[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 45 (Thursday, March 9, 2023)]
[House]
[Pages H1241-H1246]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 INFLATION IS DEVASTATING TO AMERICANS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 9, 2023, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Schweikert) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, just getting ourselves set up. I was 
going to yield some time to a fellow Member for a moment, but I think 
that Member has disappeared.
  We are going to try something tonight. And for anyone watching and 
listening, if you don't like lots of geeky conversation and lots of 
math, this isn't your night to watch.
  We are going to try to walk through a handful of concepts. One is one 
we have been discussing with our economic team.
  Look, I am blessed to be on Ways and Means, but I also am the senior 
Republican for Joint Economic. I have a handful of Ph.D. economists, 
and we have been sort of trying to understand what the Federal Reserve 
is doing on inflation and why it is becoming so difficult to crush 
inflation in our society and in our economy.
  Then we are going to walk through some numbers so there is an 
absolute understanding of what has happened, particularly to the 
working middle class in this country, demonstrate how much poorer they 
are today than even a couple years ago in purchasing power and the 
reality of just how devastating inflation is to people, people that 
save, people that tend to have a retirement, actually people who are 
just trying to make a living and survive. We are going to show some 
charts just demonstrating how much poorer Americans are.
  Then we are going to do some walking through Democrat policy, 
particularly from the last couple of years, and sort of show the fact 
that their math is not lining up with what we are seeing and their math 
is not lining up with other economists. The reason for that is, at the 
same time, we are going to also talk about how much debt has been 
created in the last couple years, that what was demographics--we are 
getting older as a society--and actually what was just spending 
priorities of the left.
  Much of this we are running and gunning. We got the President's 
budget a couple hours ago. We are trying to assemble an understanding. 
But just a demonstration of here are the tax hikes, here are the 
spending priorities, and trying to also run ahead of the propaganda 
mills that often what our modern media is on: ``They are going to cut 
the deficit.'' No, they are not. They claim $3 billion. Well, there is 
like $3 trillion over the 10, but it is a time where there is going to 
be $20 trillion of borrowing. So, okay, that is if every tax hike goes 
in and it does not slow down the economy.
  So, first off, a concept. The Federal Reserve, when they are raising 
interest rates, when they are rolling off the book of bonds, all of the 
holdings they have, even mortgaged-backed paper, what are they doing? 
No, seriously, I need everyone to sort of think this through. What are 
they doing? They are basically pulling liquidity out of the economy by 
removing the cash. Because in the previous couple of years, pandemic, 
whatever excuse you want to give, this body pumped massive amounts of 
liquidity.
  Here are checks; we are not going to ask you to work; you don't have 
to participate in the economy. All that cash is sitting out there. Then 
you hit everything from supply chain issues to manufacturing issues to 
people saying: I get money, I don't have to participate in the economy, 
so I don't have to work.
  You get inflation. Remember our high school economics classes. What 
is inflation? Simplest definition: Too many dollars chasing too few 
goods and services.
  So why has the interest rate hikes and the pulling of liquidity out--
because, remember, the Federal Reserve is doing more than raising 
interest rates. They are letting their balance sheets roll off, and by 
rolling that off, that should also be stripping much liquidity--why 
isn't it working? There

[[Page H1242]]

are certain things we are seeing. Commodity prices seem to be coming 
down. Wage hikes are not keeping up, though, with current inflation, 
which is a really bad, bad thing.
  But if you look at every model we had from the second quarter of last 
year, third quarter, and fourth quarter of last year, we should be much 
further in the progress of knocking down inflation than we are.
  I know there was some dodgier economic news today. But yesterday, 
remember seeing the 2-year treasury bill going over 5 percent? Then it 
fell. But just the fact that it hit, I think, one of the all-time highs 
in modern times, unless you understand how much of the market thought 
inflation is staying with us longer.
  Our economists actually came back with a theory. So you have the 
Federal Reserve trying to pull liquidity out, but on the other side of 
this equation, you have fiscal policy. This Congress, when it was 
controlled by the left, our Democrat brothers and sisters put so much 
cash, so much money into the economy, as we start to walk through some 
of the things that were happening, the American Rescue Plan, the 
omnibus bills that actually raised spending. You add everything from 
even the CHIPS Act and all of these other things where you are pumping 
in money.

