in our economy. It would also 
likely help increase fertility. Since 2007, fertility has 
fallen nearly every year, and what started as a slide 
attributed to the Great Recession is now a sustained 15-year 
decline in U.S. fertility.
    Having children is a very personal decision, and yet 
Congress has a wide avenue for intervention to make it safer, 
easier, and cheaper to have kids. Childcare is a massive price 
tag for families, more than college tuition and mortgages in 
most States. It prevents women from staying in the workforce 
and families from having additional children.
    I will end by noting that I would be remiss if I did not 
use this platform to ring the alarm bells that I have hoped 
that you have heard before, that U.S. maternal mortality is 
unacceptably high. It is 10 times higher in the U.S. than in 
peer countries, an increased 78 percent over the past 3 years.
    Demographics are not fixed. Policy can make a difference.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Edwards appears in the 
Submissions for the Record on page 58.]
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. Thank you, panel. I truly 
appreciate this.
    I am going to ask Chairman Heinrich to make the first few 
minutes of inquiry.
    Chairman Heinrich. Thank you, Vice Chairman.
    I want to start and just go down the line with each of you 
and ask you whether you think that both reductions in spending 
and revenue are both going to be necessary for us to reduce the 
deficit to more manageable levels, or if you think we can get 
there with one side or the other alone. So just your thoughts 
on whether or not revenue is going to be necessary.
    And we will start with Dr. Topoleski and just go down the 
line.
    Dr. Topoleski. Well, let me start by saying that CBO does 
not make policy recommendations, although we are happy to work 
with you to estimate the costs of things.
    One could certainly fix the problem by cuts in revenue, 
by--sorry--by increases in revenue, by cuts in spending, or 
some combination of both. There is a large fiscal gap to fill, 
but I will defer it to you all to come up with the policies 
that can do that.
    Chairman Heinrich. Dr. Scott.
    Dr. Scott. Yes, I would just say that Pew has not taken a 
position or even done much in the way of research on that. I 
mean, I would say, as a recovering academic that have done a 
lot of work on tax policy and fiscal issues, I mean, there are 
certainly a wide range of tools that combine both.
    So I would echo what Dr. Topoleski just said, is that, you 
know, I think you have a wide range of tools. It is really what 
you think is the right mix.
    Dr. Harris. I will just say my views represent my own self 
and not the Brookings Institution. And my views are that the 
long-term fiscal imbalance cannot practicably be fixed without 
some combination of revenue increases and spending cuts.
    Chairman Heinrich. Dr. Edwards.
    Dr. Edwards. I would agree. You are going to need to do a 
little bit of everything to get there. I would caution you from 
cutting off your nose to spite your face and that we still have 
to make investments to grow the economy. Cost cutting isn't 
going to grow our way out of this.
    Chairman Heinrich. Dr. Edwards, sort of shifting gears a 
little bit back to what you were talking about in terms of paid 
medical leave, paid family leave. Do we have data on places 
that States, for example, that have implemented those policies 
and the impact through labor force participation that has had 
on their State budgets, for example?
    Dr. Edwards. Yes. It will vary based on the number of years 
the program has been in place and the generosity of the 
benefits, but the direction is very certain. When you have paid 
family leave and paid medical leave, you are able to retain 
workers and increase labor force participation.
    Chairman Heinrich. Dr. Harris, I want to go back to you 
with respect to you made a mention of the role of tax 
expenditures as a tool. Can you just elaborate a little bit 
more on that?
    Dr. Harris. Sure. We have a massive tax expenditure budget. 
Tax expenditures, as you know, Senator, are effectively tax 
provisions designed to achieve some economic or social goal. I 
think some of them are well justified by economic research. 
Others are less so.
    So, for example, one tax expenditure, which I would be in 
favor of rolling back or repealing as a way of righting our 
long-term fiscal imbalance would be the step-up in basis at 
death for capital gains, which is not just about raising 
revenue but also has some negative economic impacts in that it 
encourages investors to hold certain investments longer than 
they would otherwise in order to avoid paying the taxes. So 
that's one example of a tax expenditure I think should be on 
the table.
    Chairman Heinrich. Thank you.
    Childcare is incredibly expensive for the average family 
and far too few workers have access to paid leave today. In my 
State, the average annual cost of childcare is well over 
$8,000, while only one in four workers in the private sector 
actually has access to paid family leave.
    So Dr. Edwards, can you describe how these policies support 
labor participation of parents, especially mothers, and keep 
them in the labor force?
    Dr. Edwards. If the cost of childcare is prohibitive, it is 
simply not worth it for a woman to work or possibly to have 
another kid. If it is larger than your mortgage, you wouldn't 
necessarily buy an extra house every year. That has massive 
effects on parents' behavior.
    The notion of labor force retention policy like paid family 
leave is just to make sure that, you know, people will make 
decisions that are best for their family and best for 
themselves, but you are going to give them a period of time to 
sit out the labor force so that they don't have to make the 
decision basically under duress. And that is what you are 
giving them is time and space to make a decision for their 
family and not basically forcing them out the door.
    So while you are distracted, I will say it is probably not 
the best that we cut family income by not having paid family 
leave right when a child is born.
    Chairman Heinrich. I'm sorry. Say that one more time, Dr. 
Edwards.
    Dr. Edwards. I said, while you are distracted, it is also 
not advisable policy to cut family income right as a child is 
born.
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. We are actually doing a weird 
juggling, because we are also running a Ways and Means hearing 
right below us. And, Ms. Moore, I was going to let you go next 
so you have some optionality of where you wanted to be.
    Representative Moore. Well, that is very kind of you.
    Well, thank you so very, very much. This is an extremely 
important hearing, and I just want to thank the co-chairs for 
really putting this on the agenda.
    Dr. Edwards, I was particularly interested in your 
testimony. You started out talking about the U.S. budget is not 
age neutral. So that brings in everything from Social Security 
and Medicare down to childcare and, as you pointed out, child 
birth, immigration policy. It just brings in a lot of things.
    You noted in your remarks that, you know, women are not 
having children. The replacement rate, all of you kind of have 
agreed to that, is not what it ought to be. But I think the 
data do show us that we are going to depend on a lot of 
immigrants in order to fill, backfill from the low birth rates.
    And so do all of you agree that immigration reform would be 
very important toward filling the workforce and also increasing 
the payments into FICA? Right now we have got a half trillion 
dollars a year that immigrants pay in just local sales tax and 
so on.
    Would all of you, Dr. Edwards first, would sort of agree 
that immigration policy is important?
    Dr. Edwards. There is very little economic gain to having 
so many people not able to participate fully in our economy.
    Representative Moore. Dr. Harris.
    Dr. Harris. Yes, I agree that immigration reform can be a 
big part of the program agenda.
    Representative Moore. Dr. Scott.
    Dr. Scott. Well, certainly immigration reform could affect 
the number of workers in this country, absolutely.
