[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 110 (Thursday, June 26, 2025)]
[House]
[Pages H2998-H3003]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
STOP BATHING IN FOLKLORE AND START BATHING IN MATH
(Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, Mr.
Schweikert of Arizona was recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of
the majority leader.)
Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, we are having a really exciting
discussion with my buddy of how CBO actually does scoring on things. I
was trying to explain that some of the things we consider absurd are
actually our fault because it is the law that we have passed to tell
CBO how to do the scoring.
Mr. Speaker, I want to make an apology to everyone because this one
will
[[Page H2999]]
go a little longer than normal. Yes, I know. Everyone can grab a cup of
coffee or something. Hopefully, the Sergeant at Arms--we are apparently
not allowed to drink coffee on the floor. Whatever happens, don't get
caught, right?
Mr. Speaker, I am going to try three things tonight. I will upset a
number of folks. I am sorry. My math will be accurate because we have
spent the last couple of days double-checking it.
I am going to try to do something a little insane. I am going to walk
folks through the Social Security actuary report. We are just going to
do some of the most basic parts of it so folks understand what the
reality is.
Number two, I am going to walk through actually something that really
bothers me because I have a number of politicians on the left and the
right who spend day and night making up math. Mr. Speaker, can you
believe that?
They attack the CBO. They attack the Joint Committee on Taxation,
this and that. I am going to walk us through parts of the accuracy and
what we call the variance report done by the Congressional Budget
Office and try to demonstrate--yes, there are mistakes. They are
actually more accurate than most of the outside groups.
That is uncomfortable because one of the other things I am going to
touch on--and this is tough--is we have aspirational documents coming
from the White House and from our own folks here on what growth can be.
We can actually do remarkable growth, but we have to do very difficult
policies to make it work.
Are we going to do talent-based immigration? Are we going to do
incentives to automate, to modernize, to use technology, or to even use
AI? My fear is we want to take credit for very high growth numbers, as
in GDP grows this, but we are not willing to do the hard lift with the
policy.
With that, I will explain why that is so important. The growth of
debt, the drivers of debt, is the thing it is hard to tell the truth
about.
I am going to show some charts in a little bit, Mr. Speaker, that
show over the next 10 years interest is the number one driver of debt
and then healthcare, Medicare, almost exclusively.
It is hard to explain that it is actually like 65-35 now. The some
$22 trillion dollars that are baseline and then stack everything else
on it that is going to be borrowed over the next 10 years, about 60 or
65 of that is just interest.
Whether we like it or not, the reality of it is this country, our
Federal Government, is an insurance company with an Army. We don't have
enough cash in the bank to pay for all the promises we made as part of
that insurance coverage.
Let's have at it, Mr. Speaker. I keep bringing this chart because it
is a really simple visual. Think of the people who almost attack us in
our hallways and say: How can you want to cut spending?
We show them this chart that says baseline spending. It is $86
trillion over the next 10 years. All we are talking about on the House
reconciliation budget--and my understanding is the Senate, our good
friends down the hallway, their cuts and spending are even more anemic.
{time} 1610
It is 2.3 percent. $86 trillion is the baseline spending for the next
10 years. We are trying in the House reconciliation budget to cut $2
trillion. That caused absolute panic because Washington, D.C., is about
one thing. It is about money. When so much of America makes its money
off D.C. policy, this has caused absolute panic, but it is a fraction.
Mr. Speaker, when you see the new data on what is happening in
healthcare costs--we have got some new data today that the numbers are
even worse. Almost no one has actually started to do the math--the fact
that the Social Security Medicare actuary report from 4 days ago
actually has an 11 percent cut coming in the Medicare trust fund in
2033. That is not actually in the baseline debt numbers.
Mr. Speaker, are we just going to pretend that we didn't get older as
a society?
Let's actually walk through.
