TRUTH ABOUT MATH

On 2026-07-22, Representative David Schweikert (R-AZ-1) delivered a floor speech titled "TRUTH ABOUT MATH" in the House.

TRUTH ABOUT MATH

Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 120 (Wednesday, July 22, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 120 (Wednesday, July 22, 2026)] [House] [Pages H5169-H5172] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] TRUTH ABOUT MATH (Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, Mr. Schweikert of Arizona was recognized for 30 minutes.) Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, let's try something I have never done before, but I also need to sort of lock something down. Mr. Speaker, if there is anyone from your staff watching--and we said we would make it public-- [[Page H5170]] my team and myself were made a promise today that when we get back we are going to sit down with a couple of the committee chairs and some of my joint economic economists because we have been sitting on pieces of legislation for over a year to cut spending and borrowing, without removing services. There will be lobbyists who will yell and scream. There will be activists who make their money. Mr. Speaker pro tempore, over and over and over around here, we spent the last few months--as a matter of fact, I came behind this microphone probably half a dozen times talking about waste and fraud and walking through all the things we found. How many bills have we moved through here that actually take those things on? Turns out it is harder than you think because the fraud, as it turns out, it is fairly easy to identify. It is a little hard to stop. Often, it is money that has already gone out the door, so we have to hunt someone down, try to collect the money, and put someone in jail. When you hear the term ``waste,'' it is often our fault. We designed a program that has leakage, or certain companies have found ways to take advantage of it, certain bureaucracies. I will give you a simple example. This is going to make sense in a moment. In New York City, in the last 5 years the number one job creator turns out to be a Medicaid program for home visiting. Think of that. The number one job creator for half a decade in New York City is a Medicaid program. Even when the leftist Democrat Governor of New York says, yeah, it is fraud, maybe we could do something together. We have worked over and over and over to try to write bills. Many of them are very uncomfortable because they are complex. They require changing things in what we call entitlements. They are moral, and they are necessary. I hope I am not a fool. One year ago, when we actually did part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the Family Tax Cut Act, yes, we had an obligation to extend the tax policy and do some of the pro-growth things. When we came back, many of us thought we had negotiated an agreement that when we did the second reconciliation bill, we were going to start to save the future of this country, save the future of the economy, convince the bond market we weren't going to continue to borrow ourselves into oblivion. It turns out--and this isn't solely the Speaker's fault--it was really hard to convince a lot of our Members how difficult it is to go home and tell the truth about math. Mr. Speaker, if your staff is out there listening, I expect you and this institution to keep your promise to our team, that we are going to take these bills seriously, we are going to bring in the leadership from the committees, and we are going to pound it out how we move them forward. There is a reason--I am sorry, I don't mean to sound like a melodramatic jerk. {time} 2040 How many of you get our daily debt? The Joint Economic Committee actually built a system where every single day, every workday, we reach into the Treasury's management system where they have these charts and graphs, and we capture what was borrowed today, what was brought to market today, and what was sold today. Who in this room, the handful of us who are here and hopefully the thousand televisions we are on, understand over the last 12 months--if I do the last 12 months average, $93,763 is what we are borrowing every second. Every second, we are borrowing over $93,000. I understand some of these numbers bounce up and down because we also had some refunding issues after the last debt ceiling issue a year ago, but in the last 12 months, we, as a government, have borrowed $2.948 trillion if you just want to do this fiscal year. Here is the publicly sold debt, and over here is the money we borrow from the trust funds, which we do pay interest back. We have to intellectually be honest: It is borrowing. Often we quote what we borrowed from the public because that is in the public bond market, but when we borrow from the trust funds--Social Security, Medicare, railroad, retirement, everything else. We pay an interest. We owe it back. We are now at $2.022 trillion in borrowing this fiscal year. This total year, the original projections were $1.6 trillion, $1.7 trillion. We are heading to borrowing $2.3 trillion. I know it is hard to see 12 zeros. I know no one cares, but just understand, this is really crappy. Maybe we all understand this number. At the current rate of total borrowing--remember, net borrowing is borrowing from the public. Gross borrowing is borrowing from the public and from the trust funds. Anyone want to take a guess how many days it takes us to borrow another trillion dollars? It is 123 days. Every 123 days, we are ticking off another trillion dollars. Total U.S. debt as of today is $39.660 trillion. By the end of this summer work period, whatever we want to call it, we are going to be at $40 trillion. Doesn't this make anyone pucker up, or is the joke that is often said here, never near a microphone because we would be an idiot to say in front of a microphone, no one ever gets unelected by spending too much money because the public wants it. In 6 years, when you are on Social Security and you are getting a 22 to 24 percent cut in your check, and we double poverty of seniors, 7 years from now when we double the number of baby boomers who live on the street, maybe some of this will make sense, that we should have done something much sooner, but math is math. Mr. Speaker, one of the reasons I am a little exercised this week-- and you have been in conference with those things. I accept I have been a bit of a jerk. I am just trying to find some way to be heard. I have been doing the same damn thing behind this microphone for 15 years, and it has only gotten worse. Something is wrong when--I am number four in Ways and Means. I chair Oversight in Ways and Means. I chair the Joint Economic Committee. We have a handful of Ph.D. economists who are just smart, yet I walk into a room of my brothers and sisters, Democrats, even Republicans, with my charts and almost get booed because we don't want to hear it. We are going to bring down this Republic, and it is not going to be some mob coming over the border. It is going to be our own fiscal insanity. Remember, in about 25, 26 months, the majority of our spending, not tax collection, spending, will go to our brothers and sisters who are 65 and up. We are functionally an insurance company with an Army. Last year, for every dollar we took in taxes, we spent $1.43. If you do the basic math, and forgive me, I did this off the top of my head. If I make a mistake, send me an angry text like everyone else. I think right now, so far this fiscal year, for every dollar we are taking in, we are spending $1.47. I am sorry the staff has to sit here and hear an idiot like me constantly coming back up behind this microphone and saying the same thing week after week, but what do we do to cut through? I am going to show a couple boards here. If you are the public and run into a Member of Congress or someone running for Congress, look at them and don't say, what more are you going to give me? I want more money. Ask them, how are you going to save the country? Because about a week ago, our team met with, I think it was the Penn Wharton Budget Model, and the paperwork and the discussion I had with them after, I walked out of the room and my stomach hurt. They had numbers where in 14 years we hit a wall. They had numbers saying 12 to 14 years--I am going to show you that I have it even sooner on some of our data--interest is the number one expense of this government. It surpasses Social Security. There was a discussion if we go with current policy--and we are going to talk about that, current policy, not current law, because this is the scam we keep doing here. We keep extending our spending and extending these things. The current policy in 14 years, the United States actually can't sell any more bonds. We have hit the wall. We hit a debt spiral. I have been here 16 years. All right. Let's do this. Let's run through these boards. Everyone has seen this over and over because, traditionally, I start with this one. This is just the pie chart. If you [[Page H5171]] see what is in blue, that is what I, as a Member of Congress, typically get to vote on. Do you see the red? That is actually on autopilot. I need you to understand Social Security is the number one spend. Interest is the number two spend. Medicare is the number three spend. Medicaid and the ObamaCare subsidies are the number four spend. Defense is number five. How many times do we get liberals saying if we just cut defense, we will balance everything? No. Interest will be bigger than all of defense this year. It is not that hard. When we talk about these reconciliation bills, and now we are talking about possibly doing a fourth one, and that is what I am banking my sanity on is most of this red--now, you don't get to do anything on interest. Interest we owe. Remember, this is net interest. Gross interest is actually closer to like--sorry. We will be close to $1.280 trillion because we owe the interest back to the trust funds. The other parts here are what we call mandatory. We owe Medicare. We made a deal. We owe Social Security. We made a deal. Does that mean we can't do things to revolutioniz