  So you understand the point I am trying to make is, if you cannot 
line up fiscal policy--and fiscal policy is what we do in Congress--
what happens when it is working contrary to monetary policy. Monetary 
policy is what the Federal Reserve does. And we are starting to 
actually see a really, really interesting--let's call it an academic 
debate, except it hurts people.
  You know, I am a Congress-idiot standing up here going: You 
understand this and that? But ultimately, these numbers hurt people, 
and I am going to show you how much poorer most Americans are today.
  So how many times have you heard any Member of Congress get behind 
these microphones and say: Maybe we should really think about our 
spending priorities, either stripping some of the spending that 
happened last year under Democratic control and saying, okay, maybe 
that is the program the left will fall on their sword for, maybe spread 
it out over more time so it is not working contrary to what the Federal 
Reserve is trying to do in knocking down inflation.
  It is an interesting thought, but it is worth thinking about, that 
the financial markets, the old days of inflation is always a monetary 
issue. Okay. I will make you the argument that the Federal Reserve, in 
the previous years when they were buying so much U.S. sovereign debt, 
they were like the uncle who keeps buying the alcoholic son bottles of 
scotch. They were enablers. They made it so we didn't have a penalty. 
Except now it is time for us to start going to our AA meetings, and we 
don't have a driver's license anymore; we are not getting there; it is 
not happening. And we are having a little trouble getting to the first 
step. What is the first step? You admit you have a problem.
  This one is important. Let me know--I am sure the AA references work, 
but that was top of mind.