Mr. Speaker, I have done this chart for a decade. About 74 percent of
all spending is on autopilot. It is what we call mandatory. It is
interest, it is Social Security, it is Medicaid, it is Medicare, and it
is other promises that are built into the formula. Members of Congress
almost never ever get the chance to vote on any of this red. The only
time it will ever really come up is if we have a reconciliation budget.
All the blue, defense and nondefense, is 25, 26 percent of our
spending. Every dime of it is borrowed. Please, anyone who cares, get
this in your head: Every dime--other than some of the things in the
reconciliation budget, every dime a Member of Congress will vote on,
many for their entire careers, is borrowed money.
Mr. Speaker, you see this 26 percent that is in blue, that is defense
and nondefense discretionary.
This year we are on track for every dollar we bring in in tax
receipts--that is corporate taxes, that is individual taxes, that is
everything--we are going to spend $1 in, $1.39 out the door.
Does anyone see a math problem?
Mr. Speaker, 1 month ago, Moody's actually downgraded U.S. debt, so
now the three big rating agencies have lowered our credit. We actually
have 18 States in America that have a higher credit rating than the
Federal Government.
If anyone bothered to actually read it, it was actually really well
done. There were a lot of details. Mr. Speaker, you would have had to
have gotten it through a Bloomberg Terminal or pay a subscription. We
are blessed to have a Bloomberg Terminal.
Yes, they got attacked by people who want to keep spending money who
said: Stop. You can't downgrade U.S. sovereign debt.
The other two rating agencies had done it years earlier. The punch
line in there is that in less than 9 years--and this was assuming
interest rates stayed stable--in 2034, 30 percent of all tax receipts
just covered interest. If interest rates went up 1 percent, Mr.
Speaker, 1 percent, in 2034, then 45 percent of all U.S. tax receipts
pay interest.
Are we paying attention?
Yet, the first words I will get from my brothers and sisters on the
left are: Well, just raise taxes.
I will show over and over here, Mr. Speaker, that if you look at
times when we had high marginal tax rates, low marginal tax rates, we
basically always get about 17 to 18, sometimes 18\1/2\, percent of the
economy in tax receipts.
There is our problem, it is that split. Right now if we are sitting
in the almost 18 percent of the economy we are taking in in taxes, but
we are spending 24--and understand, over the next few years it goes
from 24, to 25, to 26--that gap is the annual deficit that gets piled
on to the debt.
I have lots of charts here that actually start to show--let me see if
I can find my favorite one here--that when we actually raise--well,
actually, I hid it in the back so we will do that as a whole section.
How many understand we borrow $6 billion a day?
How many understand in 9 years we are borrowing over $10 billion a
day?
Right now that means we borrow $72,000 a second. In 9 years we are
functionally borrowing over $100,000 a second. The reason I try to
break it down like that, is I am trying to find a way to make numbers
like this, absolutely crazy numbers, work.
Mr. Speaker, so you have that.
My Democrat brothers and sisters have legislation they have
introduced over the years. They have never actually brought it to the
floor even when they controlled this body and controlled the White
House. It gives you a sense, Mr. Speaker.
Economic study, go on Manhattan Institute, Riedl, it is about 1 year,
1.5 years old, they did the scoring on all the Democrats' tax
proposals.
Here is the problem: Increasing taxes, Mr. Speaker, when you did
actually all of them--and I am going to do this in a couple of
fashions--you basically got to the point that when you did all the
corporate, the estate, the individual, and then you did the economic
effects, you got about 1.5 percent of the economy.
All the taxes hikes--every time we have someone over on that side
saying: Just raise taxes--if we do every one of their tax proposals,
then we get 01.5 percent.
Hopefully, everyone knows what the joke is.
[[Page H3000]]
We are going to borrow 7.3 percent of the economy this year, and in 9
years we are borrowing 9 percent of the economy.
How do we tell the truth to the American people that we are going to
have to embrace things that are actually hopeful?
The cost of healthcare--it is always fascinating, I always thought I
would get beaten up for saying this behind the microphone, and,
shockingly, we have had people being remarkably kind to us.
