[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 151 (Tuesday, September 16, 2025)]
[House]
[Pages H4348-H4352]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
{time} 1730
WE ARE BORROWING $72,000 A SECOND
(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, for everyone's sanity, I hope not to go
60 minutes. I might go 40.
Mr. Speaker, first, the good news. If anyone else is a geek out
there, there is this app put out by the Atlanta Fed, Atlanta Federal
Reserve, and what they do is they do certain samples in trying to
constantly estimate what the gross national product, GDP, will actually
be.
A little while ago, they actually updated it saying the U.S. economy
looks like it is running at 3.4 percent.
That is remarkable. If you stop and think about it, this is
absolutely--think about all the headwinds and all the things over
tariffs and all these
[[Page H4349]]
other, the economy actually is surprisingly healthy.
Mr. Speaker, one of the reasons I am up here today and every other
week is, our fiscal year ends in a couple weeks and our best estimate
is this fiscal year we will have borrowed $2.4 trillion, maybe $2.5
trillion. We have one model in our office that says more than $2.5
trillion. That is like $70,000, $72,000 every second of every day we
are borrowing.
Let's think of a world where you are borrowing $70,000 a second, yet
the economy is actually fairly decent. What is going on? Is it
Republican? Is it Democrat?
It turns out it is the very thing we hate to talk about. It is the
cost of interest and the cost of healthcare, and that healthcare is
primarily driven because we are unwilling--Mr. Speaker, you are a
doctor, if I remember. We are unwilling to have the honest conversation
of how we deliver, where we can revolutionize the cost, where we can
adopt technology because we are in the incumbent protection business.
We protect incumbent bureaucracies and incumbent business models.
If we don't take this seriously, do you think you can have a country
that is borrowing $70,000, $72,000 every second? Do you think you can
keep that going?
Remember, once again, I am going to try to show versions of this. In
7 years, the Medicare trust fund is empty. In 2032, 7 years, halfway
through that year, the Medicare trust fund is empty. In 2033, the first
full year, our best estimate is that there is about $140 billion
shortfall.
Mr. Speaker, in 7 years, the Social Security trust fund is empty.
Meaning, in 2033, if you are going to cover Medicare and Social
Security, you are approaching almost $600 billion. How many of us get
behind these microphones and actually talk about things that are truly
terrifying?
Are we really going to avoid dealing with our actual jobs? Are we
going to allow the doubling of senior poverty in America in 7 years at
the same time we are bankrupting much of the medical system?
In 7 years, grandma gets a 24 percent cut in her check and our model
says that it will double the poverty of seniors. Yet, often the
solution we get is, well, we will just raise taxes.
Okay. The first year of the shortfall--I am rounding up a bit--it is
$600 billion. You really think you are going to do a $600 billion tax
hike.
Here is my battle. I have tried for years and years and said, we need
to do a fiscal commission. The fact of the matter is, we have the same
number of 18 year olds as we had 20 years ago, but we have double the
number of Americans, our brothers and sisters, who are now 65 and up.
Twenty years ago, we had 35 million Americans 65 and up. Now we are
at 70 million Americans that are 65 and up, and I think we have another
10, 15 million that will be 65 and up in the next few years.
We are incapable of telling the truth. How many of us want to get up
in front of our voters back home or put into our newsletter saying, we
have a demographic financing crisis? Are we going to do all the things
necessary to skyrocket productivity because wages--sorry.
Do you remember your high school economics class? Wages go up by
inflation, but that doesn't mean you get anything. You are just
treading water. Our wages go up by productivity. Are we going to do the
things that are necessary for productivity?
It means Democrats and Republicans need to stop saying things like
you can't automate ports. You can't automate this. We don't want to
allow that technology. There is a way to make this not be dystopian.
Mr. Speaker, I am so tired of coming behind this microphone. The poor
staff here has to be just exhausted, but I am trying not to speak like
a machine gun anymore. I am trying to slow down.
