[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 126 (Wednesday, July 23, 2025)]
[House]
[Pages H3634-H3637]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DISMANTLING CALIFORNIA'S CITIZENS REDISTRICTING COMMISSION
(Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, Mr.
Schweikert of Arizona was recognized for 30 minutes.)
Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend from California
(Mr. Kiley).
Mr. KILEY of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for
yielding.
Mr. Speaker, in 2010, California voters overwhelmingly voted to
establish the Citizens Redistricting Commission. The voters said that
they wanted to take the process of drawing district lines out of the
hands of politicians. They said that voters should choose their
politicians, that politicians shouldn't choose their voters.
That commission has drawn our district lines through the last two
rounds of redistricting. Yet, the Governor of California has now
announced a plan to abolish the Citizens Redistricting Commission and
to seize its powers for himself. He initially proposed simply ignoring
the commission, ignoring the constitution, and overriding his maps with
those that he and the legislature drew. Yet, apparently, someone told
him that that would get immediately struck down in court.
What they are now plotting is a special election where they will use
confusing ballot language and other means of deception to try to
convince voters--to fool voters--into dismantling the very independent
commission that they recently established.
The point of this is that the Governor would like to reduce the
representation of Republicans in Congress in our State to 3 Members out
of 52, so that Republicans will hold 6 percent of the seats even though
Republicans typically get over 40 percent of the vote in statewide
elections. It could be the single most egregious act of corruption in
the history of our State.
Mr. Speaker, you don't need to take my word for that. You can take
the word of Common Cause, which is a group that typically, almost
always, aligns with Democrats on elections and voting issues. Its
executive director said: ``Point blank, it is a dangerous move.''
Or take the word of Patricia Sinay, a Democrat sitting on the
Citizens Redistricting Commission, who said: ``The very purpose of the
State's independent redistricting commission is to protect voters from
partisan power grabs like this. If this were to succeed, it would set a
dangerous precedent for suppressing voters across the Nation.''
Mr. Speaker, this is a moment for every Californian and every
American of decency, regardless of party affiliation, to speak out
against the abject corruption that our Governor is attempting.
Recognizing Tevis Cup Winners Heather and Jeremy Reynolds
Mr. KILEY of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize
Heather and Jeremy Reynolds, the first- and second-place winners of the
69th Annual Tevis Cup, a grueling 100-mile endurance trail ride from
Robie Park to Auburn, held on July 12 of this year.
This year's competition proved even more challenging than usual, with
the heat and rocky road providing unforgiving conditions for all
competitors.
{time} 1800
Of the 105 entrants, only 43 were able to complete the ride to
Auburn. However, the couple persevered through, crossing the finish
line in 17 hours 45 minutes.
Over the span of more than 20 years of competitive riding, the two
have accumulated countless awards, including eight Tevis Cups and five
Haggin Cups. Despite their many accolades, the one challenge they had
never conquered was crossing the finish line together. In this year's
competition, they did, crossing the finish line with their hands joined
together, marking an astounding new achievement that has been a goal of
theirs for over two decades.
Together, Heather and Jeremy Reynolds embody perseverance, teamwork,
and competitive excellence. Their achievement serves not just as
personal fulfillment but also as an inspiration to their peers, fellow
competitors, and our community at large.
It is an honor to represent remarkable individuals such as Heather
and Jeremy in Congress. Therefore, on behalf of the United States House
of Representatives, I proudly extend my heartfelt congratulations to
Heather and Jeremy Reynolds for their exceptional athletic achievement
at the 69th annual Tevis Cup and commend them for their unwavering
dedication to the tradition and sport of equine endurance riding.
Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from California for
his remarks, and as I always say to Californians, don't take Arizona's
water.
Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bresnahan). The gentleman from Arizona
has 25 minutes remaining.
Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I am going to try to do a run-through of
a couple things here. I am going to try to walk through some economics.
Then I am going to actually try to walk through some warnings that are
in the documents that are around us that very few people seem to bother
to read. Then I am going to actually do some things that are hopeful
because I think sometimes I am a bit dour, and I don't do enough of
this.