The economist in my Joint Economic Committee--and it was a hard
report to write--a couple years ago wrote a major study saying: What
does obesity cost America?
That is not Republican or Democrat. It is just what we are. It means,
every time you say that, Mr. Speaker, did you make all the people who
make money off certain foods, off of certain healthcare, and other
things, nervous?
We came up with a number 2 years ago. It was $9.1 trillion of
additional healthcare spending over 10 years.
Now this one is a few years old. Milken did a study, he said that 47
percent of all U.S. healthcare spending was associated with obesity.
Is that Republican or Democrat?
It is just the math. It is something we could do together around
here.
How do we help our brothers and sisters be healthier so they live
longer? How do we help them so they could maybe have more family
formation, live a life, participate in the economy, and use a hell of a
lot less healthcare?
Mr. Speaker, you know the perversity around here. When we start
talking about maybe we need to modernize how we do agriculture in
America, what we grow, because we concentrate functionally on like five
crops.
What should we do? This is a question--and I have been attacked by
Democrats on this--is it moral to give an EBT card, modern food stamps,
to someone to go buy onion rings?
I love onion rings. It is one of my addictions. I am working on
getting off of it.
Is it moral with taking hard-earned money, rare resources--remember,
it is borrowed money now--and say: Go eat crap.
Now the people who sell onion rings come lobby us and come attack us
and say: People should have the choice. They should with their own
money.
The fact of the matter is, when we looked at some of the data of the
7 million prime-age males who are missing in America, we have a data
set that says about one-half of that population may be missing from the
labor force. They are missing from the American labor force not because
of drugs and not because of video games but because of health, because
of obesity.
Are we allowed to talk about it?
Mr. Speaker, a bit of trivia. Let's do something I consider
wonderfully funny and amusing.
In the last 20 years, what is the only success that has happened in
the United States of helping young people get healthier?
Remember, under Michelle Obama's initiatives with President Obama, I
think we spent, it was $16 billion or $36 billion, but some number like
that, and it had absolutely no success. This was the dietary issues and
the food issues, trying to get young people to go exercise. Can anyone
guess?
Come on, this is a play-at-home game. It was Pokemon GO. I know it
sounds crazy, but the gamification actually was the one great example
of success for the last couple decades of helping young people get
healthier.
What if we took that knowledge of, hey, these incentives do work, and
actually legalese that and made that part of how we deliver healthcare
services or how we allow insurers to provide incentives because the ACA
ObamaCare is a finance bill.
{time} 1620
It is who gets subsidized and who has to pay. You have three age
groups and smoking. You could be creative enough to add a fifth
category that says you can provide a series of these sorts of
incentives, so when you wear the digital ring, wear the smartwatch on
your wrist, or walk 5,000 steps, at the end of the month, we are going
to give you something. Is that Republican or Democratic? Or is it just
using data to try to keep our brothers and sisters healthier?
The stock answer is to just raise taxes on rich people. The math
doesn't get you anywhere close. It may make you feel better. It may
make you feel better, but I am going to show you numbers that should
scare you half to death.
Let's continue to try to run through healthcare expenses. We are
going to have to update our charts because we got one just a couple of
hours ago and didn't have a chance. It actually had the spending growth
on healthcare over the next decade actually accelerating again.
Here is part of my problem. Nominal, which means before inflation, we
actually have domestic productivity growing at 4.3 percent over the
next decade. We have healthcare growing at 5.8 percent. It is geeky,
but that margin keeps separating and separating. Unless we are willing
to do policy, whether it be technology or incentives to stay healthy,
these sorts of things, if that separation continues, the debt picture
is actually worse.
Mr. Speaker, at some point, I am going to show a slide here that if
you actually take some of the policy we are working on, the baseline
between now and 2035 of the $22 trillion we are supposed to borrow,
some of the potential financing costs of what the Senate is doing right
now, the higher interest rates, we are not exactly there, but we come
close to doubling U.S. sovereign debt over the next decade. That took
us 240 years, and we functionally double it in the next decade.
