Take Demographics Seriously

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Speaker, we have 30 minutes here, and I am trying to do sort of a wrap-up. As folks know, the House actually passed a continuing resolution. I personally wish we had battled it out and stayed and just tried to see if we could get the Senate to do some of the work.

I have been trying to find ways to get this place and the U.S. Senate, but also voters and, Heaven knows, the Presidential candidates to take seriously the demographics and what is going on in our country but also the world. We are not the only one.

I am going to bring, as I often do, the boards, but let's try to put this in a type of perspective. This article says that the world has now surpassed its record of debt. Believe it or not, it was during the Napoleonic wars that the amount of debt in the world actually skyrocketed.

Congratulations. Right now, I think world governments are $312 trillion in debt. Why is that important?

Well, the burn rate of the United States, we are burning right now-- remember, this is a fairly decent economy, and we are borrowing about $70,000 a second, every day, $70,000 a second. I am going to show you some boards to sort of walk through this.

Do you think there is this ocean of capital in the United States and around the world that is really excited to keep buying U.S. bonds and just keep buying them and keep buying them and keep buying them?

When you read the stories about how many Americans are struggling right now and struggling with their own debt, how much liquidity is there to keep consuming our bonds?

One of my pitches I keep trying to sell here is if we keep up what is going on right now, where we are borrowing in a good year a couple trillion dollars--we will borrow a couple trillion dollars this year-- Congress has made the decision that those who will really run this government, those who really run this country will be called the bond market.

If you need to refinance, like we did this year, you are subject to the fragility of the bond market. This fiscal year we have refinanced about $8 trillion and bring to market an additional 2, so you are basically sitting on $10 trillion. That is not even counting the short term where it was a 30 day and 6 months, and those things that had to be rolled. Refinancing makes you subject to the fragility of the bond market and what interest rate and how much liquidity and how many idiots like me come behind these microphones and try to explain the world debt markets to you.

Take it seriously. It is not a game. The United States is now number 14 on the credit stack. That means there are 13 other countries today that can sell a 10-year bond cheaper than us. Greece today can sell a 10-year bond cheaper than the United States. Think about that.

I am starting to pick up the first warnings in some of the financial press. Now, this is sort of the deep bond articles and those things. When Moody's is starting to allow their people to leak out information saying, yes, last November we actually put the United States on a negative watch. Remember, we are still an AAA negative watch. That is what they did to us a year ago.

Stories are starting to circulate, if the United States doesn't look and act like we are taking our debt seriously, we are going to get a downgrade. Now, you go, well, who cares? You are the reserve currency.

Guess what? There are 13 other countries with better credit ratings than the United States. If you get the downgrade, if two of the three major rating agencies were to downgrade the United States and no longer it is all AAA, you know actually in our own statutes and a number of State statutes, they wouldn't be allowed to buy U.S. sovereign debt.

Are you ready for the interest rate? The Federal Reserve starts lowering our interest rates. Actually have you noticed? Has anyone been paying attention? Just go on the bond market. Have you noticed that U.S. sovereigns aren't going down the way--I mean, the yield curve is starting to look normal again, semi-normal. Why aren't they going down? I am going to argue our voracious appetite for debt and consumption because this place won't tell you the truth.

Once again, I am going to do this a little bit backwards. For every dollar this year we take in, how much do we spend? Come on. Let's make this a play-at-home game. Figure in your own head: When we take in a dollar, what is spent? If you said $1.39 for every dollar of tax receipts we take in, you would be right. You have got to understand, this will get dramatically worse in a decade because the Social Security trust fund will be depleted. Medicare part A covers, what, 38 or 40 percent of Medicare? The rest is really coming out of the general fund, which will be depleted. In 10 years, we will have 22, 23 percent of Americans 65 and up ready for their earned benefits, and we have got to figure out a way to finance it.

Let's sort of make a point here. I typically used to start with this board, trying to say: Do you see the blue area? This is defense. This is nondefense. That is what you, as a Member of Congress, get to vote on. Every dime you as a Member of Congress get to vote on is borrowed.

Understand, the borrowing is actually bigger than the blue here because that is 1.8 trillion. This year we are going to borrow $2 trillion. If you want to put in the interest and money we are paying back to the trust fund, it is, what, 1.2 trillion, 1.3 trillion--$2.3 trillion.

What that means is every dime of defense is borrowed, every dime of nondefense discretionary is borrowed, and let's call it $400 billion of your favorite earned benefit. Let's call it Medicare because that is easy.

I know this place loves to come behind these mikes and speechify--I am going to cut so-and-so's salary because they are a crap administrator. Great. You just took an hour of our time that if we are borrowing $70,000 a second, did you help us? We seem incapable of doing things that are serious. Hell, we are incapable of telling voters the truth.