First off, in August, Republicans are going to go out and tell the
morality of people's taxes not going up next year. What we did in the
reconciliation budget: incentives to invest in America, to build new
plants of equipment, for working people to have some things to actually
draw them back into the labor force, no tax on tips, no tax on
overtime, some of these things.
If you actually look at one of the reasons those things are in there,
and we are actually starting to see some of the models of the economic
side, seeing some very optimistic things that we think are going to
change labor force participation, small changes.
The left will actually sort of do a bit of schizophrenia such as you
cut spending over here, but too much of this money is borrowed. I agree
too much is borrowed. I want to cut more spending, but then you attack
us when we try to actually point out misalignment, bad acts.
What was the report that just came out a couple days ago, where we
found 2.8 million of our brothers and sisters enrolled in subsidized
ACA plans as well as Medicaid plans.
They don't want to talk about that because it screws up their pitch
when you actually walk through what we see in the math. We know the
American people believe and understand the morality and the great
economics of encouraging those that are able-bodied, able to work to
participate in society.
If anyone is a geek out there--it is probably 4 or 5 years old--the
University of Chicago, four of their Ph.D. economists wrote a brilliant
paper talking about: If you actually ask people to participate in
society, in the economy, to take a job, even if you give them welfare
or government subsidies, because they have an attachment to the
economy, to work, at the
[[Page H3635]]
end of 10 years, those who had the work requirements actually end up
much wealthier and off of government support. It is the morality of
learning to get up, building an attachment, learning skills, and moving
up in an organization.
There was a time when it was actually the left's ethos, that the
argument of work is moral. Somehow that left the Democratic Party.
Let's walk through a couple things. I have used this board for months
now. It will probably be the last time I use it. Understand baseline
over the next 10 years, according to Congressional Budget Office, we
are going to spend $86 trillion. Think of the screaming and gnashing of
teeth and protests that are all ginned up, you cut $800 billion from
this, and a little bit from a couple other things, it was less than 2
percent of that spending.
Are you telling me that the left doesn't believe that if you are
spending $86 trillion as your baseline spending, and understand--I am
going to show you some of the charts and how much of this is basically
demographics. We got old. Our healthcare costs money.
I am going to show you a couple charts that I really want folks to
understand. But for the American people, when you see someone from the
Democratic Party behind a microphone saying, they cut spending. It is
this off of the base of this. It is the lack of understanding.
One of the points that you keep trying to make over and over again
is, was it the Democrats' plan that they wanted to raise taxes on
everyone? Because that was automatic; that was coming at the end of
this year.
Your taxes were going up back to the pre-2017 tax reform. Every once
in a while, you will get someone who says, well, you shouldn't have
extended the tax policy for the highest income. Okay. That is a tiny,
tiny portion of the total dollar amount. When they had control of
everything, they didn't do it.
But just from a point--and this is more for everyone to understand,
particularly even staff. You see the blue here, nondefense/defense,
every dime of that is borrowed. I think this year we will probably
borrow, let's call it, $400 billion for Medicare. We are going to
actually hold a contest shortly to see who can guess the final
borrowing for this year.
The economy has actually been pretty good. We are tracking customs
receipts. Many of you think of it as tariffs. We may have another $70
billion on top of baseline. It is probably going to come at $2.2
trillion of borrowing this year.
This doesn't have the tax reform, many of those things built into
that base. How do I help folks understand? Here is where we are already
at, and this will make sense in a little while.
For every dollar we take in in tax receipts, we spend $1.39. We spend
$1.39 for every dollar we take in tax receipts. If you saw that
previous chart, you would have noticed that only about 24 to 26 percent
is in discretionary, what we really get to vote on. That is why we end
up having to use what we call these reconciliation budgets.
The 1974 Budget Control Act allows us to move a bill, if it has
certain fiscal properties to it, through the Senate without having to
get 60 votes. It is all a dance to deal with the 60 votes. If we were
actually a little more honest about math, maybe we wouldn't have to do
this dance.