Let's get to the really uncomfortable stuff. I have to admit that I
am only two-thirds through the Social Security actuary report. I have
one on my desk that has highlights and little questions and things that
I have to get my economists to go back to help me understand. For some,
I actually don't like some of the math I see.
I am going to try something, and we are going to try to build a chart
on this. This is crazy math, but we see it in the report.
You will have lots of activists say to just open up immigration. That
will take care of the Social Security shortfall. Remember, the report
says, in 2033--so, what is that? Seven or 8 years from now, there is a
23 percent cut coming in Social Security checks. That means we will
double--we have had witnesses that explained this to us. We will double
senior poverty after 2033.
Are we ready to do that? Is that moral?
Yet, I will get folks who will say that if we just open up
immigration--it turns out that is actually not the math because one of
the real reasons they moved up the date of the exhaustion of the Social
Security trust fund was actually flattening of wage growth. It turns
out there is no free option here.
We have some charts that show some things. Here are people who are
undocumented in America. They are working under stolen Social Security
numbers. They are giving into the system, but they are never going to
get anything out. Then, you look at the suppression of wage growth. I
know this is geeky, but I sort of need to lay a marker on the
suppression of wage growth. When you bring in millions of people across
the border who have similar skill sets, and they are often willing to
sell their skill sets for even less money, Social Security actuary
reports are now modeling a flattening of wage growth. That is one of
the things that has actually shortened the life of the Social Security
trust fund by a year.
The next time someone says that we just need to open up the borders,
that that will take care of the Social Security trust fund, it turns
out that it doesn't work that way. You actually didn't get anything
from it. You did a suppression of working people's wages, and this one
takes us out about a decade.
I don't know why people don't think, don't understand, these almost
basic economic--we all went to our high school economics class, right?
Here is what is coming. You have the 23 percent cut coming in 2033. If
you are watching this and don't plan to be around in 2033, you don't
have to care. The one that we have had almost no discussion about is
that the Medicare trust fund is gone in 2033. That means if it lives
off its income, its tax receipts from the FICA taxes, it is still an 11
percent cut.
The next time we get someone here saying that we need more money for
[[Page H3001]]
our hospitals, outpatient surgeries, and hospice care, point out to
them that, in 7 years, there is an ugly cut coming. This 11 percent
shortfall isn't even in our long-run CBO projections yet because a year
ago, to give you an idea of how these numbers eroded in 1 year--I think
2054 was in last year's actuary report for when the trust fund was
gone.
How many people over the last week, because this has been out for
almost a week now, have you seen come behind these microphones and say
maybe we should all work together, do something that is mathematically
honest, or just even tell our voters the truth that, in 7 years, you
are getting a 23 percent cut in your Social Security check and, by the
way, another 11 percent cut in your hospital coverage and other things
because the Medicare part A trust fund is gone.
For those who don't understand, and that is most of us, of the
portion of your payroll tax that goes to Medicare, about 38, 40 percent
of it is covered by the trust fund. That is the hospital portion, as we
typically refer to it. The rest of it actually comes out of the general
fund.
One of the most difficult numbers I have in my dataset here--because
this is the one that I see people get upset about--is the primary
driver of U.S. debt. Interest? It is healthcare. For every dollar you
put into Medicare, you are getting $6 to $7 back. That delta is
uncomfortable to talk about, but it turns out to be that and interest
are the primary drivers.
All right, you start to actually look at some more--and I put this
chart together just because I thought it was really interesting. We
finally actually have really good data that has been designed on what
happened during the Biden administration having the border open. We got
some direct effects of, hey, we got a little bit more tax receipts and
potential effects over time, but it turns out its deficit effects are
more than two times because of the consumption of services.
It turns out that when someone tells you this is going to grow the
economy, it is not in the economic literature. It may be in your
aspirations, in your heart, or how you feel, but it is not in the
economic literature. Tell the truth about the math.