    Representative Moore. Right. And I think those data we have 
seen, CBC reports that have really demonstrated to us that just 
depending on costs versus expenses, we can see, over a course 
of 10 years, maybe a trillion dollars added to stuff. Like FICA 
has sort of helped us out of our conundrum with Social 
Security.
    I wanted to get a little bit more into your testimony, Dr. 
Edwards. You talked about, you know, age, the budget not being 
neutral on age. You talked about the importance of not only 
women, for example--and you have answered this with Chairman 
Heinrich's question--having access to childcare, because those 
people who are kind of in the middle class either are not poor 
enough to get subsidies but not wealthy enough to afford the 
market failure that childcare is and that, of course, that has 
an impact on women's workforce participation.
    But you also talk about the importance of having a healthy 
workforce. So expenditures on healthcare. I am just wondering 
how many of you all think that having a healthy workforce and 
providing that benefit would increase workforce participation?
    And then specifically, Dr. Edwards, you talked about 
infertility treatment as being important. I have never heard 
that before, and I am going to give you a chance to talk about 
that as part of the array of things. You know, we have heard 
paid family leave, childcare, that kind of stuff. But 
infertility treatment.
    Dr. Edwards. Thank you. I was joking with a friend before 
that fertility policy is not as communist as it sounds. There 
are just things that we can do within our economy to encourage 
people to have children, not necessarily forcing their hand but 
maybe removing some barriers that make it harder for them to 
make the choices they like.
    What has never changed in the past five decades is the 
number of kids people say they want to have. Our fertility is 
unmet fertility intentions, not a change in fertility 
intentions. People are not having the kids they want.
    Representative Moore. That is exactly right.
    And the child tax credit. You know, we need to stop looking 
at it as an expense but an investment like you were talking 
about. Do you think--we didn't see any change in workforce 
participation when we provided that child tax credit.
    Do you agree that that child tax credit would enable us to 
put more workers into people to participate?
    Dr. Edwards. You know, we only had the child tax credit to 
low income families for 6 months. It still flows to wealthier 
and high income households the way that it always did. But we 
didn't see any market effects on labor force participation for 
the 6 months we had----
    Representative Moore. You didn't see people dropping out, 
in other words.
    Dr. Edwards. You didn't see people dropping out, but I 
would say that it is also--it is not on the same order of 
magnitude of childcare. A child tax credit of 1,000 bucks is 
not even an eighth of the way to paying for 1 year of childcare 
for one kid.
    So whatever affect it has on family, it is likely going to 
be eaten up by basic necessities like food. If you have a child 
tax credit, the biggest effect will probably be on food and 
security.
    Representative Moore. Well, let's feed the babies.
    I have got a cute video of my 5-month-old great grand baby 
eating if anybody wants to see it. I mean, it is really--it 
really does inspire us.
    Thank you. And I yield back.
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. All right. We look forward to the 
videos. And you remember how terrified some of our Ways and 
Means--insanely, I have a 15-month-old, and he was sitting on 
my lap 2 weeks ago as we were holding a committee hearing.
    Representative Moore. He seemed to be clinging to you 
pretty good.
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. No, no. It is a joy.
    Okay. I am going to just--in the juggling, I am going to 
actually ask a few questions. We are going to run back down to 
Ways and Means. My Senator friend here promised he won't let 
the fact that only my friends on this side are here run off the 
rails.
    Well, you are good. You are one of the people I like. Him, 
he makes me nervous.
    We may have a reservation for the canyon almost in December 
if you want to come.
    Representative Moore. Uh-oh. Wait a minute, now.
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. He is my hiking buddy.
    Okay. Now back to being serious.
    One of the reasons we agreed to do this hearing is we are 
trying to get our heads around what is the reality of the 
numbers. I saw a number during the pandemic. I believe it has 
come back that fertility rates had fallen--touched all the way 
down to 1.62.
    But what I am--and I am going to start from one end and 
work over. First, help me understand. Let's not do policy right 
now. What is the scale of the imbalance? If you and I were 
sitting in this room 10, 20 years from now, what does America 
look like? You know, what does our over 65 population compared 
to our prime age working population look like?
    I'm trying to get an honest understanding of the resources. 
And I have been given a couple numbers in all of your opening 
testimonies, but I want to just start on one end. And 
basically, what does our world look like 10 and 20 years from 
now?
    Doctor.
    Dr. Topoleski. So looking today, there are--and I am 
reading off a chart that has no numbers on it, so forgive me if 
my numbers aren't precise. There are about three and a half 
people between the ages of 20 and 64 per person over the age of 
65. Within 30 years, that number falls fairly dramatically to 
less than three.
    So that is the sort of your pool of people available to 
work and available to support the elderly population.
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. Dr. Scott, how would you 
reference it? How fast are we aging?
    Dr. Scott. Well, we are aging quite a bit faster. I mean, I 
would just second a lot of what you just heard, but one thing I 
would maybe note is that the growth of the oldest pool of our 
population, those that are 75 and older and 85 and older is 
rapidly growing. I think in the testimony we say that both 
those cohorts will double in size by the year 2040, and the 
majority of the older population in 2040 is projected to be 75 
or older.
    So you are going to have not just a lot older people but, 
you know, people are living longer. So at those very older 
ages, there is going to be a large growth.
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. Dr. Harris.
    Dr. Harris. So I should say I usually turn to CBO for 
numbers on this, but I think the easiest way for me to 
conceptualize this is that in 2010, we had about 10 percent of 
the population was older than 65. By 2030, it will be double 
that, 20 percent of the population. That is a pretty massive 
increase over the course of two decades.
    Dr. Edwards. I would remind you that our fertility is not 
fixed. I mean, we are coming out of a 15-year declined 
fertility. But when you ask what it looks like in 20 years, 
that is up too. I mean, we could have another baby boom with 
certain policies.
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. To that question, Dr. Edwards, 
I'm sorry to interrupt, tell me the country in the 
industrialized world that has been facing this for 30 years 
that has had successful policy that has changed long run 
fertility rates.
    Dr. Edwards. So France's fertility is above replacement. It 
is about, historically, at 2.1.
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. And where did they go to their 
lowest?
    Dr. Edwards. I am not sure.
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. My understanding is France has 
stayed actually quite stable, and substantially that is from 
their immigrant population.
    Dr. Edwards. That is my understanding as well. I don't know 
their exact numbers. I do know they have childcare.
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. And Hungary, is it true on the 
third or fourth child, they literally buy you a home, and it 
has barely moved their fertility rates?
    Dr. Edwards. So I am not sure about Hungary. I do know that 
Germany's fertility rates had fallen for a period of time and 
it is starting to increase. I am not sure how it fared in the 
aftermath of the pandemic.
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. Yes, you have to make an 
adjustment for those months.
    And, look, I have a dataset in my binder that basically 
talks about a couple things. In the 1970s, for every I think it 
was $5 for people under 20, there was $1 spent on seniors. 