Why this is important is--I am a little freaked out because this is
the MedPAC report. I know every Member of Congress has read every word
of it because it is really important. There is a chart in here that if
you actually read the footnotes--now, look, for anyone that is paying
attention, I am trying to bring Medicare Advantage back where the
incentives actually are about helping populations be healthier and not
about risk scoring them that--it is a concentration of illness, but the
incentives are that if populations are healthier, the plans can make
more money.
But inside here is also a great data point, Mr. Speaker. This year,
we are going to spend, let's call it, a trillion dollars on Medicare.
{time} 1810
How many of you would guess what we are going to spend in 7 years?
The model in here says in 7 years, we go from $1 trillion a year on
Medicare to $2 trillion. We double Medicare spending in 7 years.
Now, part of that is demographics. Starting, functionally, 30 years
ago, we started having a lot fewer children. So if we took today and
stepped back 20 years ago, we had about 35 million of our brothers and
sisters who were 65 years old, 30 years ago. Today, we are approaching
about 70 million of our brothers and sisters who are 65 and up, so more
than double.
Go back 20 years ago, the number of 18 years olds we had is pretty
much the same as the number of 18 year olds we have today. Next year,
the number of 18 year olds goes down, the year after that it goes down,
and the year after that it goes down.
Is that Republican or Democrat or is it just demographics? It is a
little hard to campaign on that. It is a little hard to attack the
other side, but the fact of the matter is, if we all read our data, we
don't have a choice.
This is the Social Security Medicare actuary report, another thing I
know every Member here has actually read. Seven years from now, the
Medicare part A trust fund, which is about 38 percent of Medicare
spending--the rest comes out of the general fund and members'
participation, I think is about 15 percent, the fees they pay--but that
38 percent, that trust fund is gone in 7 years, meaning hospitals,
surgery centers will have an 11 percent cut, but I know we are all
going to talk and work on how we are going to revolutionize the cost of
healthcare.
One of the classic problems around here, Mr. Speaker, is for some
reason the left--and many of us on the right--we talk about healthcare
as a finance problem. The ACA was a finance bill. It was who had to
pay, who got subsidized. Medicare for All is a finance bill. I would
argue the Republican alternative from a few years ago was a finance
bill. It had a little better actuarial curve, but it was a finance
bill: who got subsidized, who has to pay.
I beg of our brothers and sisters around here, open up your brain. We
live in a time of miracles. We are going to have some conversations
about how you change the view of healthcare. It is all about what we
pay. Can we change the cost by doing it better, faster, cheaper with
technology and our brothers and sisters being healthier?
If we don't, we will have problems like what is shown on this chart.
Today, 16 percent of all tax receipts go just to interest. In 9 budget
years, actually 9 years straight up, in 9 years, 30 percent of all U.S.
tax receipts go just to interest. Heaven forbid, if we had a 1 point
movement in interest rates, my math is 45 percent of all tax receipts
would go to interest.
When you see people come behind these microphones, how many people
are saying: Hey, how do we convince the bond markets? The bond markets
are basically on the edge of running this country now because when you
borrow $6 billion a day--next year, I think we borrow $6.5, maybe $7
billion a day. In 9 years, we are over $10 billion a day. Let's see.
That is, what, $70,000 to $72,000 a second.
I have this aggregator on my news, and there are some crazy articles.
A couple leftwing economists are saying: Borrowing doesn't matter,
people are always willing to buy U.S. debt.
Okay. Let's pretend these leftwing economists are right. We can
continue to borrow and borrow and borrow. They purposely sort of forget
the punch line. Let's say we could borrow forever. At what point are
there no more services, purchases, government helping our brothers and
sisters because it is all covering the interest costs on the bonds?