                              {time}  1815

  How much has President Biden added to the deficit in these last 
couple of years? I want to be a little careful on this. There is this 
running argument here. The left will say: Your incentives to grow the 
economy, your tax reforms, this and that, that is all it was that added 
all of it. We will, in turn, say: Democrats, it is all of your 
spending.
  I am partially pointing this out in reference to: Why haven't we been 
able to knock down inflation more?
  It is this spending. When you start to realize that it is well over 
$5 trillion of additional spending that the Democrats created over the 
last couple of years--you may love it. It may be a thing in your 
priorities. Fine, but then understand how much poorer you are through 
inflation because this works contrary to trying to slow down inflation.
  It is the concept of fiscal policy crashes into monetary policy, and 
then you start to wonder why the high school math we were all taught 
and how this is supposed to work isn't working.
  Let's walk through what we have done to working men and women in this 
country. I represent the Scottsdale-Phoenix area. For most of the last 
2 years, my neighborhoods have had the highest inflation in America. 
When America is over here saying, ``We had 8 percent inflation, and it 
is devastating,'' I am having 13.1 percent. You are that hardworking 
person in my community, and you have had your teeth kicked in.
  This is important. I am heartbroken we don't talk about this more. 
Inflation has dramatically reduced workers' purchasing power. Let's go 
all the way to 10 years. You had a 2 percent, 2 percent, 1.8, then 2.3, 
and then you hit the last 2 years.
  Let's say that, in 2013, you are making $60,000 a year, and you 
haven't had a pay increase. You understand the baseline. You are making 
$60,000 in 2013 and have kept the same salary. That is 10 years. Dear 
Lord, I hope you have been paid more, but let's say you are not. That 
$60,000 today would only buy $46,000 worth of goods. You have gone from 
$60,000 of purchasing power in the 10 years to $46,000.
  In 2021, functionally, that single year, if you are being paid 
$60,000, by the end of the year, you have lost about $8,000 of 
purchasing power. That is the mean. In my State and my community, it 
was substantially more than this.
  Do you understand where that money went? I promise you this is going 
to be a little more geeky, if that is actually a word. Where does the 
money go? When we devalue your salary, when we devalue your currency, 
where does that money go? We take it from borrowers and those who--what 
is the easiest way to say this--we took your salary, your savings, and 
we devalued it and put it over here to those of us who borrow. Who is 
the biggest borrower? The United States Government. So, we are going to 
now pay back the debt with inflated dollars.
  It is not a magical, free option. You didn't suddenly say, ``Hey, we 
got $30 trillion in debt, and we are going to pay it with dollars now 
that are only worth 90 cents. Isn't this neat? We took 10 cents off of 
our debt.'' No, we didn't. What we did is we stripped it from you.
  We taxed you, and you didn't even know it. Do you understand because 
we stripped the value of your salary, the value of your savings, it was 
functionally transferred to the United States Treasury and devaluing 
the debt when we pay it back?
  How many Americans understand that the last 2 years, I think, 
statistically, may be the largest tax hikes in modern history? We made 
you poor. There is even some crazy math out there, if you take a look, 
that will show you debt to GDP, at least for like a month, flattens a 
bit because the economy continues to grow nominally over inflation or 
at inflation, and that debt, we are going to pay it back with the 
inflated dollars. Hey, doesn't this look great? Except the very next 
day, you need to float the next refinance of your bonds on the new 
debt. It is at the higher interest rates, and boom. The little pretend 
value you got is stripped away from you. You may be paying back the 
U.S. sovereign debt with inflated dollars, but now you are paying a 
hell of a lot more interest.
  That is why I started with the comment, did you watch the debt 
markets this last week? They are all over the place. We refer to that 
as fragility. We are carrying so much debt, and it is about to get 
dramatically worse.
  How many times have I been behind this microphone walking through 
showing you and showing you and showing you that, in 10 years, the 
wheels come off?
  The danger that I was terrified of over the last couple of days of 
what happens if the debt interest rate cycle--that 2-year yesterday 
being over 5 percent--what if that lasted for a year, 2 years, 3 years? 
All the CBO projections we are working on are wrong.
  I hope today's retrenchment in the numbers is a good thing, but it 
also may be a thing because we are hurting people. This is the next 
part of this moral argument. We have made you poorer.
  Do you understand what the Federal Reserve may have to do to you? 
They may have to take a substantial portion of this society and put you 
out of work. They may have to put you out of work.
  Part of it is because Congress kept spending, making it even harder 
for the

[[Page H1243]]