National health expenditures as a percentage of GDP--remember, a
couple of moments ago, I told you we are trying to figure it out. We
just got another report that we expect the growth of healthcare
spending to pop almost 3 percent more than modeled. That is a lot of
money. Here is the punch line: We estimate that this year, right now,
we are right here. We are spending about 18 percent of the entire
economy on healthcare.
{time} 1630
In 9 years, it is over 20 percent. Those differences are monstrous.
That is functionally a 12.8 percent growth in the cost of delivering
healthcare in that 9-year span. This is going to tie into why I am
talking about some of our growth rate projections.
How do you hit these folks who are running around saying: ``David, we
are going to grow at 3, 4, 5 percent GDP growth.'' At the same time,
interest and expenditures are chewing up everything around us. How does
that math work?
Then, I am going to show you some of the demographics. I am going to
probably say this twice just so it starts to bleed in.
Today, we have the same number of 18-year-olds as we had 20 years
ago. We have doubled the number of people 65 and up. So, functionally,
we have the same number of 18-year-olds--it is no one's fault. It is
not Republican and Democratic. Starting in 1990, U.S. fertility rates
rolled over. We have a shortage of young people in America.
Tell me how I grow the economy if you are not going to let me do
things like automation of ports, automated rail, AI, technology,
allowing AI when it has the right data to be able to prescribe, and
people go: ``Oh, I don't like that.'' Fine. Tell me how much poorer you
are willing to live.
It is economics. If I can't grow the economy, yet I am being buried
in debt service and increased costs for providing the services, tell me
how I am to pay for it.
There is a path where I can make this math--I can't pay it off. I can
stabilize it and make this another American century, but, damn it, how
do I do it in a body that is just terrified of telling the truth about
math or just basic economics?
This is the reality. This is our latest report. In 2033, 20.3 percent
of the economy will just be healthcare. Considering government is
functionally the primary payer, I think we are well over half of all
healthcare spending coming out of the trust fund and the general fund.
Does anyone see a problem? Do you remember, a moment ago, I showed
you that the Social Security and Medicare actuary report said that
there is an 11 percent cut coming in 2033? Are we going to let that
happen? Probably not. Are we going to reach into the general fund to
pay for it? Probably. It is not in the debt projections yet. The scale
of this is off the charts.
Back to the math problem. If I am making someone unhappy, be mad at
the math, not me. Be mad at all the people who have never told you the
truth with a calculator.
How do I save my future? Remember, my little boy turned 3 years old
yesterday. I have a 9-year-old. Yes, they are adopted. It is a miracle.
My wife is my age. Yes, we have screwed up my retirement. It is the
most fun I have ever had in my life.
My child will be the first generation to live poorer than his mommy
and daddy. Great job, America. This is our morality.
People will say: ``No, it is going to be great.'' Great. Okay. I hope
it is great. Tell me how I do it in the math. Walk me through the
economics. Walk me through what we are going to do to maximize GDP
growth or what we are going to do to change productivity.
People will say that we are going to just grow. Okay, tell me how.
That is our problem right now. We are using these wonderful,
aspirational words, and we are not doing any of the policy.
The reality of it is that Social Security, Medicare, and net interest
account for 80 percent of the spending growth.
If you are a Member of Congress, how many protesters did you have in
your office this last couple of days? ``You can't review. You can't go
after waste and fraud and Medicaid.'' Medicare Advantage, The Wall
Street Journal has done a five-part series that, if you add it all up,
is $1 trillion to $2 trillion of waste and fraud over 10 years. ``That
is hard. You can't actually talk about that.''
If we can't do the work, how do you save the country? How do you save
my kids' future? How do you save your own retirement? Maybe we can just
keep lying to each other and the public because the public really
doesn't want to hear these things.
There is a path to make this math work, but you keep telling me that
we are going to take off on productivity, but then you see the charts
of available young people to participate in the labor force. The number
keeps falling and falling.