Today that has functionally reversed and will continue to 
reverse.
    Impact--would any of you be able to speak to the fact that 
there was a number here I think it was saying--was it 2042, 84 
million, 65 and up. Can anyone help me with that?
    All right. So if we are here 20 years from now, how much of 
the U.S. budget basically is for earned benefits, both the 
health care costs and Social Security? Because we have, what, 9 
years, and we have to start to deal with the fact that the 
Social Security trust fund is gone.
    In the very first year, so 2033, we have a $616 billion 
shortfall. The math says we double senior poverty. So that 25 
percent cut that is coming in Social Security will double 
senior poverty.
    There is an article out there that says we expect 
functionally in the next decade to see doubling of homeless 
baby boomers. Am I being a bit apocalyptic? Please, someone 
correct the numbers that I am being given.
    Dr. Scott.
    Dr. Scott. I won't correct your numbers. You know, I would 
just note that, I mean, there are a lot of pressures that are 
going on. I mean, I talked about the growth of the oldest old, 
and that has implications for a lot of the means-tested 
programs that we studied at Pew. We certainly know that the 
number of people with Alzheimer's is going to grow by a very 
large percentage.
    So I think, you know, those are the worst case scenarios. 
It is not necessarily apocalyptic to say that, but it is not 
necessarily what could happen too. But I think that we see 
these trends and are very concerned about the impact on both 
Federal and State budgets going forward.
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. And I will return, Mr. Chairman.
    The CBO puts out a number, and it makes it very, very clear 
from today through the next 30 years, every dime of future 
borrowing is functionally Medicare, interest, and, if we 
choose, to backfill Social Security in 9 years when the trust 
fund is gone. The rest of the budget is substantially flat or 
imbalanced.
    And I think actually some here is first to have a 
commonality of how tough the demographic numbers are and the 
fact that the fight we all have back and forth, it is revenues, 
it is spending, it is actually demographics.
    And with that, I shall return.
    Chairman Heinrich [presiding]. We will see you soon.
    Senator Klobuchar.
    Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. And 
thank you to our witnesses for your testimony.
    Dr. Harris, your testimony references the comprehensive 
immigration bill, kind of way back, 2013. Although, we keep 
discussing it on a bipartisan basis in the Judiciary Committee 
because it did make it through the U.S. Senate.
    And one of the things that I think it overlooked in that 
bill in future efforts is not only the way it gets at workforce 
shortage, which is so important because no great nation has 
expanded with a shrinking workforce. We could try to be the 
first experiment, but I would rather not, and especially when 
you look at the need for, as we look at the seniors and the 
changing demographics, the need for people to take care of 
seniors. And pretty soon there is going to be no one to take 
care of grandma in the middle of Nebraska at our assisted 
livings. And we are going to have issues and already do in 
rural hospitals and the like.
    So that bill--and I remember it because Grover Norquist was 
one of my witnesses at this very committee because he supported 
the bill because it reduced the debt. And it showed back then 
that the bill would have increased GDP by 3.3 percent and cut 
the deficit by about 900 billion over two decades. I will admit 
these are 2013 figures, but I think we could imagine the same 
thing now.
    Could you talk about how similar legislation could have the 
same effect now?
    Dr. Harris. So economists don't agree on a lot, but we do 
agree on the benefits of immigration reform and economists 
support that statement.
    And from the perspective of caregiving, I mean, there is 
almost too many benefits of immigration to list. We see 
increases in patents. We see decreases in prices. As we start 
to be selective about what types of workers we let in to 
address certain workforce gaps, we start to see less specific 
labor markets.
    So, for example, we know that we have gaps in caregiving 
centers, as you referenced. The caregiving crisis, I do 
consider it a crisis, has two primary effects as older 
Americans are subject to a lack of caregivers. The first is 
higher prices for caregiving. As you have a shortage in those 
caregivers, they can demand much higher prices.
    The second is that unpaid caregivers increasingly bear the 
burden. And we are basically talking about middle-aged women 
bearing this burden right at their peak earning years. It has 
enormous consequences for the labor market in general and for 
these families in particular.
    Senator Klobuchar. Okay.
    Can you talk about the positive effect that immigration 
reform could also have on Medicare and Social Security 
solvency?
    Dr. Harris. Yes. So when we are talking about these major 
programs, as we have younger people coming in, in their working 
lives, and they are paying into these programs--we are talking 
about legal immigration they are paying in--they are not 
receiving benefits for 20, 30, 40 years. In general, the 
finances of these big programs, Medicare and Social Security, 
improve with increased immigration.
    Senator Klobuchar. Very good.
    Dr. Topoleski--I like people with a lot of initials in 
their--a lot of vowels in their last name, so thank you.
    In your testimony, you talk about costs for health care 
programs and rising costs. One of the things that we have been 
working on, on a bipartisan basis, out of the Judiciary 
Committee is how to reduce prescription drug costs. We already 
have the negotiation going on with Medicare. That is a bill 
that I led for many, many years, and we have the first 10 drugs 
being negotiated now.
    I will note that those 10 drugs, which includes Januvia and 
Jardiance and Eliquis--and I like to say these names because I 
memorize them--those 10 drugs, 9 million seniors last year, 
they shelled out $3.4 billion in out-of-pocket on those 10 
drugs alone. And you can imagine what we could do with more 
negotiations.
    But there is also patent issues with, you know, generics 
being kept off the market and all kinds of things with the way 
the pharma companies are playing with patents.
    Could you talk about how that could help with reducing 
costs for health care spending?
    Dr. Topoleski. So on that answer, I am going to have to say 
I would be happy to talk to you about that when I have the 
right people in the room. I am not a health care expert, so I 
wouldn't want to misspeak on that issue.
    Senator Klobuchar. Does anyone want to add to that as we 
look at costs?
    Okay. It is just I think as we look at this deficit issue, 
it is just one of the driving forces. So keep it in mind as you 
keep working on these issues. I really appreciate your work.
    Thank you.
    Chairman Heinrich. Senator Welch.
    Senator Welch. Thank you very much.
    You know, we are talking about the demographic challenges, 
and it is interesting. I just want to start with you, Dr. 
Edwards, about the factors that you attribute the reduction in 
fertility. It sounds like it is voluntary. People are making 
decisions they just don't want to have kids.
    Can you just go through some of the factors that you have 
concluded weigh into that?
    Dr. Edwards. Absolutely. So surveys of young women about 
their fertility intentions have not changed much over the 
years, both in terms of the ideal family size and their 
intention to have children. A lot of what is driving the lack 
or the decline in fertility is unmet fertility intentions. 
People not having the kids they want.
    For, you know, millennials, including elder millennials 
like myself, part of it was a delay. The fertility that we are 
currently seeing as a decline can still be regained because 
fertility is falling for women under 30 but rising for women 
over 30, which is why something like infertility coverage as 
part of health insurance would be helpful in this notion to 
drive up fertility.
