DATA IS THE SOLUTION

On 2025-03-11, Representative Michelle Fischbach (R-MN-7) delivered a floor speech titled "DATA IS THE SOLUTION" in the House. The speech addressed healthcare and also covered the economy, taxes. It referenced legislation: S30.

DATA IS THE SOLUTION

Congressional Record, Volume 171 Issue 45 (Tuesday, March 11, 2025) [Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 45 (Tuesday, March 11, 2025)] [House] [Pages H1130-H1133] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] DATA IS THE SOLUTION (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, I yield to the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Mrs. Fischbach). Congratulating Moorhead Spuds Boys' Hockey Team Mrs. FISCHBACH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona, my fellow member of Ways and Means, for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise to congratulate the Moorhead boys' hockey team on their first State championship, defeating Stillwater 7-6 at the Xcel Energy Center over the weekend. The 2A championship win was led by this year's Mr. Hockey, Mason Kraft. The team dedicated the game to their teammate Ethan, who passed away unexpectedly last year at the age of 16. Holding up his jersey throughout the game and bringing the jersey through the handshake line, the Moorhead Spuds have made their families, community, and the whole Seventh District proud. I congratulate the Spuds. Congratulating East Grand Forks on Hockey Championship Mrs. FISCHBACH. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the East Grand Forks boys' hockey team on their incredible Class 1A championship win. With what sounded like the entire community of East Grand Forks in the stands, the team defeated Saint Cloud Cathedral 2-1 in overtime. The East Grand Forks Green Wave has made their families, communities, and the entire Seventh District so very proud, and I am excited for them all to hoist that championship banner back at home. Congratulating Warroad Women's Hockey Team Mrs. FISCHBACH. Mr. Speaker, I rise to congratulate the Warroad girls' hockey team, the Lady Warriors, on their 10-year streak as section champions. These women, from a small town in northernmost Minnesota, are part of one of the best girls' hockey teams in the last 20 years. They have made their families and communities proud. Congratulating Praise Live on 40 Years of Broadcasting Mrs. FISCHBACH. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Praise Live in Osakis, Minnesota, on 40 wonderful years of broadcasting. For 40 years, Praise Live has been bringing hope and faith to people across central and western Minnesota. They have even partnered with stations in Ghana and Uganda and as far-reaching as war-torn Sudan to spread the Gospel and its message of encouragement, faith, and hope across Africa. I thank Praise Live for connecting with, praying for, and strengthening the Christian communities they are committed to serving. I pray for a successful next 40 years. Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I am going to try something this evening. The thesis I am going to try to sell tonight is that data is substantially a solution for us. What? I am going to walk through a number of things that just came out in the new Med Pack report. I have only just started reading it, but there are a couple of interesting things. {time} 1830 I am going to try to walk through the reality of what drives debt and deficits like I do every week. I am going to try to walk folks through some of the actual math instead of some of the hysteria that is modern politics where we make crap up because we don't tell the total details, and let's see if we can actually make any progress here on sort of the intellectual capital of this place. So just off the top of my head, Mr. Speaker, you have seen the stories of the butchering of Federal employees. [[Page H1131]] Okay, let's walk through just some of the math. You have got 3 million Federal employees. If 77,000 have decided to take the early retirement offer, let's see, that is, dear heaven, I should have calculated this before, is 3 percent, 3 percent of the Federal population. I have a chart we are working on, it did not make my stack, to show the growth in the number of Federal employees in the last decade. It is a little rich how many folks run around here and they want more spending for their projects, so they don't want this or they don't want that, but at the same time, they are lined up at our doors and want more spending. Mr. Speaker, if I could come to you and say: Guys, we are going to try to find a way to make the way we deliver services much more efficient and much more rational. So let's actually sort of walk through a couple of the boards. This is one we start with a lot. The number now is a bit more dour. This board is 1 year out of date, but I didn't want to spend the money to reprint it. Mr. Speaker, do you see the blue portion? This fiscal year, about 25 percent of all the spending is in the blue. That is what we get to vote on. That is military. That is what we call nondefense discretionary. We