Federal Reserve to bend the inflation curve. Yes, I understand there 
are supply issues and demand issues. They pumped in too much liquidity. 
The Democrats did all this spending. It got ahead of us. Policies here 
are really hurting people.
  Let's take a little bit more of a look at how this math works. I am 
going to do it again. Your 2021 salary--so in a single year--you are 
making $60,000, and its purchasing power is $52,000. If you live in my 
district, it is probably about $47,000. How much did your salary go up? 
If you live in my community in Arizona, if you didn't get about a 13 
percent pay hike in the previous year, you are poorer today.
  If you look at it from 2013 to today, once again, your purchasing 
power when you used to have $60,000--let's say you were a saver, you 
had $60,000 saved. You do realize today, and this is, functionally, the 
very beginning of the year, you basically only have $46,000 in the 
bank. You may think you have $60,000, but the purchasing power has been 
lost so much.
  Let's walk through one of the things I believe is another fraud that 
is being committed on the American people. That is when our brothers 
and sisters on the left did all of their legislation last year to 
functionally subsidize--as I almost prefer to say, they soft-
nationalized so much of the economy.
  They did all sorts of projections on what certain things were going 
to cost. I am going to use a couple of things these. There was 
functionally a tax credit for battery production. The CBO, the 
Congressional Budget Office, put out this score and said it is only 
going to be about $30 billion--only.
  We have outside economists looking at it, reading the statute, saying 
that it doesn't actually say $30 billion. What it says is anyone doing 
this, you get these tax credits. Then, they looked at how many people 
were doing that. We are seeing articles coming in now that it may be as 
high as $195 billion.
  This is one of the great scams around here. They put together a piece 
of legislation saying that you are going to get the tax credit but then 
don't put a cap on it, so it just keeps going because, let's be honest, 
who writes checks to the Democrats?
  As we are dealing with budget issues, will our brothers and sisters 
on the left at least work with us? You promised America that this 
particular battery tax credit would not exceed $30.6 billion, so will 
you lock in a cap?
  Remember the fragility concept when lots of other--the statute didn't 
cap the money, so it looks like it is going to cost dramatically more. 
Will you work with us, and will you cap it? Do you think that is going 
to happen around here?
  Let's take a look at some more of this, the cost estimates on wind 
production. You may love wind. Once again, the Congressional Budget 
Office and the piece of legislation that Democrats did last year show 
an expansion of tax credits on wind. They promised us that it would 
come in at $11.2 billion. The outside economists are looking at the 
legislation once again and saying there is a math problem, that they 
didn't actually cap it, and it may come in as high as $68.4 billion.
  Is that a fraud on the American people? Of course, it is, but that is 
the way the scam here works. Produce a piece of legislation and tell 
everyone it is only going to cost this much.
  The point I am going at is that the Inflation Reduction Act, which is 
an Orwellian name for a piece of legislation that spent money and 
actually helped set off inflation, you start to understand why so many 
of the big spenders, the people that get these, were just giddy. They 
actually read the language.
  My challenge to our friends on the left--okay, this was your promise, 
$11.2 billion. Will you cap it at that? The modeling now is coming in, 
and it may be as high as $68 billion. This is why we end up in so much 
trouble here.
  I am not going to try to read all of these to you. If any of you have 
insomnia, please, go grab the President's budget.
  Do you remember that Nancy Pelosi used to stand behind that 
microphone over there and say budgets are your ethics, your priorities? 
We are going to look at a lot of the left's priorities here.
  This is just one of a couple of boards of tax hikes, tax hike after 
tax hike after tax hike. I cannot wait until we try to figure out some 
way to model these tax hike boards and try to understand the level that 
this actually slows down the economy.
  You are going to see some boards here where I am going to make the 
argument that the duplicity we are seeing in the President's budget 
just blows off the page with the amount of GDP, the size of our 
economy, that is going to go to taxes, and then to pretend it is still 
going to grow.
  No, that would be cruel and unusual punishment to read through these. 
Understand, this is just one board, two boards. These are all the 
proposed tax hikes that are in the President's budget.