    But the reason why, I mean, in surveys parents say it is 
expensive. Every part of having a kid is expensive. Childcare 
is expensive. They don't have paid leave. It costs $2,600 to 
deliver a kid out-of-pocket if you have a vaginal delivery. If 
you have a C-section, it could be 32. That is a lot of money 
for bringing--that is taxing, a kid being brought into the 
world. That is the opposite of what you want to do if you want 
children.
    Senator Welch. So in France, where they have a stable 
fertility rate and above replacement rate, they have paid 
family leave. They have--you don't pay for your health care, so 
you don't have that expense. You have childcare.
    Dr. Edwards. It is not that everything is free there, but 
they do have support around young children. That is certain 
hallmarks that we lack in the United States. But there is also 
room for just kind of basic economic malaise to hit people's 
childbearing intentions. You know, you don't own a home. You 
are not married yet. You don't earn as much as you wanted to.
    You know, the Great Recession hit millennials----
    Senator Welch. There are public policy issues there. I 
mean, a lot of folks here have been very strong proponents of 
having public policies that are pro family. And I think the way 
a lot of us define pro family is you can afford childcare. You 
can afford health care. You can have confidence that if 
somebody is sick, a child, a partner, you will be able to take 
some time off.
    And I guess the obvious question is: In your view, and the 
basis of your studies, would those types of policies likely 
influence the fertility rate?
    Dr. Edwards. Yes, because you can't make people have 
children, but you can make it easier for them to have children. 
I mean, you, being Congress, can make it easier for people to 
have children.
    Senator Welch. All right.
    And then the other question is on immigration. I mean, 
there are two parts to the immigration debate. One is the so-
called open borders and the conflict we have about that. That 
is separate from legal immigration where we literally are 
saying, hey, we want more folks to come in.
    And I gather, Dr. Harris, you think that is a big deal if 
we had more legal pathways and could have more immigrants 
coming in.
    Dr. Harris. Yes. So one of the benefits of legal 
immigration is we can tailor the system to exactly the needs of 
our workforce. We have that benefit in the United States of 
America. I have heard economists refer to immigration as the 
economic super food, which I think is an appropriate adjective 
for what we could do with immigration.
    Senator Welch. All right.
    And then, you know, the other thing that Senator Klobuchar 
was talking about were some of these costs. It is unbelievable 
how much health care costs in this country, and it doesn't 
matter whether you are on Medicaid, Medicare, private employer-
sponsored health care, or you are paying yourself. We pay the 
most and get the least.
    And the same is true for cable and internet. I mean, there 
are a lot of expenses in this country that everyday families 
have to bear that are brutally expensive.
    So I will ask maybe Dr. Scott and then Dr. Topoleski. How 
much--where we have policies that try to essentially promote--I 
hate to say it--competition that would result in lowering cost 
for family, would that have an impact potentially on people's 
sense of confidence that they can have that other child that 
they would love to have in their life?
    Dr. Scott. I mean, I would hesitate to give an answer just 
because we haven't really studied about the--which I think is a 
really interested issue, how the cost of some of these services 
and goods might affect fertility decisions. But certainly, you 
know, we could certainly see that happening, those scenarios 
where, you know, lowering certain costs could have an effect on 
certain decisions.
    But that is something that is a little bit beyond my 
expertise, I think.
    Senator Welch. Dr. Topoleski.
    Dr. Topoleski. My answer is going to be quite similar in 
that we haven't studied particular policies and the effect they 
would have on fertility, but it is something that we are 
keeping an eye on because it is very important to our 
projections of the population.
    Senator Welch. All right. Thank you very much.
    I yield back.
    Chairman Heinrich. Representative Porter.
    Representative Porter. The title of today's hearing is 
``Aging Americans and a Waning Workforce: Demographic Drivers 
of our Deficit.''
    Dr. Harris, this title pinpoints one specific group of 
Americans as drivers of our deficit. Who is that group?
    Dr. Harris. I'm sorry. You are asking who is the driver of 
the deficit?
    Representative Porter. The title of the hearing is ``Aging 
Americans and a Waning Workforce: Demographic Drivers of our 
Deficit.'' This title pinpoints one group of Americans as the 
drivers of our deficit. Which group?
    Dr. Harris. The title suggests older Americans are the 
drivers of the deficit.
    Representative Porter. Would you agree with that?
    Dr. Harris. No. In my written testimony, I think that the 
driver of the deficit is an imbalance between revenues and 
expenditures.
    Representative Porter. Okay. So I think what concerns me 
about this hearing title is it seems to suggest that the 
deficit all comes down to grandma, and that, in fact, as you 
just said, the national deficit is calculated deficit, is 
spending minus taxes.
    So if Republicans are trying to say today that seniors, 
that older Americans, aging Americans, grandma is the driver of 
our deficit, seniors must be--and deficit comes from spending 
less taxes--then seniors must have been responsible for making 
our Nation's spending and tax decisions.
    Is that right? Did seniors write our tax code?
    Dr. Harris. Not to my knowledge.
    Representative Porter. Did seniors write our government 
spending bills?
    Dr. Harris. No.
    Representative Porter. Who does those things, Dr. Harris?
    Dr. Harris. Congress.
    Representative Porter. Congress.
    For 88 years, Congress has promised seniors Social 
Security. For 58 years, Congress has promised seniors Medicare. 
And during that time, Congress, not our seniors, should have 
found ways to keep those promises without taking on too much 
debt.
    Dr. Harris, isn't it unfair to blame aging Americans as 
drivers of our deficit when it is really Congress' job to make 
these budgeting decisions?
    Dr. Harris. I would say it is unfair to blame any Americans 
for this deficit. I would blame effectively those who made the 
decisions.
    Representative Porter. Okay. So I am curious, given that 
Republicans are--you know, they are trying to kind of pin it on 
seniors with this hearing title. They are not taking 
responsibility onto Congress for these decisions. So I am 
wondering here what Republicans are trying to hide.
    Dr. Harris, under Republican control, when President Trump 
was President, Congress overhauled the tax code. Did the 
provisions of the Republican's tax package increase or, you 
know, add to or pay down our national debt?
    Dr. Harris. It undoubtedly added to our national debt.
    Representative Porter. Republican math here. It added to 
our national debt. Let me show everybody how much. Wait, hang 
on. It is a two-whiteboard situation. Can you read that number 
for everybody?
    Dr. Harris. That is 1.8 trillion.
    Representative Porter. 1.8 trillion. Couldn't even fit it 
all on one whiteboard.
    So this is how much they added to the deficit even as--the 
premise of this hearing is that the deficit is a real problem 
and that Republicans believe it is a real problem. So if they 
didn't solve our deficits through the tax code, through that 
tax piece, they surely took action to fully pay for Social 
Security and Medicare so that we don't drive up the deficit 
that way.