Every time I come up here, the numbers are a little bit worse and
what is frustrating is, the economy is actually doing fairly well, but
it is the scale of the debt because we keep spending and spending and
spending.
Let's actually do some of the charts to try to see if I can get this
to sink in.
Next year, for every dollar of tax collection, we are going to spend
$1.43.
Let's do that again. For every dollar in tax collection next year,
starting in a couple weeks, October 1, we start the new fiscal year.
This is for the 2026 fiscal year; we are going to spend $1.43.
How long is that sustainable? For everyone going in your head, oh, we
will just raise taxes. Let's do this again. In the way back machine,
like in the beginning of the year, I think I did entire presentations
on Democrat tax proposals and what we have talked about in just cuts on
the Republican side.
Our best estimate is this fiscal year, which we are finishing in the
next couple of weeks, we are going to borrow 7.3 percent of the entire
economy. Our borrowing would equal 7.3 percent of the economy.
Every tax hike that we have scored that the Democrats have proposed,
capital gains, income tax, corporate taxes, the whole litany, when you
do the economic adjustment, it comes in at 1.5 percent, maybe 1.6, but
the math is easier, 1.5 percent of the economy. That is what we get for
all the tax hikes.
For those of us on the Republican side when we walk through, we can
cut this, we can cut this, we can cut this, it is coming in at about 1
percent of the economy.
Anyone see the math problem? I got 2\1/2\ percent and that is all you
have ever heard behind these microphones, but we are borrowing 7.3
percent of the economy this year.
How many idiots like me will get up behind these microphones and tell
you the truth?
Next year, for every dollar of tax collections, we are going to spend
$1.43. Let's say you are the most liberal Member here. Do you have any
understanding when this hits the wall, the devastation, the crushing of
poor people? How about if you are the most libertarian or free market?
Do you understand the crushing of the economic system, which has
produced so much prosperity, that will happen when we are in crisis
mode? Let's not let it happen.
{time} 1740
Let's actually walk through this because this is actually one of my
things. We are actually borrowing a little over this. We borrow about
$6.5 billion a day. I always love the debates here: We are going to
save $100 million. Great. Great. We borrow about $260, $270 million an
hour, so a quarter trillion dollars an hour. We will have debates here
that go on for sometimes an hour to save functionally a minute, half a
minute. We have had one where it was like 15 seconds of borrowing.
In 9 years, we are over $10 billion, my math is closer to $10.5
billion a day. That is just the structural borrowing.
One of the deceiving things is, over the next 10 years, we
functionally spend $70 trillion, and you will get someone who says:
Well, you guys voted for this. Well, you guys wanted to tax this. You
actually start to help them understand, saying, we are talking
fractions of our exposure.
I accept, you don't need to be an accounting major or math major to
be a Member of Congress. We make some very pretty charts, though. For
anyone who actually gives a darn about what is going on, every single
month, the Joint Economic Committee Republicans publish a monthly
fiscal update. We have tried to make it as simple as possible to
understand, page after page, to show you what the hell is really going
on.
One of the things that is incredibly frustrating is we live in a
world where so much of what you are going to find on the internet right
now isn't true. Let me prove it.
Here is an article I was very disturbed to find out: Complex
infection keeps the Pope in hospital. This is Newsweek from a couple
days ago. Apparently, the Pope is in the hospital. This is actually a
story that was posted September 8, except the small problem is, this
Pope has been dead for months.
Welcome to the quality of what we call news anymore. This is
Newsweek. They just let their AI generate a story, fill it up. There is
no human that bothered to look at it. Yet, you and I have to help our
voters. Our constituents call us and say: Is this true? You can't find
the story. You ask them if they can send it to you. You think, well,
that doesn't make any sense. It is someone who hit a computer button.
What also happens when we actually see stories like: OMB says Trump's
economic agenda will cut the deficit in half. I am trying to find the
policies.
[[Page H4350]]
You start to go over it, and many of these stories are actually someone
was giving a speech, and so the AI wrote a story. It is not actually
what was said.