                              {time}  1830

  And then they are going to tell you this nice thing saying: We are 
raising taxes enough to reduce the deficit over the next decade by $3 
trillion.
  They forget to mention we are borrowing 20.
  So I put a little board together saying: If every single one of their 
tax hikes come in, and every single one of them produces the revenue 
that they scored it at--and these actually haven't been calculated. 
They are just baseline scores. There is no actual analytics behind it--
and if it doesn't actually slow down the economy and doesn't actually 
now create incentives for people to put their resources in other places 
other than these areas that have all had the tax hikes, then it might 
produce $3 trillion over the 10 years.
  Okay, great.
  We are heading toward a projected accumulated deficit from the 2024 
budget to the 2033, so functionally 9 budget years of $20 trillion.
  Mr. Speaker, if you have someone on the left running around here 
saying: ``We are doing something for deficit reduction,'' something 
where you basically go from: Hey, we were going to hit 118 percent of 
debt to GDP in 2033, then they might bring it in if they got all their 
taxes and all the revenues came in and they don't slow down the 
economy, then they might get 110 percent.
  So let's walk through what is being proposed here.
  Remember, we are just starting. We are digging through this as fast 
as we can, and we are trying to, once again, understand their 
priorities.
  So just some of the basic taxes, over the next 10 years, in the 
budget process, an average level of taxation has been about 19.7 
percent which is actually higher, I think, than the historic average. 
But you basically look at higher than any 10 years--let me rephrase 
that: The 19.7 percent of GDP going into taxes, that is functionally 
the baseline math of the President's budget.
  Mr. Speaker, you do realize that functionally it is higher than any 
time in modern history. I have been here before over and over and shown 
the charts that are saying: Here are really high marginal tax rates.
  We get about 18 percent of GDP in taxes.
  Here are really low marginal tax rates.
  We get about 18 percent of GDP.
  I am just wondering what magic wand the left is waving that is all of 
a sudden we are now going to start getting close to 20 percent of the 
economy in taxes.
  Maybe they come up with some magical way to do it.
  The problem here: This is the President's own budget. So you just saw 
19.7 percent of the economy coming in in taxes. The new spending is at 
24.8 percent of the economy. And then we are going to have people 
running around here, particularly on the left, saying: Look what we did 
for deficit reduction.
  Huh?
  Trust me, there are no saints here. The hardest thing I say over and 
over and over--and I probably get more hate from this, but it is 
absolutely mathematically true--from today through the next 30 years, 
100 percent of future U.S. sovereign debt--100 percent of future 
sovereign debt--is demographics. Baby boomers. We got old.
  If you are someone who is screaming at the television or whenever you 
watch things like this, Mr. Speaker--which if you are watching things 
like this then I worry about you--``it is foreign aid,'' we have shown 
over and over

[[Page H1244]]