    Dr. Harris, do you know how many Republicans cosponsor the 
Social Security 2100 Act, which would make Social Security 
solvent for years to come?
    Dr. Harris. I don't know. I am guessing zero.
    Representative Porter. Zero. It is a really small number. I 
don't even need a whiteboard. I can do this one with my hand.
    So Republican math, in terms of the budget, which is made 
by Congress, not made by seniors, by older Americans, means 
increasing our deficit by $1.8 trillion and doing zero to 
reduce the effect of the debt by Social Security and Medicare 
and adjusting those policies to be able to be better funded.
    So I don't think we should buy into this hearing's premise. 
The demographic changes in our country are really interesting.
    As a single mom, I absolutely hear Dr. Edwards on the cost 
of raising a child. I think the points you make about 
immigration are all lovely, but I don't think we should lose 
sight of the fact that we, as Congress, have a responsibility 
to solve this problem by enacting policies that would make 
Social Security solvent.
    And the reality is here. We have zero Republicans 
cosponsoring that bill. Republican math is why our debt keeps 
building, and I don't think we should scapegoat our seniors 
about that fact.
    I yield back.
    Vice Chairman Schweikert [presiding]. Thank you, Ms. 
Porter.
    And not having a whiteboard, that is what Democrat policies 
added in 30 months. So we can both play the whiteboard, and it 
turns out the math will always win.
    Mr. Trone.
    Representative Trone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and staff for 
gathering us here today to look at these demographic trends.
    As our Nation faces an aging population lower labor force 
participation, rising mortality, and declining fertility, the 
responsibility to act really falls on us. We have got to figure 
this out.
    So we have to recognize the complexity of these trends and 
pass legislation. It is going to be things that we do here in 
this group to help deal with the magnitude of this issue.
    And the Census Bureau survey found that 5 million people 
miss work every week. Five million every week simply because 
they can't get care for their children. No daycare.
    If we invest in adequate health care, mental health 
services, substance use disorder, recovery programs, subsidized 
childcare even, heaven forbid, and early childhood education, 
we can shift those trends in a better direction and get more 
labor participation.
    So my first question for Dr. Edwards: In your testimony, 
you highlight the reasons why these individuals leave the 
workforce. One of the reasons was having a child and the rising 
cost of childcare.
    I am strong proponent of the child tax credit, universal 
pre-K, affordable childcare. Talk about these policies and 
others you would support that would help us in the labor market 
for working-age women to fully participate.
    Dr. Edwards. Thank you so much for the question.
    I mean, I think anyone who has ever met a toddler could 
tell you why it is so hard to work and have children. Part of 
that is having a safe and affordable place to put your kid.
    Right now we know that the highest quality early childhood 
is really serviced in a U, where the very richest households 
are able to get high quality care, and then a select share of 
the poorest households that qualify for our limited childcare 
assistance. And who falls in the middle is the middle class 
that basically their primary strategy is just being resourceful 
and finding something to make do.
    We have the opportunity to really put the thumb on the 
scale in terms of the type of early childhood investments we 
make, but I think it shouldn't be lost that, you know, part of 
this is making it easier for women to work, but the other part 
is making the workplace easier.
    Countries that have had very high success with high women's 
labor force participation have the right to request part-time 
work. They have the right to request flexible and remote work 
arrangements, something that would also benefit people who are 
experiencing kind of acute or temporary health or even 
disability in their life.
    I mean, we do want to make the workforce healthier, but we 
also want to make work more amenable for people who can't be 
healthy, and that is a two-way street that starts not just with 
what we invest but with kind of the rules of the game we set 
out for American workers.
    Representative Trone. Foreign-born people account for more 
than 18 percent of the labor force, yet they are half of the 
growth of the labor force. Pretty dramatic difference there.
    Before the pandemic, in your testimony, Dr. Harris, you 
focus on the benefits of immigration. I am a huge immigration 
proponent. The beautiful diversity gives us diversity of ideas. 
They give us better solutions time and time again. The creation 
of jobs.
    So talk a minute about, elaborate, how this increase in 
immigration can really impact our labor force and drive the 
deficit down.
    Dr. Harris. So immigration has a wide array of economic 
benefits. One I think, as you alluded to, was innovation. We 
see the number of patents per capita rise substantially and 
significantly when we let more legal immigrants come to the 
country. In terms of the finance outlook for Social Security 
and Medicare, that improves. We have younger workers coming 
into the economy, and actually prices go down. And we have been 
dealing with inflation as a country for the past 3 or 4 years, 
and so if we are--you know, if this is an anti-inflation 
program, immigration can help solve some of these problems as 
well.
    Representative Trone. Does anybody on the panel quickly 
have a sense of how many immigrants we have let in each of the 
last 5 years, lawful immigration?
    Dr. Harris. I don't have that number. I will say that we 
are short about 1.7 million immigrants relative to the pre-
pandemic--actually, honestly, it is relative to the pre-2017 
trend. So we are down almost 2 million workers we would have 
expected if we had had this hearing 6 years ago.
    Representative Trone. That is exactly a big number I had 
come up with also. It's huge, huge number of folks.
    What about the--if we change our immigration policies at 
all to begin to change and allow more folks in, as our 
population is going up to 330 million, what changes have we 
made in our policies to let more immigrants in legally each 
year?
    Dr. Harris. We have not had comprehensive immigration 
reform. In 2013, we had S. 744 pass the Senate I believe with 
69 votes, so there was obviously high consensus in the Senate. 
But we haven't had comprehensive immigration reform in quite 
some time.
    Representative Trone. Would you say it is past due time to 
figure out how to get more folks here, drive the economy, cut 
down the deficit, and reduce inflation?
    Dr. Harris. Yes, I would.
    Representative Trone. Thank you.
    I yield back.
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. Thank you, Mr. Trone.
    Actually, you are hitting actually one of my favorite 
subject areas. Forgive me, but I am going to actually--because 
there is a couple of things I would like to chase down.
    I actually want to follow up on Mr. Trone's. And I will 
start with Dr. Harris because this seems to be one of your 
areas of interest. Let's say you and I were about to do 
immigration reform, as we are trying to do as much population 
stability, because I am going to ask the other parts of the 
panel about the 75 and older. So I am trying to--but doesn't--
for productivity, for velocity, for tax receipts, doesn't it 
have to be mostly a talent-based sort of model? Because there 
is a brilliant article that was in the Economist magazine a 
little while back that basically said the seventies, eighties, 
we all went at each other for hydrocarbons. Last decade was 
rare earths. With the next couple of decades, it is smart 
people. How far off am I?
    Dr. Harris. I think it is an excellent question. I have had 
my thinking on this change a bit by research. And so, for 
example, there are economists at the Brookings Institution who 
have recently come out with research that has said it is not 
just the high-skilled workers that can drive higher 
productivity but some lower-skilled workers that have nodes to 
the rest of the economy.
