Addressing Our Exploding Deficit

Floor Speech

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Mr. KHANNA. Mr. Speaker, one of the largest challenges our country faces is exploding deficits. The Republican budget would add $2.4 trillion over 10 years to the existing deficits.

Let me show this chart. On this chart, the yellow line shows the existing deficits as they currently are projected. The Republicans would take those existing deficits and add, over 10 years, $2.4 trillion.

Now, Ray Dalio and Jamie Dimon have said that this is a disaster and that the bond markets are afraid.

Why are the bond markets afraid?

It is because they know that the Fed would engage in quantitative easing, buying up more Treasury bonds, as people outside view the Treasuries as more risky. This will lower the value of the dollar, and it will make basically all Americans poorer.

However, people are tired of just hearing one side bash the other side about deficits and no one doing anything about it. So, today, we are introducing a plan, a real plan, to lower deficits in America.

This plan would take the deficit down over the next 10 years to below 3 percent of GDP. The historic leverage over the last 40, 50 years has been under 4 percent of GDP.

As far as the Republican plan, by the way, independent analysis takes the deficits to 8.6 percent of GDP. That is the highest it has ever been in peacetime. Our plan would take it back down to under 4 percent.

Mr. Speaker, here you see the Republican deficits, here you see the current deficits and here you see our plan which would reduce deficits by $12 trillion.

Now, Mr. Speaker, you say: How are we going to do this deficit reduction?

Where are the spending cuts, and where are the revenue generators?

It is pretty simple actually. We need to start with the Pentagon and modernizing the Pentagon. This is what Elon Musk actually signed up to do with SpaceX and initially with DOGE. He wanted to cut the bloated defense contractors and the waste out of the Pentagon. We need not cost-plus accounting. We need new competition.

Secondly, we need to go after negotiating with Big Pharma. Medicare should be negotiating drug prices.

Third, we should be stopping Medicare Advantage from ripping off the American people. They are upcoding, and they are making people sicker than they actually are. We should make competitive procurement for the government.

None of this, by the way, is in the Republican plan. These are the big-ticket items that would actually start to reduce the deficit. They always say that our side is not for spending cuts. Right here are actual spending cuts of what we can be doing to reduce the deficit.

Also, Musk has called for ending fossil fuel subsidies. Let's have some revenue generators. We have to vote to cut spending and generate revenue.

Let's tax billionaires. I never understood the billionaire argument. I have more billionaires than anyone in this Chamber. There are five trillion-dollar companies in my district: Apple, Google, Invidia, Broadcom, and Tesla. I am saying: Let's raise taxes on them.

I don't understand how this is a hard vote for 434 other Members of Congress. We should be making sure that we are taxing our stock buybacks. We should be making sure that when we have large inheritances that people who are inheriting it actually have to pay capital gains so that we, in this country, start to reward hard work again and not just speculation.

This is so we celebrate the people who are doing daily work and paying taxes as opposed to just speculators who are avoiding taxes.

Anyway, this plan would reduce the deficit, reduce debt by $12 trillion over 10 years, and it would also reduce the interest payments on the deficit every year which would add an extra $2 trillion of savings.

Now, I am not saying this plan is perfect, but here is what I think every Member of Congress should do: Propose how you are going to reduce the deficits, and tell the American people how the math works.

Every Member of Congress owes that to their constituents.

Mr. Speaker, if you disagree with me, then have your own plan. Here is what I do know: The Republican plan is just going to explode deficits, and it is going to hurt the American economy and make us all poorer.

I hope, Mr. Speaker, we can come together in this body to be honest with the American people, to actually have a calculator to do math, and to propose real plans for deficit reduction.

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