OUR ECONOMIC FUTURE

On 2026-05-14, Representative David Schweikert (R-AZ-1) delivered a floor speech titled "OUR ECONOMIC FUTURE" in the House.

OUR ECONOMIC FUTURE

Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 82 (Thursday, May 14, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 82 (Thursday, May 14, 2026)] [House] [Pages H3521-H3524] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] OUR ECONOMIC FUTURE (Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, Mr. Schweikert of Arizona was recognized for 30 minutes.) Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Speaker, I am actually going to try something that we have done over and over. I apologize; I have had a lot of coffee. If I start talking like a machine gun, just start waving at me. I am going to try one more time to communicate to the thousands of televisions we are on around the campus. Hopefully, there are still staff, interns, and others who actually care about our economic future. Maybe there are a few Members. Maybe there are actually some really smart people out on C-SPAN, because I am often remarkably impressed when these floor speeches go up on YouTube or other things at some of the comments. I am also heartbroken about the thousands of Russian bots and other things that may crop up. Let's do some basic reality, and I am going to walk through some of these numbers. As of today, for the last 12 months, so more than just within the fiscal year, the last 12 months--so I pick up the tax cycle, and I pick up everything else--we are borrowing about $87,000 a second, every second of every day. Yet, I will go home and give a speech. I am leaving this place. I am running for Governor in Arizona. I will speak in front of people, watch their faces when I try to explain, here is what the math is, here is what is going on. My 3-year-old son that we have adopted--a miracle, absolute miracle-- this government needs 104 percent of his lifetime earnings just to pay Federal pensions, not the military, not the rest of the government; just to cover Social Security, Medicare, military retirement, just the pension benefits. {time} 1920 Madam Speaker, we need his entire lifetime earnings plus another 4 percent. Is that moral? Didn't we have one of our Founding Fathers say a generation should be responsible for its own debts? Yet, we will have borrowed about $7.5 billion, $7.7 billion today. Let's actually walk through some of the things that are actual math, a couple of the solutions. My tense frustration around here--and I accept a whole bunch of our Members are lawyers. Bless their precious hearts. Could they buy a calculator? Because it is beyond Republican versus Democrat. I think we have much better fiscal economic growth ideas, but it is demographics. In 1 year from now, we will have fewer people under 18 years of age than we had 20 years ago but double our brothers and sisters who are 65 and up. In 29 months, 29 months, over half the Federal spending will go to those 65 and up. Are we allowed to tell that truth? This is the report from the Treasury that was put out about 3 weeks ago. I know we all as Members of Congress grabbed it and read some of the projections in here, but some of the math in here made it very, very, very clear, except you had to work the graphs and play with the calculations and numbers because sometimes it is really uncomfortable telling these things when you actually had numbers, 30 years from now the United States having about 250 percent debt to GDP. When you actually took a look, if you do State and local debt right now, we are over 126 percent debt to GDP. When you actually start to look at other reports of the solvency issues in regard to Social Security, Medicare, is it moral that in about 6 years and 3 months the Social Security Trust Fund is empty? In 6 years and 3 months, if we follow the law as it is written today and don't fix things, those on Social Security will get a 24 percent cut. The math says in the following year we will double the poverty of seniors. We will basically double. We will double the number of baby boomers that live on the street. Madam Speaker, in a little over 6 years, the Medicare Trust Fund is empty and hospitals in your district and my district take a 12 percent cut. How many of them will remain open? It is the math. How many times, for anyone who is crazy enough to watch us, who has actually watched the people coming behind these microphones, have actually heard Members of Congress get up and say the greatest systemic threat to our society, to our culture, to this Nation is our debt and demographics? Why aren't we willing to have a conversation about it? Why aren't we willing to tell the truth? Yet, a couple of weeks ago we had a balanced budget bill, and, actually, I think it failed, but it is part of the scam we engage in. We all go out and vote for it and say, ``I voted for a balanced budget,'' but I am never going to tell you how we are going to get there because the actual path is really hard. I have come to the floor multiple times and done entire presentations on the MedPAC report. Those are functions of the models and auditors of Medicare. There is a thing called Medicare Part C, Medicare Advantage. I absolutely support it, but I want it to be the model that was originally designed by Senator Frist in 2005 that said we are going to build a model where it is capitated care. We are going to try to incentivize the insurance company to make its money by helping the population be healthier instead of constantly scoring people as sicker. This report basically says there is about a $1.5 trillion, $2 trillion over 10 years. We won't call it fraud because it is not. They are following the rules. We are the idiots that wrote the rules. Part of those rules were changed during Obama Care. If I came to you, Madam Speaker, and said I can find you $1 trillion, $1.5 trillion, $2 trillion, we have a piece of legislation to align that program with the incentives to keep people healthier. Our preliminary score was $1.84 trillion, and the calculation said it would actually help the population of seniors on Medicare Advantage, which is 55 percent of the population, be healthier because the insurance companies that manage the program would be incentivized to make you, help you, work with you to be healthier. I can't get a single other Member of Congress to sponsor the bill because it has the word ``Medicare'' in it, because, God forbid, we tell the truth around here. Let's actually do some more math. Here is another report that was out on the dispatch. It is a long format, leans conservative, leans real free market, but talking about even if we use current CBO math, my little boy who is 3 years old today, when he turns 33, the United States will have a couple hundred trillion dollars in debt when my little boy is 33 years old, and that was using the previous CBO numbers. The problem is the previous CBO numbers are now wrong. Since February until today--since February until today, you have about what they call 40 basis points of increase in interest rates. Okay, big deal. Forty basis points of interest if it sticks for the next 10 years, that is over $1.3 trillion in additional interest. Let's do this again. Social Security is our biggest spend in the Federal Government. Okay. It is an earned benefit. You earned it. We owe it. We are going to spend about $1.6 trillion this year. Anyone want to guess what the second biggest spend is? Interest. If you do [[Page H3522]] the interest that we owe to those who bought our bonds and the money we have also borrowed from the trust funds, we are going to pay over $1.2 trillion, $1.3 trillion this year just in interest. Okay. What is the third biggest expense? Medicare, about $1.1 trillion, and Medicare will double, double in spending over the next 7 years. So it goes to $2 trillion. Number four is actually Medicaid and Obama Care subsidies, ACA subsidies. Number five is actually defense. The thing that is actually in the U.S. Constitution is the number five in our spending stack. