Our Debt Ceiling Crisis

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, as we get ourselves sort of set up here--the hazard when you use boards--I actually want to walk through a couple of things. If I don't make some folks mad, particularly on the other side tonight, I am not doing my job.

How many of you have been basically hearing, even the President today talking about this debt ceiling and how outrageous it is that Republicans are trying to actually use it for some policy.

If there are any of the scribes that we call reporters, please listen for one moment. When we talk about the debt ceiling, how many of you remember 2017, how Democrats rolled Trump on the deficit ceiling?

The Democrats and the press were giddy that when we were up against the debt ceiling in 2017, that Schumer and the gang basically required another $15 billion in spending, and that was the cost of their participation in the debt ceiling. Oh, but that would be outrageous to try to do policy as part of the debt ceiling, but you did it.

Then how about this? 2019, does anyone remember someone called Speaker Pelosi? In that case, the extortion was additional spending of $324 billion.

Now, the difference for Republicans is we are trying to save the country from the debt crisis, where the left was trying to spend more money. But this is in the last couple of years.

You basically have the press, a whole bunch of the Washington, D.C., chattering class, obviously, our Democratic colleagues, oh, we can't believe the Republicans are actually asking for some fiscal constraints. Okay.

But it was just 2019 that Pelosi--no debt increase until spending limits are raised. That is policy. So how come it was wonderful just a couple of years ago, a few years ago when we were up against the debt ceiling when Democrats asked for policy changes, and now they are enraged that we are asking for it.

Does anyone understand how absolutely duplicitous this place is and the short memories around here?

It took us a good, oh, 20, 30 seconds on a search engine to find this.

If you are going to hold us to a standard, hold us to the very ones you on the left live by. In 2017 you demanded changes. In 2019 you demanded $324 billion of additional spending, and that was your price of playing with the debt ceiling.

What we, as conservatives and Republicans are basically asking is help us save the country. You have got to understand some of the things going on.

But this is a real point, and I know this makes some folks uncomfortable. The only way this place seems to work is when we are up against what is called a stressor. It is a budget; it is a deadline; it is a debt ceiling.

Yet, if you look at the last couple of decades, actually, going back to the 1980s, almost any time we have actually accomplished any fiscal constraint, we were up against a debt ceiling.

Look, go back to Gramm-Rudman, all the way through, policy agreement after policy agreement. There is what, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 in functionally the last 40 years. Every single one of these came from a debt ceiling.

Yet, if you read particularly the Washington, D.C., press--and these are supposed to be people that know what the hell is going on. Oh, we can't believe Speaker McCarthy and those Republicans are actually asking for some fiscal constraint tied to the debt ceiling. Huh?

Now, when the left had it, they demanded more spending, but all these are ones that actually gave us some policy. It is just the duplicity around here.

Does anyone pay attention to the numbers coming out of Treasury, the numbers coming out of CBO, the numbers coming out of Joint Tax? Are you following what is actually going on?

I am sorry. I am trying not to get too angry. If I have any of my Members here, or your staff, I know literacy sometimes isn't our greatest accomplishment around here. This is this week's Economist magazine. Please, someone, just read the cover, `` . . . fiscal fantasyland.'' When will politicians wake up.

When The Economist magazine is warning us how much danger we are in, and that the numbers are coming off the rails, you need to understand what the hell is going on.

``Governments are living in a fiscal fantasyland.'' And this is from The Economist magazine talking about the green tax credit that we were all promised--remember, the left got up in front of these microphones and said, they will not be more than $391 billion over the 10 years.

Then all of a sudden, we come back and find out the actual scoring is turning into $1.2 trillion. Yes, CBO re-scored it and they basically doubled it. But the outside world is calculating it, Goldman and others are basically saying, no, it is $1.2 trillion.

Remember how proud the left was: We are going to cut the deficit because we raised these taxes and then we are going to do these green credits. Have you noticed they don't talk about that any longer because the new scoring it spends money, it doesn't save a dime.

Yet, at the same time, do you understand what is happening in the first 7 months of this year? Entitlement spending is already up 11 percent in the first 7 months of this year. That is stunning amounts of money.

But receipts--we put revenues on here because most people know it, but for Ways and Means, tax revenues are the receipts. We are down 10 percent.

Do you understand what I am saying? Spending on entitlements is up 11 percent but revenues are down 10. Do you understand what the hell is going on?

There is a reason--you remember a few days ago, or 2 weeks ago, all of a sudden, the Treasury Secretary goes, oh God. The cutoff date when they have used up all the extraordinary measures is moving up. What was it a month, 6 weeks? That was because the tax revenues weren't coming in nearly as high as we expected.

When you start to understand some of what is going on, just this year we will spend 40 percent more on interest. We are going to spend over $100 billion--so far, I think the first 7 months, over $100 billion more just on interest because we were living in this artificial fantasyland for the last decade with suppressed interest rates.

Now, remember, it is not just the $2 trillion we are going to borrow this year. Yes, it is approaching $2 trillion. It is the fact that we have what is called the weighted daily average--I think we are about what, 60, 70 months--and that basically means within that time you have to refinance half of all U.S. sovereign debt.

That new sovereign debt, when it is refinanced, or the new $2 trillion that has to be refinanced, is at today's interest rates, not the artificially low interest rates we had 2 years ago before the Biden inflation took off. Actually, that is not fair. Democrat inflation took off.

We are going to spend dramatically more on interest. Be aware, if those people who are getting today's inflation number didn't pay enough attention to what the core calculation was. That core calculation was sitting at about 4.9. If you read the notes, it was so sticky. We may have higher interest rates in this country for years, not this magic thing where we are going to fall back down to 2 percent inflation at the end of the year and everything is going to be hunky-dory again. That is not what the data is saying.

You have got to understand. Federal spending soars; revenues fall. This is from The Wall Street Journal just this last week. Budget surpluses, including adjustments for timing effects. The outlays already--this was just this last month. April is supposed to be our big month where we take in all of these tax revenues. We were functionally $274 billion upside down. That is a 74 percent change from last year. Do you understand what is going on?

I am sorry that I am going through these pretty fast, because I have a cutoff time in 10 minutes.

Federal spending. This is also from The Wall Street Journal. April, we fell by $135 billion from what we expected.

Year-to-date spending is up $400 billion, 12 percent. Do this with me. Federal spending is up 12 percent from last year.

Year-to-date deficits. Now, this one you are going to love. Year-to- date deficits, we are doing the calculation, it is not done yet, and we don't know yet. We are 7 months in, so we are doing some guessing. Maybe there will be some late tax receipts. Maybe all of a sudden, bunches of people will start working and start paying additional taxes. We may have $2 trillion this year. Right now, year-to-date deficits, we are functionally, for last month, $928 billion, up 236 percent from this time last year.

If you want to know why many of us are so emphatic on actually getting some fiscal constraints, this is the punch line here. Please hear this. Why do we need some fiscal constraints as part of this debt ceiling? If we do not communicate to the world debt markets that we are going to start to take our debt seriously, we will be punished as a Nation.

Now, that punishment may mean our bonds are just at a little bit higher interest rate. You already saw one of the previous boards, just this year, interest is costing us 40 percent more. Just a couple ticks on interest rates when you are floating a publicly held debt--I am actually not even sure where we are at. Are we at maybe $24 trillion, $25 trillion of publicly held debt? This stuff here should scare you to death if you own a calculator.

Yeah, we really are heading toward borrowing $2 trillion this year. We weren't supposed to be anywhere near this. This is where we are heading. This is just assuming that the numbers are going to come in as they have.

The problem is, if you have been following what CBO has been publishing, they keep ticking down the gross domestic product calculation, the GDP calculation, for the rest of the year. I think the calculation for 2024 is we expect a year of 1.2. They are basically telegraphing. If we hit recession the second half of this year, I guarantee you we are going to blow through $2 trillion of borrowing just this year.

I know this chart is almost impossible read. We printed it too small.

Individual income taxes. Here is our big hit. Individual income taxes look like they have fallen about 18 percent. Payroll taxes are up about 9 percent. Corporate income tax is up about 4 percent. The total receipts are down 10 percent.

Here are our spending charts. Social Security has gone up. The spend on Social Security is up about 11 percent so far this year.

Medicare, remember, the vast majority of the borrowing in this country, the vast majority, is just Medicare. It is healthcare costs. Medicare this year, the spend in it is already up 15 percent in a single year.

Medicaid is up maybe 7, 8 percent just this year.

Anyone see the math problem?

This is from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, our Federal budget. They are actually almost predicting we are going to cross over 7\1/2\ percent of the entire economy being in borrowed money.

So we are being told the long-run GDP, according to CBO's calculation, is basically going to be sitting at about one-eighth. Yet, borrowing is going to be 7 to 7\1/2\ percent of the economy, but the growth of the economy will be 1.8.

Does anyone see the math problem?

The Federal Reserve now has lowered the outlook down to 1.2 for just this year.

Even The Economist magazine here, their math has us now starting this year and running out, now starting to run deficits that are 7 percent or more.

Mr. Speaker, this math should scare us all half to death. There is a reason. If we do not get some fiscal constraints, whether it be part of this debt ceiling or something else, the markets will punish us.

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