borrow about, let's see, last year for every dollar we took in in taxes, we borrowed or we spent $1.39. So functionally, 39 cents this year, it will be a little better, we think it will only be about 36 cents for every dollar we take in in taxes. So what that basically means is everything you and I as Members of Congress vote on is borrowed. However, we have this reconciliation budget. It is one of the few times where we actually get to talk a little bit about what is in the red, but we don't get to touch net interest. Interest is interest, and some of the math coming in right now says that interest this year, this fiscal year, could be about 1.1 to 1.2. I actually am a bit more dour, $1 trillion, making interest functionally the second highest expense in the Federal Government. Until this reconciliation budget makes it through, defense is like number four on spending, so Social Security, interest, Medicare, Defense. Take a look at what we are even allowed to talk about, Mr. Speaker, in a reconciliation budget. You know why we do the reconciliation budget, it is so we can get around the 60-vote rule in the Senate. So we are doing all this dancing and stuff because of the Senate rules, but we can't touch net interest and we are not allowed to go near Social Security. So think about that, Mr. Speaker. That area on that last chart I just showed you that was red, the majority of it we are not even allowed to talk about it. We can't touch it, and we can't do anything about it. So when you see the authorization, Mr. Speaker, that is actually why committees like Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce have such a lift. So what happens if I come to you, Mr. Speaker, and start to say: You have this country that is binging on debt. We are in extraordinary measures right now, so some of the daily debt calculations are a little screwed up, but before we went through extraordinary measures, we were in the 60, $70,000 per second, every day, every second. If my math is correct and we come in about $2.2 trillion, maybe $2.3 trillion of borrowing this year, then we have to start thinking about that. So we take in about $5 trillion in tax receipts, we are going to spend about $7 trillion, meaning about 7.25 percent of the entire economy is borrowed this year, and if we don't get our act together, in 9 budget years it could be 9.2 percent of the entire economy is borrowed. I just wanted to make the point because I have come here in the past, interest rates have fallen dramatically in the last couple of weeks which, remember the seesaw, we have talked about the seesaw, when the economy is really strong or there is a shortage of capital to borrow, interest rates go up meaning United States pays a lot more in debt servicing. When interest rates go down, it typically means the expectations of the economy are slowing down meaning our tax receipts fall. So the middle of the seesaw stays the same. I saw some people getting giddy: Look, interest rates are down. It also means actually some of our modeling in the future quarters of tax receipts also are starting to fall now. So there is no free option anymore. However, Mr. Speaker, you have seen some of the discussions. Ray Dalio has been out there talking about the heart attack of debt and what happens to other countries and the history of that going back, I think in his book he is going back a couple thousand years. Here is functionally the world borrowing. China is borrowing about 17 percent of what we call the available capital for sovereign borrowing. Japan is borrowing about 10 percent. We are borrowing 40 percent. We are about 25 percent of the world's GDP, but we are borrowing 40 percent of the money that goes to sovereigns. Mr. Speaker, you have to understand the scale, the binging on debt. Mr. Speaker, when I get to the very last board, I am going to show again the chart that just seems to upset people, but it is math. Over from today through the next 30 years, discretionary spending, according to the CBO's 30-year model, actually ends up with a growth slower than tax receipts, but it is Social Security and Medicare. It is demographics. It is not Republican, and it is not Democrat, it is demographics. Where it becomes partisan is where it is the unwillingness to tell the truth about the math and then actually the creativity of how we disrupt the cost. How do you actually find some of these things? This chart is a little awkward. I would have designed it a little differently, but sometimes you are running around. The point we are trying to make is here was the effective interest in 2014 to the United States. Now all of a sudden we are up here, and the actual market rate we expect in the future to actually continue to consume, meaning interest is our great fragility in this country. I have told the comment many times that at our current rate of borrowing, we have almost put the bond market in charge of this country because, Mr. Speaker, if you have to bring hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars to market every month, you screw with your banker. In many