and over and over the calculations that foreign aid last year would 
only be like 12 days of borrowing. At the end of the decade, it is only 
like 6, 7 days of borrowing.
  Congressional salaries. It was 28 minutes of borrowing for a whole 
year, and in 10 years from now it is like 19 minutes of borrowing.
  The fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, you have got to stop 
pretending. The scale of the debt, once again--and I did this last week 
and the week before, the Congressional Budget Office's model said that 
in 9 budget years, you are can to wipe out the entire defense of the 
United States, which is our constitutional obligation.
  You can wipe out all of Congress. You can wipe out the White House, 
and you can wipe out the Supreme Court. You can wipe out every dime of 
spending. There is no FBI, there is no Park Service, there is nothing, 
no discretionary dollars at all, and you still have to borrow a couple 
hundred billion dollars just to maintain the baseline services of 
Social Security and Medicare.
  And the very next year--the punch line here is that the very next 
year it gets much uglier because that is also the year the trust funds 
are empty. The Medicare part A trust fund is gone. That is also one of 
the other frauds we are seeing in the President's budget: We are going 
to shore up Medicare.
  You do understand the Medicare trust fund is only the part A. Three-
quarters of the other spending of Medicare is already coming out of the 
general fund.
  So, once again, that previous sentence--you have to let that one sink 
in--you can get rid of all discretionary spending. No more of this crap 
of: Let's just get rid of foreign aid or waste and fraud. It is all 
gone. You just get rid of all of it, and in 9 years--9 budget years--
you have to borrow a couple of hundred billion dollars. And that is 
being optimistic that there is no recession, that all the revenues come 
in in projection, there is no war, there is no other pandemic, and 
everything is fine.
  Mr. Speaker, do you understand how fragile--and then the Democrat 
spending is approaching 25 percent of the economy.
  Deficits. Now, this is with all the tax hikes and assuming that every 
dime comes in and that this place is willing to vote for every one of 
Biden's tax hikes, you are still borrowing an average of $1.5 trillion 
a year, and at that 9th budget year I think it is like still like $2.3 
trillion that year because it keeps going up.
  Interest payments. This is right out of the President's budget. We 
are going to basically average over the next 10 years the interest 
payments on the debt will reach $1.3 trillion a year--just the 
interest--so you have the interest on the borrowing.
  So if we are estimating 2033, so 9 budget years from now, if under 
the President's budget--forgive me, I am doing this from memory--it is 
like $2.3 trillion borrowed, 1.3 of that is just interest, the other 
trillion functionally is the growth in Medicare.
  Remember, Mr. Speaker, the very next year the Social Security trust 
fund is gone, our brothers and sisters are taking about a 23 to 24 
percent cut in their check, and you have just doubled senior poverty.
  That is one of things that also outrages me is: Where is the 
conversation of we are going to save Social Security? We are going to 
work on it together?
  Instead of using it for the next campaign piece that the left is 
putting together.
  You are going to see also, Mr. Speaker, the left running around here 
saying: We are going to raise taxes on wealthy people to save Medicare.
  No, they are not.
  What they are going to do is actually start to add another 5 points 
on capital gains, the 3.8 percent special premium that they basically 
stole and put into the general fund that was originally supposed to go 
to Medicare.
  Okay, let's say they now finally stop stealing it and put it all 
toward the Medicare trust fund part A and now it goes up to 5 points--
that is only one-quarter of Medicare spending.
  The model basically says that according to the President's budget, we 
are going to go from about $661 billion of interest borrowing to a 
baseline of $1.3 trillion in 9 budget years.
  And now we start getting into the way we try to actually model much 
of this debt. There are ways. There is hope. The markets around the 
world that like to buy U.S. debt: your pension plan, your own personal 
savings, your union pension plan, and the State pension plan.
  When I was Maricopa County treasurer, we bought it because it was 
safe and very liquid. We would buy UST bills, U.S. Treasuries.
  One of the key things you always look at is what is the debt of a 
country to the size of its economy?
  So if my Democratic colleagues are running around here saying: If we 
get all of these taxes, then we are going to lower the deficits.
  It is just not true. But just even believing the top line that is 
written in the President's budget before we have actually had a moment 
to really dive in and see what the economic analytics are and do they 
model for how much they are going to slow the economy down and what 
that does to revenues, are they still just pretending they are still 
getting the baseline growth, then we functionally go from 98.4 percent 
of the publicly held debt to the size of the economy to 9 budget years 
we go to 110 percent.
  We are basically right on top of the World War II peak. So we are 
basically going to line up with the highest debt to the size of the 
economy in our country's history.
  So here is the argument I want make. Other things you should do to 
maybe bring in more receipts and more revenues, okay, fine, walk us 
through this. I can find you some things in the Tax Code where I 
believe some people are cheating or are using it in ways that is not 
how we meant to draft it, fine, we will work with you.
  But walk me through all the things you are going to do to grow the 
economy and not try to control it and manage it because so much of the 
legislation, particularly last year, was almost a soft nationalization 
of much of the economy.
  You can't get this grant--and actually I should probably explain 
this--this grant unless you actually go kiss up to the White House and 
you actually do their bidding, their sort of woke agenda. Fine.
  Another bit of the con you need to understand, Mr. Speaker, is this 
administration has advocated for what they call a global minimum tax. 
Go around the industrialized world and say: Hey, we want this 15 
percent global minimum tax.
  If you are a country and if you give a refundable tax receipt because 
you did certain activities or tax credit, those things, that goes into 
the 15 percent calculation another country can tax you and tax your 
operations because this country did this.
  So, Mr. Speaker, do you actually understand why a bunch of the 
Democrats' spending last year they made it grants?
  They basically played our European allies for fools: Hey, sign up for 
this global 15 percent minimum, wink wink, nod nod. But grants don't 
count as subsidization for businesses, and the beauty of the grants 
actually make the bureaucracy and whoever holds the White House 
dramatically more powerful.
  It is a soft nationalization and a way to escape their own tax 
extortion.
  So if I came to you tomorrow, Mr. Speaker, and said that one of our 
most moral obligations is we have got to find a way to stabilize this 
national debt to the size of our economy, okay, then you have to do 
functionally two things. I have to bend the spending here, and I have 
to grow. We have to grow.