My frustration with this is, I have Members here right now who say:
David, we are going to take in $300 billion in tariff receipts--customs
duties if you want to be accurate--next year. We are fine.
Okay. Next year, we are borrowing about $270, $280--sorry, we will
borrow about $2.5 trillion in the 2026 year. So $300 billion is very,
very helpful, but you are still borrowing $2.2 trillion. We haven't
actually done all the economic effects of does that actually change
purchasing behavior.
Actually, we have some great stories today on the Bloomberg terminal
of companies that look like they have been actually undervaluing their
customs duties, meaning they are lying to the Customs Service, and we
are taking in less receipts than we should.
The scale of what is going on is just intensely frustrating. Let's
actually start to also knock down one of the urban folk legends: It is
defense spending. How often do we go home and I will have a liberal
person saying: If you would just cut defense, we would be fine.
Okay, here is your problem: Healthcare is about 28 percent of our
spending, Social Security is 22 percent of our spending. This is 2025
to fiscal date. Net interest is 14 percent of our spending. If you do
all the other outlays, it is 14 percent. Income security, that is
actually--well, it is what it is--10 percent. National defense is 12
percent. It turns out national defense is now number 5. The thing that
is actually in the Constitution is actually number 5 in the spending
stack.
Your government is functionally an insurance company with an Army.
You laugh, but you know you are going to quote that later.
Let's actually sort of take a look. This is net receipts by category,
2024 compared to 2025. Hopefully, this will make sense. I am going to
put this chart up on our website later because I know it is really hard
to see. If you actually take a look at what is happening, how do we
finance this government? It is mostly individual income taxes.
Now, for someone who says: Well, it should be corporate. Remember, in
the late 1980s, early 1990s, all across the country we were moving to
LLCs, professional partnerships, pass-through entities, so much of what
you would have seen back in the early 1980s, 1970s, 1960s as corporate
now passes through, so some of it was a corporate structure. You always
have to be careful when you say: Why are corporate taxes down so much?
It is now because it flows through on the individual line. I am just
trying to make that point.
Take a look at this. Here is Social Security and retirement taxes.
Well, that is FICA. Actually, you were getting $1.7 trillion last year.
This year it is up 3 percent. This year it is $1.761 trillion.
Corporate income tax, last year we took in $529 billion. Then you start
to look at customs duties.
Now, this is interesting. I am going to say this two or three times
to try to make a point. In the 2024 fiscal year, we took in $77 billion
in customs duties. That is tariffs. All right. We estimate this year it
is going to be up 146 percent, but that is $190 billion. That is a lot
of money, Mr. Speaker, but 177 minus the 190 . . .
Did I mention, next year we are set to borrow about $2.5 trillion is
our estimate? CBO, I know, has a number that is lower, but I will tell
you in this fiscal year, my Joint Economic Committee was more correct
than CBO.
If we are borrowing $6.5, $6.7 billion a day, you can do the math.
The step-up in customs duties, we might be picking up 3 weeks of
borrowing. This is my frustration.
What happens when our brothers and sisters get in front of
televisions or put out things and say stories like: Well, DOGE is going
to pay for everything. Well, the customs duties, the tariffs are going
to pay for everything. Then some of us have to actually try to make the
math work.
The voters are much smarter than we ever give them credit for. Hell,
I think they are much smarter than we are. Maybe we can tell them the
truth. We have got a problem. Interest and healthcare costs are
consuming this society, consuming this government. You start to take a
look at the debt outlays, and you start to see, well, Social Security
taxes, oh, they are up 8.3 percent over last year. Excuse me, sorry,
this is outlays, so spending on Social Security went up 8.3 percent
over last year. It is the baby boomers.