Remember, we have the smallest group of 18-year-olds as a percentage
of population in U.S. history, and next year is even smaller, and the
year after that is even smaller, and the year after that is even
smaller. ``David, we are going to grow like crazy.'' We can, but you
have to do policies that maximize productivity. ``Productivity might
cause creative destruction.'' We are not allowed to do free-market
economics anymore. Remember, we are populists now.
If you embrace that you are going to drive this country--we will
still be greater than any country on Earth, but we are going to give up
so much.
Prosperity is moral. The growth is moral. We are killing ourselves,
but we are making promises that aren't in the data. They are not on the
charts.
You have an idiot like me who gets behind the microphone week after
week--I am not smart, but I am good at math--and tries to explain by
saying that there are ways to make it work.
Mr. Speaker, 1 month ago, after almost a year's worth of work--I
chair the Joint Economic Committee. I am number four in the Committee
on Ways and Means. I chair the Subcommittee on Oversight. It is public
now. The press broke the story. We have been doing investigations after
The Wall Street Journal did that major series on Medicare Advantage--
the amount of fraud, the people being diagnosed with
[[Page H3002]]
diseases they don't have, people being dumped on VA even though they
had the Medicare Advantage insurance, and people being dumped in
hospice care. If you don't know about it, grab your computer and
google: The Wall Street Journal MA.
The MedPAC report--I have come to this floor year after year. I am
sometimes thinking, Mr. Speaker, that I am the only idiot here who
reads the MedPAC report. It is like this, but it is not a hard read.
In there, it will say that when we started Medicare Advantage in
2005, it was designed to come in at 95 percent of the cost of fee for
service, but its model was that we were going to incentivize the folks
who manage the care to make money by helping you be healthier. The
incentive was that we were going to help populations be healthier.
The MedPAC report for the beginning of this year, today, comes at 120
percent of fee for service. Just that delta from the 95 to 120 percent
over 10 years is like $2 trillion.
Think about it. We are knifing each other right now, trying to figure
out how to finance as much of this reconciliation budget as we can. I
am an idiot, as I have been told by my wife over and over, because I
thought we cared. We spent 6 months writing the modernization to
Medicare Advantage to make it so it incentivizes to help our brothers
and sisters who are 65 and up who choose Medicare Advantage, which is
55 percent of the population, to get services so that they are
healthier.
The Joint Economic Committee economists say that, over 10 years, it
is $1.76 trillion of savings over 10 years. The preliminary score from
our conversations with CBO--it is not in writing, but preliminary--is
$1.84 trillion, making it the largest savings bill in U.S. history. It
doesn't take away a single service. It fixes the misalignment in the
system.
Mr. Speaker, how many cosponsors do I have? The bill has been
introduced for 1 month. Remember, we are tough. We are going to help
stop this borrowing. We are going to take on the debt. I have zero
cosponsors. We have visited almost 100 Members of Congress in their
offices. ``David, this is uncomfortable. It has big words. David, it
has the word `Medicare.' ''
I beg of you, understand the scale of this debt. I have people now
who won't even look me in the eye as they walk down the hallway because
they are fearful that I might ask them again and again: ``Will you
sponsor this? You tell me you care. Help us. Help us do the right
thing.''
Yet, if I try to show what is going on--remember our baseline. Over
the next 10 years, we expect to spend $14.67 trillion on Medicare
Advantage. It is not Medicare but just the Medicare Advantage portion.
All we are trying to do is save about 10 percent of that. That is the
alignment of incentives.
{time} 1640
Stop telling me how much you care. Stop telling me you are a budget
hawk. I am a budget hawk. I care about the budget. But God forbid, I am
not putting my name on something that actually does something because
that is hard.
I am the guy in the 50/50 district. I am in one of the most
competitive districts in America, and yet I am willing to stand up
behind this microphone and tell the truth and actually put it on paper.