This weekend, I had a wonderful woman come, if we would just get rid of foreign aid, we would be fine. Then you show her that every dime of foreign aid, where the money actually goes, is a week, a week and a half of borrowing at most, and that is every dime. Most of it is extra money that comes back because they buy our stuff. A week of borrowing. She just looked at me with these daggers because she had a text message from someone she never knew basically telling her if you got rid of foreign aid, you could balance the budget. No, it is about a week.

Get rid of congressional salaries. I did this math. It is like six seconds of borrowing every day.

Please stop bathing in the clown show. This is for Members and staff and the public. We need to be educated. You need a well-educated electorate to pay attention because we are going to have to do some very difficult and complicated things.

If you think there is a simple solution--when every dime a Member of Congress votes on is borrowed, if you think that is a simple solution, it turns out you have got to revolutionize the cost of healthcare. You can disrupt it with technology, with other processes. You can adopt technology to crash the price of government. You are going to have a discussion about talent-based immigration.

Remember, in 15 years, the United States has more deaths than births. I believe we are about to have the fifth year in a row where prime-age males are dying younger. In the last six years, 390,000 Americans have died of fentanyl. It turns out next year, we might have a fentanyl vaccine. You go, oh, I don't like that. In 6 years, 390,000 people have died. You are not willing to deal with the moral imperative of saving our brothers and sisters? We need to think differently.

The fact of the matter is, you are living in a time of miracles. We can cure hepatitis C. We can cure hemophilia. There are things that are coming out, there is the Vertex experiments that look like they are about to cure type 1 diabetes. If diabetes is 33 percent of all U.S. healthcare spending, what is the morality but what is also the amazing economics if we would fixate in the farm bill, nutrition support in the way we deliver healthcare to get our brothers and sisters healthier?

It turns out the single biggest thing you can do for stabilizing U.S. debt is making America healthier. How many people have you heard come behind these microphones in the last year be willing to say that? You upset the lobbyists walking up and down the hallways that need people who are sick.

Look, we will do better, we are working hard on this chart. I swear if there was someone out there, if someone out there knows where I can find it, call my office, but we are trying to actually build a chart that shows all the outlays because I keep getting people saying, well, if you just cut this, cut that, and I am trying to show you, oh, that is great, you just got rid of 3 days of borrowing, 2 days of borrowing.

We actually did a little contest earlier in the year and we added up everything, and it was about 3 weeks. We published that. ``Oh, it can't be,'' I was told that it is just waste and fraud or, as Democrats say, we don't tax rich people enough.

Once again, I have done multiple presentations on this. I have actually brought the boards and did all that. Every tax that has truly been proposed--so it is written out--where you tax income, you tax capital gains all up and down for people $400,000 and up, when you did the economic effects, you got 1\1/2\ percent of GDP.

If all discretionary is like $860 billion, could you get rid of a quarter of it? Could you get rid of a third of it? Okay, let's pretend you can get $300 billion of it. All the things we have truly talked about cutting, all the Democrats' tax hikes, all of our cuts, you get 2\1/2\ percent of GDP.

We are going to borrow in a good economic year. The reality is that tax receipts are pretty good this year. We are still going to borrow almost just a little less than 7 percent of GDP. Think of that. What the hell? Excuse me.

What happens if there is another pandemic? If there is a war? If there is a recession? We would barely have the capacity now to cover our current spending.

Part of the reason for a chart like this--and I know it is unreadable from a distance--but we have been trying to put in that the Department of Agriculture is 1 point, this energy program is 0.12, trying to basically explain that the theatrics of this place don't come close to adding up.

Mr. Speaker, 100 percent of borrowing from today through the next 30 years--this doesn't mean that you don't revolutionize government every way you can, but the big number says every dime of borrowing today through the next 30 years, 75 percent of it is healthcare, mostly Medicare. We got older.

In 9, 10 years, when the Social Security trust fund has been depleted, are we going to reach into the general fund and backfill it? How are we going to cover that? Are we going to allow the doubling of poverty of seniors in America? We already have a crisis right now of the number of senior baby boomers that are ending up on the street. This is really screwed up.

Yet, this place, when you say we engage in this theater--``Well, I am going to cut this program. I just got rid of 15 seconds of borrowing.'' Okay, maybe we should do that, but don't think you actually accomplished something because, in the time of that debate, we have often borrowed more than the debate would have saved.

Now for a couple of the punch lines. I am going to do this three or four ways because I am trying to get it to burn in.

Remember I was telling you for every $1 we receive in taxation in the Federal Government, we spend $1.39? Here is one of the punch lines you need to have burned into your consciousness: About 18 cents of that $1.39 borrowing is just interest. What did the interest buy?

Look, there are some economists that say you put on interest, someone got a rate of return, so they are going to spend it, but in many ways, it is not money that went to build a healthier military, dealt with poverty. It is going to continue to grow and continue to grow.