  Last week, when I was behind this microphone, I had my 8-month-old 
little boy with me. The Parliamentarian wouldn't let me hold him. It 
broke my heart, but the rules are the rules.
  What is our moral obligation to him?
  When he turns--actually it is 24 now. It is a whole year later. When 
he turns 24, if we were going to maintain baseline services, then we 
have to double U.S. taxes. It is demographics. We got old, and lots and 
lots of our population, what is it, 67 million of our brothers and 
sisters--I am one of them--will have moved into their earned benefit 
years.
  Okay. So you need a revolution in the cost of healthcare. I have 
already been behind this microphone repeatedly talking about the fact 
that we are on the cusp of not only curing but also

[[Page H1245]]

stabilizing diabetes--diabetes being 33 percent of all healthcare 
spending--but lots of other great things are happening.
  Go look at last week's speech if you are curious, Mr. Speaker. I 
spent the last half of it walking through things that are actually 
hopeful and optimistic.
  I don't particularly like this pillars of growth board because it is 
missing a number of things. But we are going to have to deal with the 
reality of our population.
  In 19 years, the United States has more deaths than births.
  Do you remember your high school economics class?
  How do you grow an economy when your population is flatlining or is 
sinking?
  You can do it through high-scale immigration. You could also do it 
through automation.
  Should we incentivize robots just like they are doing in China and 
other places we compete with?

                              {time}  1845

  You have got to have a tax code that is all about growth. How do you 
say expensing?
  Remember, when we had the 100 percent expensing that we did in the 
2017 tax reform, the economists said that may have been the number one 
thing that helped us grow the economy, and you don't lose revenues from 
it. You actually gain revenues. It is a timing effect.
  If I say, hey, you get to do expensing but you have got to do it over 
7 years, or you can do it all today, it is still the same deduction. It 
is about the time. Because you let them do it today, it puts you in a 
cycle where, hey, I am going to buy the next piece of efficiency on the 
equipment sooner.
  The model said, if you look at a longer horizon, you actually get 
more revenues by making it so you can have 100 percent expensing today 
because it forces you into a cycle where you are constantly trying to 
get to the next level of productivity with your capital investments.
  Ideas like that in the tax code are elegant because it raises wages. 
It grows the economy. Remember, we are trying to actually stabilize our 
debt to GDP.
  The last one--and I probably should come back in the next couple 
weeks and demonstrate--I believe we could have a revolution in 
regulation. I am going to try to visualize this one, so everyone work 
with me. If you get bored, I think I have a YouTube video from years 
ago I put together, a little cartoon that basically says--I think it is 
under Schweikert environmental crowdsourcing.
  It is a simple concept. Say you want to open a motorcycle paint shop 
or a bakery or whatever it is, and you need your air quality permit. 
Let's do it this way.
  Air quality permit: You fill out lots of paperwork, you hire a 
consultant, you design your scrubbers, and then you walk into your 
county air quality office and you file paperwork.
  Does a file cabinet full of paperwork make the air quality in your 
community better? Huh?
  No. It is basically documentation so the trial lawyer can sue you.
  How about if you and your community had a little sensor, had a few 
thousand people driving around your community--I am from a huge 
county--with a sensor, and if there are idiots over here painting 
motorcycles in the back of their yard and not doing it in a booth, 
okay, fine, you catch them immediately.
  You crowdsource the data. You don't need an army of bureaucrats 
watching the file cabinets and then hiring armies of consultants.
  You can crowdsource. You basically put the sensors on, give it to the 
Uber drivers, give it to the UPS drivers, and say, hey, we really care 
more about where we have a problem--and if there is a problem, we will 
go and fix it--than punishing everyone in our marketplace.
  The people who are following the rules, the elegance of this, they 
get left alone. You don't have to deal with government. You get left 
alone. If you screw up, you get caught. That is the use of technology. 
That is just one very simple idea, but there are dozens and dozens like 
that so you could drop the size of the bureaucracy.
  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the tolerance. May I request how much time 
I have remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman has 19 minutes remaining.
  Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  For everyone who has been willing to give me part of their time, I am 
just trying to make a couple simple points. We have a fiscal 
responsibility and blame for inflation.
  We could do policies on pieces of legislation that say we are going 
to actually help. How about a piece of legislation--actually, guess 
what, I already have this one--that basically says: How do I pull 
liquidity out of the marketplace without hurting people?
  How about actually give every American a SPIF for taking some cash 
out of their checking account?
  Instead of running out and buying a new color television--even though 
the televisions are beautiful--put it in their retirement account. You 
actually slow down consumption over here, you shore up their retirement 
security, and it is almost the exact same thing the Federal Reserve is 
doing.
  There are things we can do policy wise that would help knock down 
inflation. We have a handful of bills like that.
  The other thing is the reality of we have been lied to on the scoring 
of the Democrats' spending from last year, and we are starting to see 
it now.
  The third thing I want to point out are the dozens and dozens and 
dozens and dozens and dozens of tax hikes, and then the White House is 
pretending it is not going to change the economic velocity, they are 
going to get all these revenues, and they are still going to spend like 
crazy.
  Within their morality of are they going to step up and help us save 
Social Security, the morality of it, are they going to actually help us 
grow the economy?
  It is unacceptable that their big accomplishment will still be over 
110 percent debt to GDP in 9 years. It is unacceptable.
  Mr. CLOUD. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SCHWEIKERT. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.