We actually have an unusual thing happening. If you take a look at
the Social Security actuary report, a lot of our brothers and sisters
are choosing to retire at 62, which actually is hurting productivity
because many of these folks are very productive workers, but they are
fearful, saying: Well, in 2032, I get a 24 percent cut, so I am going
to take my money now. That is another reason why we should fix that
cliff, but you are not allowed to actually talk about it because the
other side will run attack ads beating the crap out of you in the next
election because you dared talk about the morality of actually fixing
these things.
{time} 1750
Look, right now, I am in a 50/50 district. There is someone over at
the DCCC taking clips saying: He said the words ``Social Security.'' We
have our attack ad.
Then, we wonder why no one here will work on it.
The point on the net outlays is, last year, we spent $7.746 trillion.
This year we are going to spend $7.148 trillion. Remember that 2025 is
an estimate because I still have a couple of weeks, and there are
always weird timing effects at the end of the year where we roll a bill
over into the next fiscal year.
What happens with our total receipts? We are going to take in $5.254
trillion and spend $7.148 trillion. The point there is that we are
spending a hell of a lot more money than we are taking in.
A bunch of the money is not stuff you can touch. It is Social
Security and what goes into the Medicare part A trust fund.
Let's go down to geekdom. On your FICA tax, your payroll tax, a
portion of that is Medicare, Social Security, unemployment, and other
things. That tax only covers about 38 percent of Medicare. The other
portion of Medicare, it can be 10 to 15 percent, is you paying copays
if you are in traditional Medicare. The rest comes right out of the
general fund.
That is why the fact is that, in the next 7 years, Medicare goes from
$1 trillion of spend this year to $2 trillion, in 7 years. It is
demographics and healthcare inflation.
This gap, from here to here, is the annual deficit, 7.3 percent of
the entire economy. For those who want to say that it is the
legislation from--no. This was structural. This is what we were built
on.
The increase in spending, once again--discretionary, what we talk
about, what we work on, keeps getting smaller. Defense as a percentage,
as we are going down from years--years ago, defense was number one.
Now, the way you actually stack it, it is either number four or number
five in our spending.
Yet, if you go home and tell people that, what continues to shock me
is how many people say, ``If we just did this.'' Show them the math
that you just covered about 30 minutes of borrowing, and they look at
you angrily because, my belief is, the political class for so long
hasn't told the truth.
Let's go on our truth binge. Anyone I am making unhappy, grab your
phone, grab your computer, and go hit DOGE.gov. It is right there. It
is live right now. You can go look it up. I actually really support
using technology to crawl through every ounce of this government.
In the NDAA, year after year--and I got it attached this year, the
ability to use AI to audit the Pentagon. Remember, the Pentagon has now
gone 8 or 9 years. It is unauditable. That is the term. It has not been
audited. We don't even know the stuff we own.
On DOGE's own website, at this moment, they say they have found $206
billion. Now, the reality is that only a fraction of that has actually
been executed by us in Congress or the White House.
If we are going to borrow $2.3, $2.4, $2.5 trillion next year, 8
percent, and that is if you have the face on it. We have all seen the
articles. They have only been able to actually execute on a fraction of
this.
[[Page H4351]]
Yet, I can show you some of our colleagues who run around and say:
Well, with DOGE and the customs duties, we are going to be fine, so,
Schweikert, shut up. We don't have to tell people how much trouble we
are in. Don't go and mention that the Social Security trust fund is
gone in 7 years and that they are taking a 24 percent cut. Don't tell
anyone that the Medicare trust fund is gone in 7 years and that their
hospital is probably going bankrupt. Yay, this is what we got elected
to do.
Yet, 2025 total receipts--receipts are tax collections. It is just
Ways and Means speak. We don't call them taxes. We call them receipts.
For this year, we gained 3.7 percent of our total receipts from customs
duties. Wonderful.
We can have a whole other presentation, debate, on its effect on the
economy, who actually pays it, whether is it paid by the consumer or
shipper. Fine, we will have the intellectual debate later, but it is
more revenue receipts coming in.
Our best guess, if we give the full faith of what we believe, $300
billion next year, 5, 5.6 percent on top of all the additional tax
collections. It is helpful.