You try to help folks understand if we are borrowing $1.39 for every $1 we receive and then try to show a little dotted line here is basically--let's call it the break-even line.

If you are in the orange, that is mandatory spending. We don't get to vote on it. It is a formula, and many of those formulas haven't been looked at in decades. Do you see the blue? That is interest. That is a huge part of the growth, interest and that healthcare. See the gray up here? That is all discretionary. All we actually debate around here is a fraction of this gray.

You look at it and you get over here so even when you get away from the pandemic and start to look into the future--now, I don't know if you notice the tiny improvement right here in 2025. That is where we are still banking on no recession, no slowdown.

In `26, it will get also a tiny bit better because working people are going to pay about $400 billion in additional taxes.

Remember, a whole portion of the 2017 tax reform expires and some of my friends who are running for office on the other side and made it clear they do not support anything from that tax reform in 2017. Just be prepared.

I have a higher income and very well-educated district. Look, I am blessed. We calculate it is an almost $3,000 per family tax hike if we don't fix this next year.

This isn't a game. Can you imagine what the economic impacts are going to be if you do that to working people? Yet, you continue to show chart after chart.

I want to make a point. I have done presentations here where you show, here is years--75 years, here is years where we had very high marginal tax rates. We get about 17, 18 percent of the economy in taxes. Here is where we have had low marginal tax rates. We get about 17, 18 percent of the economy. Your solution, if you actually wanted facts in economics and not political rhetoric, is adopt regulatory policies, tax policies, trade policies that maximize economic growth.

Do you want more tax receipts? If you actually care about the debt, stop living in this fantasy that we are just going to tax rich people and that takes care of everything. If you look at some of these proposals, they have already spent the money three or four times.

I keep trying to present over and over that when you start to realize the amount of our spending, and by the end of the decade--think of this, 10 years from now, if you add in the debt, we will owe to the trust funds or what is left of them--we are at $56 trillion. What happens if interest rates move against us? Remember, interest today is the second biggest expenditure in this government--Social Security and then behind that is interest, then Medicare, then defense. Defense is now the fourth expenditure of this government. Social Security and then behind that is interest.

You try over and over. So you see right here 2024, `25, you see the little, tiny movement we get in `26 and a couple years after that? Boom. This here is because the tax hikes that are coming--they are already in statute. They are coming. It is not a vote. We are not going to take a vote and say we are going to raise these taxes. It is called tax expirations. It is already coming. It is math.

After 3, 4 years, you are back and the curve is back in. We don't want to tell the truth. It is demographics. Starting in 1990, we started having fewer children. Why can't we start to tell the truth that here is what we are going to do in our regulatory code, our tax code, to promote investments and things that make us more productive?

We are going to do things that actually close income inequality. Turns out, we have datasets that say the key driver to income inequality in America is actually health. Then think what we do in our nutrition policy, ag policy, other things. I mean, we are killing ourselves.

Mr. Speaker pro tempore, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining.

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Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, for everyone's sanity, I promise to use only a couple minutes of it.

Mr. Speaker, this is 2024. We functionally are going to take in $4,898,000,000,000. We are going to spend $6,880,000,000,000. Anyone see the math problem?

Then, if you want to tell the truth about actual debt and actual budgets, where you actually say, okay, here is the interest we have to pay back to the Social Security trust fund, here is the Medicaid trust fund, the other things, you are functionally looking at a $2 trillion, $2.2 trillion deficit in a year that things are good.

The other point back to this board, how many Members of Congress will stand in front of you and say: Do you understand every dime--so like my friend, Mr. Green, and I get to vote on--every dime we vote on is borrowed.

When 14.1 percent of all Federal spending is just interest, it turns out the most powerful thing you and I can do to stabilize borrowing--I have done hours on this floor trying to present it. Am I just an idiot for trying? Showing debt can't come from tax hikes--okay. Fine. Do that, but it is marginal.

Many of the things we want to cut--I actually believe government is dramatically too big and too intrusive. Cut them. Unless you tell the truth about the primary drivers of U.S. debt, which is demographics, healthcare.

Are we going to change the rules so technology, so cures are moral? Fixate on those things. Turns out, those are what you do to bend the debt curve. Yet, I will give this speech over and over, and maybe it just doesn't satiate the dopamine hits. Maybe it is just not trite and easy enough because it turns out doing some of this will be really hard, but it is doable. There is a path.

My 2-year-old is running around here somewhere. Yes, I have a 2-year- old and an 8-year-old, and my wife is exactly my age. Yes, I am pathologically optimistic. I always think that is funny.

My little boy, when he turns 21, 22, every tax in the United States has to be doubled. Every tax has to be doubled just to maintain baseline spending. Absolutely immoral what we are doing. We have set up the first generation in U.S. history to be poorer than their parents. Doesn't have to be that way, but this place needs revolution in the way it thinks because you can't keep being absolute dumb--you can't keep doing it the way we are doing it.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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