So let's say--I think you are a little insane--you believe we can
just borrow forever, you are a monetarist, but even the fragility in
the monetarists, you saw in the previous few years of inflation that
their model didn't work. Also, in addition to that, we are going to pay
the interest. In 9 years, baseline under a favorable interest rate
model, 30 percent of all U.S. tax receipts go to interest and, Heaven
forbid, if interest rates were to come up 1 percent because we have
to--this coming year, I think we are going to refinance $11 trillion,
the year after that I think it is $13 trillion because we stay so short
on the financing term, we sell short-term debt instead of longer-term
debt because it turns out there is not as big an appetite. We are in
this world where in 9
[[Page H3636]]
budget years, it will be $10 billion a day.
I am just going to run through a number of these things fairly
quickly just to sort of get to the point. National health expenditures
as a percentage of GDP, this will make sense in a moment. In 2033--so
functionally, what, 8 years from now--over 20 percent of the economy
will just be healthcare. Why?
The Joint Economic Committee 2 years ago wrote a report--and I
thought I was going to get the crap kicked out of me, but we spent
months and months and months grabbing every bit of literature and
saying: Can someone tell me what obesity costs America? What it costs
society? What it costs family formation? What does it cost? We came up
with a number 2 years ago of $9.1 trillion in additional healthcare
costs. We had some mortality statistics, the number of multiple chronic
conditions, the misery out there.
What is fascinating is we have some articles right now talking about
that we may have actually hit something crazy, and it is an odd way to
phrase it, but it is what the researchers think, we may have already
hit what we call peak obesity.
When we published the report 2 years ago, we still had about 4 or 5
more years of growth of obesity. In some States, actually approaching
50 percent of their population are technically obese under the BMI
calculations.
It looks like in the last 12 months we may have started to bend the
curve. We are trying to recalculate. Is this a sign of incredible hope
that we know so much misery in our society--because there is a
brilliant paper from about 7 years ago saying the leading contributor
to income inequality in America, it turns out, isn't education. It
turns out it is health.
When you think about it, the cascade of costs of someone with severe
diabetes, when we already know diabetes is 33 percent of U.S.
healthcare. What if things like this actually could help our brothers
and sisters? Is this Republican or Democrat? It is just good policy. It
has just always been uncomfortable to talk about.
Maybe society is starting to open up, saying, hey, maybe a healthier
society actually is a really good, really moral thing.
Look, as we walk through these, I want to come back and sort of hit a
punch line here. These charts have been available to us for years. The
curve keeps getting steeper. When you have someone say they are a
protector of Medicare, that is great. I am with you. It is an earned
benefit. We made a societal promise, are they telling the truth about
its financing? Oh, David, we can't do that, someone will say something
mean about us.
In 7 years, what else will also be empty? The Social Security trust
fund.
I am sure you all dove into the Social Security Medicare actuary
report and saw the point in there where it says in 2032, 2033--actually
we think it is 2032--our brothers and sisters on Social Security will
take a 24 percent cut. Our model says we double senior poverty in
America. That is absolutely immoral.
Have you also read the papers, the scale of tax hikes, of policy?
Now, is the left offering to work with those of us on the right who are
willing to step on the third rail and do the moral thing to actually
take these on? Hell, no.
{time} 1820
Mr. Speaker, I have talked to so many people on the Committee on Ways
and Means and other committees who basically look at me in terror and
run out of the room.
The political consultants care more about the power of the politics
than the fact that in 7 years, Medicare is $2 trillion a year. In 7
years, the Medicare trust fund is empty. In 7 years, the Social
Security trust fund is empty.
In the first full year, if we want to backfill that shortfall on
Social Security, one of the rough numbers we have is $618 billion.
Basically, what is that? It is two-thirds of what the entire defense
budget is.
There is a lack of understanding of the scale of almost the
dystopianism that comes from what happens when these trust funds are
empty.
Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is
remaining.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Arizona has 6 minutes
remaining.
Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I will learn to talk faster.
To the poor person trying to take my words down, I apologize.
I am going to skip over some of the other charts.
Mr. Speaker, you get the punch line. In the next decade, the vast
majority of debt is driven by interest and healthcare costs. We are
often very uncomfortable talking about it.