Borrowing, in many ways, is a tax. It is a tax paid for in the
future, probably by our kids. It is a tax paid for with interest.
Stop pretending we have solved the problem.
Here is where it gets really uncomfortable once again. This is sort
of the Social Security chart, and the point was the trust fund balance.
We peaked about 2001, 2002. Baby boomers were in the peak of their
earning years, but here, it is gone. We need to step on this.
If you are someone out there and you say they stole the Social
Security money, no, they didn't. It was loaned to the Treasury.
There are some great articles. If you go back to the original design
of Social Security, they thought they would have a certain amount of
money. They would loan it for building bridges, dams, and all sorts of
things and get yield, but they loaned it to the Treasury.
The Treasury pays a fairly decent interest rate back. Our Treasury
pays the interest back to the Social Security trust fund twice a year.
That is why there are certain months where there is this sudden, big
spike of interest payments that are credited to the Social Security
account.
The chart is the chart. About halfway through 2032, so 7 years from
now, the trust fund is gone.
Here is the irony of our budgeting. When we talk about future debts
and deficits, CBO is instructed to act like we just keep spending the
money. The actual Social Security law says you have to cut benefits. If
you follow the Social Security law, that is a 24 percent cut.
In reality, about halfway through 2032, be prepared to have your
check cut by 24 percent. Our calculation is a few months later. We
double the poverty of seniors in America.
The fastest-growing homeless population is baby boomers right now.
Look at this chart. Look, I just threw this one on. It is a little
more complicated than I wanted to do tonight, but this is actually
showing the increases in spending.
One of the reasons I brought this chart is trying to help folks
understand. We are all so acculturated around here to Social Security
is always going to be the biggest spend. Except, when you get in the
out-years--I accept some of this is 20-some years from now, 25 years
from now.
Actually, healthcare costs, this is something we could actually have
a miracle in changing. I have come behind this mic over and over and
said we are on the cusp of miracles. A couple of weeks ago, I went to
New Hampshire to a lab where they were growing undifferentiated islet
cells. Apparently, islet cells don't need antirejection drugs to get
bodies to be able to start making their own insulin again. There are
crazy ideas.
{time} 1800
Mr. Speaker, can we do a thought experiment? I am probably going to
get beat up for this. This is a thought experiment. Give me some leeway
on it. I am trying to help our brothers and sisters, and anyone crazy
enough to watch this, to think.
We have turned healthcare into a financing debate. The ACA,
ObamaCare, was a financing bill. It is who gets subsidized and who has
to pay. It was mostly borrowed money. The Republican alternative was a
financing bill. It was a little bit of an actuarial curve, but it was a
financing bill. The Medicare For All Act is a financing bill.
I am begging us: Could we have a revolutionary thought between
Democrats and Republicans, maybe if we actually talk about what we pay
and what we get for what we pay?
The debate right now is about a number of the expanded subsidies on
the ACA expire. There are parts of the country where there are high
medical costs and high income, where a person can make up to $600,000 a
year and get $4,000-plus in subsidies paid to the insurance company.
Here is the perversity. These subsidies, the $33 billion it would
take for one year--$40 billion if it is made permanent--are paid to
insurance companies.
Mr. Speaker, here is just a crazy thought experiment. Ozempic goes
off patent in Canada in January. States like Florida and Colorado have
already gotten the FDA to approve reimportation. We actually have a
chart that is looking at the potential of generic manufacturers
producing it from $60 to $120 a month.
This is a crazy thought. We know Milken researchers a couple of years
ago said obesity is 40 percent of U.S. healthcare. Diabetes is 33
percent of U.S. healthcare. It is 31 percent of Medicare. How many
lives are lost right now because of multiple chronic conditions?
What would happen if we took a portion of that money for our brothers
and sisters who are on Medicaid, Indian Health Service, VA, or other
subsidized government programs and we actually said: Screw it. We are
going to allow the reimportation. We are going to buy it. It is off the
patent. We can actually get an incredible deal. Yay.