My economists did a model over the next 10 years with what is
happening demographically in America. We have a shortage of young
people. President Trump said something that was brilliant on the
campaign trail. He said: It is insane we educate people, then we send
them home with their degrees from the American universities to compete
with us. That sparked an idea, and then we got our economists to do the
modeling.
It creates about $150, $160 billion of additional tax receipts in the
10-year window, but in the second 10-year window, it explodes. We wrote
an immigration reform bill, moving the American immigration system to a
talent-based system, but it has the word ``immigration'' in it so that
scares the hell out of the political class because reporters will lie
about it. The activists on Twitter or X, whatever it is, will lie about
it, but the economics are incredibly important.
If you are going to move this country to raise its productivity so we
can raise wages so we actually can survive what is happening in the
actuary reports of Medicare and Social Security, guess what? You almost
can't close the numbers unless you do something like this.
The reason I am doing this is, we added the President's Gold Card,
but it is skills based. I get people saying: I don't know how I feel
about that. How many of you have a Dr. Patel? It was meant to be funny.
I am from Scottsdale. It is one of the greatest medical communities in
America, and a bunch of our great, amazing talent has come in from all
over the world.
Stop bathing in folklore and start bathing in math.
Our third bill to pay for the reconciliation budget is less of a cut.
This is using data to find where the hell is all the cash. It turns out
if you add it all up, there is $1.5 trillion sitting in accounts up and
down government. It was appropriated 3 years ago, but they never built
it.
There is a great example of hundreds of millions of dollars that were
set aside for one State. It is in the account to build a bridge. They
chose not to build that bridge. Cash is still sitting there. We call it
Total Discretionary Balances Subject to Rescission. We call it
forgotten funds. We are paying interest on that money. Almost every
dime of this was borrowed money, and some of it has been sitting in
accounts for years.
Why is it so hard? We have the legislation. I have introduced the
legislation line item by line item by line item saying let's just grab
that cash, even if you just went back to know your money, or maybe the
ones that are just a couple years out, it is a half a trillion dollars.
Grab that cash and bring it back and put it under Treasury.
If we as Members of Congress want to appropriate it again,
appropriate it again. I just gave you three pieces of legislation: I
gave you fixing Medicare Advantage, alignment of the incentives. Moving
to a talent-based immigration system, which, in the long run, is one of
the most powerful things we can do for GDP growth for productivity. And
capturing the forgotten funds. I just paid for most of the
reconciliation bill.
Wouldn't that solve a bunch of our problems around here? Wouldn't
that solve a bunch of the fighting? Wouldn't that solve a bunch of the
stress when we are saying: We are going to borrow how much?
This year, we are going to borrow $2.2 trillion. At the end of 2026,
if we do what I think and the Senate is going to try to jam us, that is
$2.5, $2.6 trillion of borrowing that year. But David, we are going to
have all this magical growth.
Look, I accept I am a senior Member. I have staff. I have really
smart economists. I just brought you three bills without cutting a
service to anyone. I found $3.3 trillion of savings and not a single
cosponsor in Congress.
I am going to try to do this next little section here. I don't want
to be a jerk. I am going to hurt some people's feelings. The math is
important. Why the math is important is because there are solutions.
The reason I am doing this is, I think it was Monday or Tuesday, I had
a Member I was talking to, great Member, brilliant in their area of
specialty, really smart. I have spent my whole life doing budgets and
healthcare finance and a few other weird things.
They said: David, CBO is always wrong, the Congressional Budget
Office. They make up things. It is way off.
Okay. For anyone that keeps telling you that, this is what you call a
variance report. CBO puts it out every year. I know every staffer and
every Member of Congress grabbed it in January and actually read the
data.
If you look at the calculations--and I didn't actually bring one of
the boards, which probably is good because it was really obnoxious.
What did happen to that board?
CBO projected when we did the 2017 tax reform, 2018, 2019, just
before the pandemic, they were like 99.5, 99 percent accurate. Don't
tell anyone because it will make it harder for us to lie around here.
Then you get Members saying: But over the next 5 years, they weren't
accurate at all.