Let's actually talk about things that are great and that if we would
get the policy right, we could lower that healthcare cost. It is not
just an argument about who gets subsidized and who gets financed. It is
what would be really good for society and really good for the budget.
We all saw The Economist article the last couple of days that talked
about the miracle of how much the statistical benefits were having on
the number of cures for cancer, particularly lung cancer and blood
cancers, and their model that we are on the cusp of having major
breakthroughs.
We saw this article a couple of days ago about a Microsoft platform.
I didn't even know they were specializing in this. What was stunning
about the datasets they had in here was that AI systems diagnosed
patients four times more accurately than a human doctor.
I just upset some of my brothers and sisters in the doc caucus, but
the data is the data. Mr. Speaker, should we legalize technology? If I
have something I can blow into called a Breath Biopsy and if it is
statistically as accurate or more accurate than a human and knows what
I have, should it be allowed to prescribe?
It is uncomfortable, but it would help crash the cost of healthcare.
It would actually help us with the fact that we have a shortage of
medical professionals.
We are on the cusp of these things. As a matter of fact, that
technology has been around for 5 years except it is functionally
illegal. We don't reimburse it, and we don't allow it to prescribe. We
are on the cusp.
An hour ago, Sam Altman with OpenAI was down the hallway. He and I
had a few minutes of conversation about a new healthcare stat that is
going to go public in about a month. He seemed incredibly optimistic
that its accuracy will be off the charts.
Should we legalize the use of technology to help our society be
healthier? Should we allow it to prescribe? It is uncomfortable because
this place is a protection racket. We have to understand. Congress is
mostly about one thing. It is about money. The left pretends it isn't.
The right pretends it isn't. It is about money.
When we start to say maybe we can use technology as a competition to
help our brothers and sisters be healthier and, therefore, change the
cost of healthcare, somebody is going to say: I make money on that. You
are now going to have me compete against a data system that is more
accurate than I am?
We see it over and over. A new Apple Watch AI model can reveal hidden
health conversations. Here are a couple things I have been most
interested in the last couple of years. There is a great article. I did
a whole speech on it a couple of years ago.
AI discovered a whole new categories of antibiotics. Remember we were
all panic-stricken that we had diseases and bacterial infections that
we didn't have antibiotics for. The antibiotics weren't working. AI
discovered a whole new category of antibiotics that the literature said
it would take humans 20 years to develop.
Instead of being afraid of the technology, maybe we should get our
heads straightened up. In our society we have a shortage of young
people. Baby boomers like me with gray hair are getting older, and we
are going to consume a lot more healthcare. Can we embrace the
technology? That technology sets us free when we start to realize the
things that are going on.
We just had a doctor of radiology in our office. He walked us through
the statistical abstract of breast cancer and the scans and showed that
his AI platform was remarkably more accurate. It is cheaper, faster,
and more accurate. Why wouldn't we embrace it? We don't reimburse it.
The barriers to entry here are protection rackets saying we are not
fighting
[[Page H3637]]
for what is fastest, best, and cheapest. We are often here because we
know our incumbency.
We really are on the edge of miracles. How do I get the left and the
right to understand the math is the math? Demographics are the primary
driver of U.S. sovereign debt. It is hard to campaign against the other
side. Maybe we can take a couple of months off and actually do good,
quality policy and legalize properly vetted and properly certified AI
to prescribe.
This August, with the wearables, I am going to do an experiment with
this Oura Ring. I am buying some Dexcoms to manage my glucose. Have we
all seen the app where we can take a picture of food and it calculates
glucose and calories?
How can we create the incentives? Maybe we should look at the ACA.
Instead of just smoking in three age categories, we can add a fifth
category that is an incentive for our brothers and sisters to manage
their health.
Mr. Speaker, 16 percent of U.S. healthcare spending is people who are
not taking their drugs for hypertension and are not taking their
statin. Mr. Speaker, 16 percent of U.S. healthcare spending is over
$600 billion a year.
There are solutions. We can make a difference. Embrace the
technology. Change the cost. Have a healthier society. It is the most
powerful thing we can do for U.S. sovereign debt.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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