What would be the actual cost of healthcare? What would be the health
statistics of our brothers and sisters? What would the effect be on
labor force participation, family formation, and all the other crazy
things we have seen in this data? What would it look like 1 year from
now, 2 years from now, or 3 years from now?
That is actually the thought experiment. Do we want to hand $33
billion of subsidies to insurance companies, or do we want to affect
the actual cost of delivering services and maybe have our brothers and
sisters live healthier and longer?
Why can't we think this way? Is that Republican or Democrat? I would
argue it is just moral. It is trying to be creative with the limited
resources we have. Every dollar of that is borrowed. Why wouldn't we
want a society that is actually getting healthier? I am just trying to
come up with solutions.
There will be an army of lobbyists outside my office tomorrow,
beating the crap out of me, because it turns out sick people are
business models. It is cruel to say that. It is just really cruel to
say that. We have to change it. The morality of cures, the morality
of--and it is also really good economics.
Mr. Speaker, I have two last boards. I want to make a point. We
updated this as of a couple of hours ago. We are actually remarkably
lucky. In other industrialized countries, the debt is starting to scare
the hell out of bond markets. A bunch of our longer term--10 years and
out--have actually been operating very efficiently.
Does it bother anyone that France just took down their government
because they were trying to do some fiscal consolidation? They won't
let them deal with their debt, but they can sell a bond for about 50
basis points cheaper than we can.
Greece is actually about 70 basis points cheaper. When Greece takes a
10-year bond to market, it is a substantially lower interest rate than
the United States. If we look at the credit rating of what people are
willing to buy the debt for, all of these countries have a better
credit rating than the United States.
Mr. Speaker, there are 18 States that actually have a better credit
rating than the Federal Government. I don't know other ways and I keep
struggling to find ways to get folks to take this seriously.
Once again, Mr. Speaker, the hallways will be full of people knocking
on
[[Page H4352]]
our doors, saying: We want more money.
They don't show up to say: Hey, we have an idea to do something
better, faster, and cheaper. We want a free market. We believe in
creative destruction.
Mr. Speaker, I never liked the CHIPS Act because it directs cash
subsidies. Often, subsidizing last-generation technology leads to what
is going on right now. Should Intel give up 10 percent of its
ownership? What would happen if Intel were forced to break up? We might
end up with four or five creative, efficient, and cutting-edge
companies. As an example, one company is doing design.
Do we remember our high school economics class? Creative destruction
is what brings us to that next level of productivity, which raises
wages.
For working people in my district, who are not making about 27 or 28
percent more than the first year of the Biden administration, they are
poor today. I think at the end we came in number two. Yet, I have seen
some numbers in Arizona that are making me very nervous on the growth
of unemployment and the stagnation of wages.
There are ways to make this another American century. The first thing
we have to do is tell the truth. We have a country that is borrowing
$70,000 to $72,000 a second. How long do we think we can keep that up?
Yet, if we get our taxes from a regulatory system and legalize, once
again, creativity, legalize productivity, instead of barrier after
barrier--those barriers may be great politics. They show up in our
fundraisers and help us. Maybe we can get a union to vote for us, but
it is crap economics.
Mr. Speaker, I am incredibly optimistic for the future. I am 63. My
wife is 63. I have said this a few times, and people think I am insane.
We have adopted a 3-year-old and a 9-year-old. We are the luckiest
family on Earth.
When my little boy is about 21 or 22 years old, every tax in America
needs to be doubled just to maintain baseline services. My kids will be
part of the first generation to be poor because of our unwillingness to
tell the truth. Is that the America we aspire to? We are better than
this.
I am sick and tired of having the leadership and others say: David,
we will do it after the next election.
Mr. Speaker, guess what? There is always another election.
I believe the American people would reward us if we demonstrated to
them that we told them the truth. We tried to do hard things and we
saved the future, because that future is coming very fast.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
____________________