    So, for example, truck drivers. Truck drivers aren't 
necessarily terribly high-skilled workers, but they are very 
important to the productivity and the economy.
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. And, Doctor, actually send me 
those articles, because we are actually trying to think of a 
mix of what is technology replacements--and that was actually 
one of the bases that originally was going to be this economy--
is how do we actually embrace the fact we are going to be an 
older society? Using technology to provide certain services? 
Are we heading towards a future where longer haul is an 
autonomous truck, you know, starting to find the mix? And then 
what do we have to supplement with higher talent populations?
    Dr. Topoleski, I know CBO had worked up some data and was 
it just 2 weeks ago we got an update from Census. Do you 
remember what those numbers were for 75 years and up, 
particularly over the next 10 years, 20 years? And has there 
been an estimate of the stressors that will cause on resources 
for Medicare?
    Dr. Topoleski. So I don't have the numbers of 75 and up at 
hand. We could certainly get those to you. We have that level 
of demographic detail, and that is available in the census 
projections as well. So we could send you a comparison of the 
two groups. But certainly an aging population, particularly as 
others on the panel have said, the oldest old, they are an 
expensive group.
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. Okay. Because there is a spot 
here where--and Dr. Edwards and Dr. Scott came closest, and I 
want to start getting some of my heads around, because also at 
the same time I am looking at data that says we may be going 
into our fifth year where life expectancy, particularly for 
males, actually is falling. And we have done some work--it is a 
little harder to vet, so I have to--where we used to believe it 
was drugs--drugs is way up there, but it was actually obesity. 
Maybe one of the greatest difficulties within that population 
as Ms. Edwards at one point talked about some of our horrible 
maternal, you know, expectancies. And if you actually dive deep 
into the numbers, it is obesity in some of the populations that 
are having some really difficulty. And it took a long time to 
find some of those datasets.
    Dr. Scott, that 75 and older, it is cost. At the same time, 
I am being told life expectancies, particularly for males, is 
falling. What am I not understanding?
    Dr. Scott. Well, I think it depends on--and I will admit 
you have to really get sort of granular with those life 
expectancies because life expectancies even for males at older 
ages is starting to grow, but it does differ by race and 
ethnicity, by income, so various groups. And, of course, we 
just got through a pandemic, and that has affected life 
expectancies.
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. And if we were trying to do the 
adjustment for removing the million--let's call it a million of 
our brothers and sisters who COVID-19 changed mortality 
statistics recently, but we also have been trying to take a 
look at, even in some of our quartiles and, to be brutally 
honest, morbid obesity and those things and what that is doing 
in bending over life expectancies.
    Am I looking at the right places? Am I fixating on the 
noise?
    Dr. Scott. I would be happy to follow up because I think I 
have seen some data that shows we do expect some increases in 
life expectancies amongst some of the older groups to catch up 
some of the differentials we see between men and women, between 
Hispanics and Whites, et cetera, et cetera. I would have to 
follow up. But, I mean, the fact that--I was just looking at 
the numbers we projected on the 75 and older, we are going to 
move from 29 million people 75 and older in 2020 to 45 million 
by the year 2040. That is a 107 percent increase.
    So I think in general we are seeing increases in life 
expectancy across the board. But I take your point, and I think 
it is an important one. That is not uniform across different 
groups in society. And so I would be happy to follow up on some 
of those differentials and life expectancy.
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. Okay. And, Ms. Edwards--and I am 
not being mean here because you have actually given some 
terrific stuff. But we did just sort of look up, World Bank 
actually has France's fertility at 1.8. So there is always some 
noise sometimes when we get data.
    But you had something you wanted to share?
    Dr. Edwards. Yes. In regards to maternal mortality, the 
spike over the last 3 years, you know, a near doubling of 
maternal mortality in the U.S. was not matched by a near 
doubling of obesity.
    There are long run drivers that can make a risk factor, 
but, you know, this spike that we have seen is an opportunity 
to identify the problems.
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. Yes.
    Dr. Edwards. And hospital quality is a key part of that, 
not how the hospital serves everybody else, but how hospitals 
serve mothers in particular. There is room for policy here, and 
it is not just a mom's health when she walks in the door to 
deliver.
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. Dr. Edwards, I care a lot about 
this one having just adopted another child who was born drug 
addicted, and so maybe it is--it is always a danger when you 
have Members of Congress that personalize things. Send me stuff 
because I really would like to crack the rhythm out there and 
find out if there is a policy set that actually we could make a 
difference on.
    To my fellow members of the committee, does any one else 
have something burning they wish to ask?
    Senator Welch. No thank you.
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. Okay.
    Representative Moore. I have something burning.
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. What?
    Representative Moore. I have something burning I would like 
to ask.
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. No. Ms. Moore.
    Representative Moore. I mean, whoever gets to ask a burning 
question.
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. I said burning, not Bernie.
    Representative Moore. Listen, I have heard a lot as a 
Member of Congress about, you know, balanced budgets and 
deficits and where we are at and deficit spending now.
    I just want maybe, Dr. Harris, for you to review maybe in 
the last 5 years--we have had surpluses five times in the last 
50 years. And, you know, I keep thinking that whenever we give 
these huge tax cuts, it seems like that is the time that we 
accumulate these big deficits. Even though there is a promise 
that we are going to see, you know, an increased spending--an 
increased GDP, we find ourselves in a deficit situation.
    It seems to me when Bill Clinton was in office--I recall 
that very vividly--there was a surplus that was left. Then we 
had Bush tax cuts. Then we had Obama who came in, you know, and 
there was a double-down on the Bush tax cuts with all the wars 
in between, and now under our previous President we had some 
more tax cuts.
    Can you give me just a, you know, view of tax cuts and the 
occurrence of those tax cuts with deficits?
    Dr. Harris. Sure. So in instances when we have had 
relatively strong fiscal positions, as you mentioned in the 
late nineties, it has either been driven by cuts in spending, 
increases in revenues, or strong economic growth like we saw 
with the dot-com boost. And so that is kind of the general, and 
there is really three variables that go into our fiscal 
outlook, and those are the three.
    In terms of the 2017 Tax Act, I consider it to be a thought 
experiment, and I consider be it to be a failed one. I have 
been an outspoken opponent of the 2017 Tax Act. It has 
reasonable intellectual foundations, and the notion was we are 
going to dramatically cut the tax rate on corporations in hopes 
you would see this inflow of investment, and that simply didn't 
happen.
    So I consider that to be a failed intellectual experiment, 
but one that cost $2 trillion.
    Representative Moore. And what about the Bush tax cuts, you 
know, and then doubling down on them during the Obama 
administration.
    Dr. Harris. Yes. So we had the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts which 
had a variety of different elements, but some of those elements 
I consider to score very poorly in terms of generating economic 
growth were, for example, the estate tax cut that was put in 
place in 2001 and then continued through in the 2017 Tax Act. 