Does anyone remember there was this little thing called COVID? Does
[[Page H3003]]
anyone remember what Congress and the world actually did? We dumped how
much cash into the world market. You are accurate to here, and then all
of a sudden, we dumped how much cash? Do you think there is a chance
when you borrow trillions and trillions of dollars, pump it out into
the economy, you don't have your tax collections go up? Oh, but David,
they didn't project that. They didn't predict that. Come on, people.
Stop it.
Because even now, when we get back to baseline after we got beyond
COVID, they were still remarkably accurate. I found the chart. It was
hidden back there. It is on the smaller board.
The fact of the matter is, what they projected and what actually
happened--and this is actually 2018, not 2016, so I found a printing
error--99.5 percent accuracy.
Mr. Speaker, they are not always accurate. Of what they projected for
the clean energy tax credits and inflation reduction, they missed by
miles because they didn't actually pay enough attention to the fact
that they were uncapped. There are a number of things where they
absolutely screwed up, but the fact of the matter is on tax
collections, the numbers have been good, and we need a scorekeeper.
My grandfather used to have this saying: It doesn't matter how you
play the game. It is who keeps score. He thought that was hysterical.
How do we convince the American people we are serious about economic
growth, productivity, taking on the debt and deficits, and not
bankrupting their future when we spend almost every day saying: Well,
we don't like the scorekeeping.
Then you look at every outside group, the Tax Foundation, Yale Model
Foundation, all these others, and it turns out CBO was more accurate
than they were.
I am not standing here to be a defender of them. I am actually being
a defender of my brothers and sisters here. Please, I know it makes our
lives easier when we can attack the scorekeeper. We can say the
scorekeeper didn't get it right, therefore, pay no attention when they
say we are trying to add $3, $4 trillion of debt.
We are better than that. There is a reason so much of the economic
press is just mocking us and making fun of us. I understand it is good
politics. You get to go home, get in front of the audience that is not
reading the Economic Press and say, they didn't get the it right. Let's
treat our voters like they are adults. They understand what is going
on.
{time} 1650
These are the scores from Yale Budget Lab, from Penn Wharton, from
Congressional Budget Office, from Joint Tax, Tax Policy Center,
American Enterprise Institution, Tax Foundation, and then here is what
we are telling people.
Is every other Ph.D. economist wrong?
It becomes an excuse not to do the things I was just complaining
about when an idiot like me comes and says: I found you $3.3 trillion
in savings.
David, we don't have to do those hard pieces of legislation. We don't
have to explain those bills to our constituents. We don't have to take
on the lobbyists who are going to be all upset with us. We will just
tell people that it pays for itself.
So everyone else is wrong because it makes our life as policymakers
easier. Somehow, we are going to have magic growth, magical thinking
when just today parts of the latest census data came out. The
population 65 and older rose by 3.1 percent in the last year, while the
population 18 years old--under 18 decreased by 0.2 percent.
I am trying to make an argument that--I love the partisanship. I love
a good fight with my Democratic brothers and sisters, but what happens
when the debt and deficits are demographics? If we can blame the other
side, we will just do this ping-pong back and forth--they are in
charge, we are in charge, we are in charge, they are in charge--and we
will blame each other. Then we are going to have a failed bond auction,
and interest rates are going to explode.
Remember, there are datasets--I presented them here on the floor--
that just a single point of interest going up over the next decade
wipes out almost all the good we are trying to do extending the tax
reform of 2017.
Mr. Speaker, there is a way to make this work, and I am mentally just
exhausted. Maybe I need to consume more coffee or maybe I need to stop
caring so much because I am really worried. There is a way to make this
work. There is hope, but what happens when no one will hear a word you
are saying because it requires doing hard stuff and pisses off some
lobbyists or some group or some group that is in our office that wants
us to regulate their competition's business or give them something?
We used to be the party of fiscal sanity. I still think we are. We
can get there. We can do it. Maybe we just need to understand the math.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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