               Honoring the Life of Commander John Davis

  Mr. CLOUD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona for his 
efforts to always pull the curtain back on the games and gimmicks that 
Washington plays sometimes and to bring creative ideas to the table on 
how to fix things. I appreciate it, and I thank him for yielding to me.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life of Goliad County Sheriff 
Deputy and Operation Lone Star Task Force Commander John Davis, who 
passed away this Monday.
  A man of faith, integrity, and relentless dedication, John served the 
great State of Texas for 40 years during his law enforcement career. 
His career stretched over a variety of roles in local, State, and 
Federal agencies, and because of this, John became known as one of 
Texas' most distinguished law enforcement officers.

  Commander Davis helped lead the effort to locate and arrest the Texas 
Seven escapees back in 2000. In 2022, due to his long track record of 
success, John was selected to command the newly formed Operation Lone 
Star Task Force. Most recently, Commander Davis oversaw a successful 
multiagency operation in Wharton and Jackson counties to combat human 
and drug trafficking cartels and their criminal invasion into Texas.
  Throughout his life, Commander Davis gave his all and gave all he had 
to protect our families and our communities and to make our State a 
safer place to live.
  While we mourn his passing, we know that he lived a life well lived 
and that he has gone on to his reward. May his service be an example 
for all of us in years to come and may God bless and his peace be with 
his family.


                        Remembering Claud Jacobs

  Mr. CLOUD. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life of a true hero 
of the Crossroads, Mr. Claud Jacobs.
  A native of Yoakum and Victoria, Texas, Claud lived a life of 
extraordinary service to his community. His life's motto, ``You always 
get back more than you give'' guided him through public service in the 
Governor's office and in starting multiple businesses that helped his 
neighbors.
  Claud's faith in our savior Jesus Christ led him to be a friend to 
all,

[[Page H1246]]

dedicating his time to training young people in his community.
  In 1968, his passion for at-risk youth led him to help found the 
Bluebonnet Youth Ranch and raise millions of dollars through charity 
events.
  For his extraordinary work, in 1986 Claud Jacobs was knighted as a 
Knight of Saint Gregory by Pope John Paul II.
  Claud was a friend to everyone in our community, it seems, and I know 
he was a friend of mine. We will miss his optimism, his warmth, and his 
can-do spirit.
  May God bless his family as we remember him and his legacy.
  Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________