And then also dramatically lower tax rates lower on capital I 
don't think necessarily had the economic boost that the 
proponents hoped.
    Representative Moore. Just wondering, you know, as we talk 
about deficit. Just wanted some perspective. Thank you for 
that.
    And thank you, Mr. Vice Chairman.
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. Thank you, Ms. Moore.
    Mr. Beyer.
    Representative Moore. Oh, you are back.
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. Yeah, we are all excited. We were 
stalling for him. We knew he would make it.
    Representative Beyer. Thank you for waiting.
    And thank you for the testimony. I didn't get to hear all 
of it, but I read all of it.
    I want to--and, by the way, David and Senator, thank you so 
much more doing this hearing. It is incredibly relevant, and 
you see it every day, everywhere in our lives. And thank you 
for all the statistics.
    I saw a fascinating statistic the other day about average 
family size and how in the last 30 years you had 18 percent of 
women who would never have a baby, and it is now up to 36, 37 
percent. I mean, just the whole notion of zero-children 
families, whereas the one-child family stayed roughly the same. 
But when you think about it in terms of the workforce, it gets 
pretty frightening.
    But I also--given this is the Joint Economic Committee, one 
of the things we worry about, of course, is the gap between the 
21 and 22 percent we are spending on the services that every 
American demands and the 15, 16 percent--we had the little 
surge after all of the economic impact payments and the like, 
but 15, 16 percent of the GDP in revenues.
    It would be really interesting, Dr. Harris, to talk about 
how much of this goes back to the tax cuts. If I was being 
partisan, I would say the Republican-led tax cuts, but the tax 
cuts that go back to early Bush, before the war, the two wars, 
the prescription drug plan, and then the TCJA. How much 
different could our fiscal revenue problem be if we didn't have 
all of these tax cuts?
    Dr. Harris. Let me say I appreciate you depoliticizing the 
Tax Code because I think that you are right to point out the 
Tax Code is so much more than just the 2017 Tax Act. I mean, 
most of the Tax Code is not that single Tax Act. These are 
decisions made by Congress going back decades, if not longer.
    Ultimately, it is just a math problem. When we look forward 
10 years, we have the structural deficit, which means that--
according to the Congressional Budget Office, we have an 
average deficit of about 3 percent of GDP. If you take out 
interest payments and if you take out the business cycle--so 
this is when CBO assumes we are back at full employment--we are 
just 3 percent off, which is just a math problem. We raise 3 
percent of GDP too little to not accumulate deficit. So I think 
that you are right to depoliticize it, though.
    Representative Beyer. We also look--I don't know very few 
Americans who think that they are overtaxed--or undertaxed, I 
should say; the one exception being the wealthiest among us 
where, as we know, the people sitting here are all taxed 30, 35 
percent. And yet the wealthiest--you know, the 50 million plus, 
I think the average is 8 percent of their income is taxed.
    Do you see ever the political appetite to go after where 
the money is in order to close that 3 percent gap?
    Dr. Harris. I don't necessarily see the political appetite. 
But I will say I am a little confused by why we have seen the 
political nature of the IRS funding. Because, in my view, it is 
not about just tax burdens. It is also about competitiveness. 
And so we look at small businesses or even large partnerships, 
who sometimes have very large tax gaps, who have just enormous 
tax liabilities they don't pay, I see this as a competitiveness 
issue.
    And if you came to me with a policy and said, Look, we want 
to go ahead and distribute trillions of dollars in the tax gap 
to various businesses based on their willingness to pay taxes, 
I would say you are crazy. But, in effect, that is what is 
happening, where we are not enforcing the Tax Code, it is 
costing taxpayers trillions of dollars every 10 years. And, 
ultimately, it is the competitiveness issue that puts those 
that are willing to pay their taxes at a disadvantage relative 
to those who are not.
    Representative Beyer. Thank you very much.
    Dr. Edwards, I know you do this great demographic work, but 
according to labor supply policy, you know, we talk about how 
the workers are getting older. We have been recommending that 
the Department of Labor look specifically at an older workers 
bureau just because, as we know, the older workers get older 
and older, age discrimination which is set to cost the economy 
$4 billion, and we don't really have any data on retirement 
readiness, on retirement income for a lot of those folks or 
just--my high school classmates tell me that I am the oldest--I 
am the last person in the class not to retire at the age of 73. 
And yet we know that we are going to need people as old as 
David and me that are young----
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. Hey, hey.
    Representative Beyer [continuing]. To be in the--well, you 
had a little kid--to be in the world force. How do we address 
older workers?
    Dr. Edwards. The nice thing about labor supply policy is 
that it is actually really hard to isolate. So if you were to 
pursue things like an accommodation policy, the right to work 
part time, you know, the right to request flexible arrangements 
that you wouldn't be able to prevent older workers from taking 
advantage of that.
    You know, most of us have this notion of retirement, 
especially young couples, that two people come to a decision 
today is the day I stop work, and they just stop. But that is 
not what retirement looks like in America today. Most people 
phase out of work. They move to part time if they can. They 
work a little bit when they want to. And a lot of people 
backtrack, where they stop work and they are, like, I am 
ungodly bored, I am going back, and they go back to work. And 
that--you know, recognizing that retirement is not a decision 
but a process certainly by our labor market and our employers 
and our Social Security system would help us carve basically 
the most efficient policy to let people work how long they 
wanted to work and not put barriers in place in front of them.
    Representative Beyer. For example, at the State Department, 
you are out at age 65, despite the fact that is an age when 
most people are coming into their full diplomatic skills. My 
grandmother was thrown out of USAID at age 82 kicking and 
screaming, but they had already given her a pass again and 
again.
    What can we do to encourage people to stay in the labor 
market longer to stay actively working, besides making it so 
they can't afford to retire?
    Dr. Edwards. You know, I think you have to meet people 
where they are. There are lots of instances in people's lives 
where work just doesn't come first because they have a toddler, 
because their wife is dying. And we can't meet that need for 
flexibility with rigidity. Most industrialized economies have 
the right to request part-time work.
    Right now in the United States if you want to work part 
time, you are working a low-wage retail job and a shift that is 
not regulated that does not pay much more than the minimum 
wage.
    We have to extend the options for people, not just the 
types of jobs we have, but the types of ways that people 
consume those jobs.
    Representative Beyer. Yeah. I was--Mr. Chairman, if I could 
ask one more question too or just a comment?
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. I couldn't stop you if I wanted.
    Representative Beyer. I had the pleasure of living in 
Switzerland for 4 years where the part-time people--it took us 
awhile to adjust to it--they were 30 percent or 50 percent or 
70 percent. And if somebody like Gwen had a 50 percent job, 
that meant that she got 50 percent of the normal income, 50 
percent of the benefits, 50 percent of the vacation pay. And it 
wasn't like here where if you are part time, you don't get 
anything. And it worked. And then people could actually take a 
30 percent job or a 60 percent job and really integrate it with 
the rest of their lives. And the whole economy had adjusted to 
that, and it was something we could learn from.
    With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. Thank you, Don.
    Jodey, welcome.
    Representative Arrington. Mr. Chairman, thank you for 
holding this hearing.
    You know, this topic is near and dear to my heart as budget 
chairman, but before that I was thinking what could possibly be 
more important, more destructive to our prosperity, our future, 
our economic strength, national security than national 
insolvency, undermining the currency, bankrupting the country? 
There are a lot of ways to say it. It is just nobody believes 
that I've talked to who's serious, on either side of the 
political spectrum and idealogical spectrum, that the current 
deficit spending and debt is sustainable. They don't--they 
can't tell you exactly when this thing really goes off the 
rails.
    But I think the vicious cycle of deficit spending increases 
and the interest that is projected to be a trillion dollars 
next year and exceed our expenditures for national defense 
should be alarming enough. But the vicious cycle is becoming a 
fiscal death spiral. And I am not--let my democratic colleagues 
put revenue on the table. I am not--that is not offensive to 
me. They want to solve the problem too. I think it is a 
spending problem. But if they will work with me by including 
revenue, I think that is fair. Because if I don't, then we will 
never have this conversation and we will never address it, and 
we will bankrupt the country, and then seniors won't have 
safety nets that they rely on, our soldiers and sailors won't 
have the tools to be safe and successful, and China more than 
likely or someone else becomes in this new world order the 
global super power, and that is all unacceptable to me.
    So while I have no interest in raising taxes and while 
every analysis on my end suggests it is the spending that is 
absolutely running away from us and it is the expansion of the 
Federal Government's role beyond what I believe was ever 
intended, and the fact that when you can deficit spend, that 
is, if you can borrow or tax the next generation and not 
actually take any money out of people's wallets today or cut 
someone's favorite program--I always use the farm bill because 
I am from ag country--because you don't have to do that and you 
can keep borrowing and you are the world currency, that is the 
recipe to end the republic as we know it, not from existential 
threats, but from our inability to.
    Now, let me get to the point. I know that is not--I am 
sorry.
    So I believe everyone is motivated here in their own way to 
address this.
    We need to protect, strengthen, and save certain programs. 
I would say Social Security and Medicare are critical to tens 
of millions of Americans and to the country as a public good. 
We should make them work better, more cost effective. We should 
make sure he we don't have, like, for example, on the Medicaid 
side $80 billion in fraud, waste, and abuse. So taxpayers ought 
to be protected. Program integrity ought to be at the highest 
standards.
    Here's my question. If your unfunded liability is $120 
trillion, according to CBO, 30 years out--and, yeah, it is 
probably--it is hard to keep up with it. It keeps climbing. If 
it is $120 trillion and 99 percent of that in the 30-year 
outlay on deficit spending, the cumulative debt, $120 trillion, 
is two programs, Medicare and Social Security. And those are 
important, and we need to make them sustainable. What's the 
solution? Nobody wants to talk about it.
    So I am going to just--I will ask you all. You are the 
experts. We are talking about a debt commission, having a 
bipartisan venue to dial down and depoliticize those issues so 
we can help make them work better and sustainable over the--for 
the next generation of seniors, not just for the ones today. 
What do we do? What do we do? Do we just bury our head in the 
sand? I had an event--a Budget Committee hearing on just that, 
not on Social Security, by the way, and its viability and 
sustainment, just on the debt commission. And I had some guy 
who may be in here today that just followed me with his camera 
all the way to the floor of the House saying, Tell the American 
people why you want to take away their Social Security.
    So do we just--we are just going to wait until the whole 
thing collapses? By the, way then you have got austerity. You 
have got everything you don't want from the tax side to the cut 
side. And, by the way, you don't get a choice. It is going to 
happen.
    So what do we do? I will start with Dr. Edwards and maybe 
go left, and then I'll be done.
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. We need you to be fairly 
succinct.
    Representative Arrington. Yeah, I know. Did I go way over? 
I am sorry. I came from another hearing and got worked up on 
that too.
    Dr. Edwards. So I--when people ask me what is driving 
Social Security's problems, this is going to sound a bit harsh, 
but it is in large part congressional neglect. This is a 
program that requires maintenance as our demographics change. 
It needs updates. It needs to be addressed. It has not been 
touched since before I was born. The problems of Social 
Security's 75-year actuarial shortfall emerged before I entered 
kindergarten, and they have been around and growing since. And 
every year that we wait to fix them is a year that they get 
more and more expensive, and the republic does seem 
apocalyptically doomed. But they don't have to be.
    What I would stress to you is whatever you need to do, you 
do it now. You need to address this now for the sake of 
Americans who don't want to wait until the night before the 
funding expires in 2033 to see what is going to happen because 
uncertainty on top of everything else is not fair to give 
Americans Social Security costs out, actuarial policies and 
exactly how much they can fix the problem. You go shopping. You 
pick what you can agree on, and, you know, we don't have to 
have this discussion every year.
    Representative Arrington. Maybe one more witness. That was 
great. I agree.
    Dr. Harris.
    Dr. Harris. I will say I can give you my preferred approach 
to Social Security, but I think, more importantly, I have been 
doing this for 25 years and working in policy. I have found the 
tone of this committee to be admirable, if not inspirational. 
You all are presenting a very collaborative front, which is 
what is required for any type of Social Security reform. Social 
Security cannot be fixed through reconciliation. It requires 60 
votes in the Senate.
    So I can give you my prescription, but I think, most 
importantly, it requires Members of Congress like this 
committee who are willing to work with each other.
    Representative Arrington. I want to compliment the chairman 
that I know best in Dave Schweikert who has spoken boldly. He 
has been a truth-teller on this, and I know there are other 
members that are too. But we have to have political courage at 
the end of the day, and we have got to care more about the 
country's future than our own political future. I am not saying 
I am always William Wallace of Brave Heart, but I certainly 
think we all have to muster as much of that as we can if we are 
going to save this country.
    God Bless America. Go West Texas. And I yield back.
    Vice Chairman Schweikert. Thank you, Mr. Arrington.
    And to Mr. Heinrich, thank you, once again, for your 
kindness. And I want to say thank you both to the Republican 
and Democratic staffs. We are sort of demonstrating--you know, 
we often see the world a little differently, but we are trying 
to build a rhythm of--our solutions may come a little 
different, but the problems are all the same.
    To each of our witnesses, thank you. I am sorry for the 
chaos. It is sort of the nature of the body and the nature of 
our timing.
    Please expect written questions being sent to you. If you 
would be kind enough within a couple of weeks to respond to 
those. And to members of the committees, if you have other 
extraneous materials you would like to make part of the record, 
please provide that within about the next 14 days.
    And with that, this hearing is over.
    [Whereupon, at 4:04 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
   
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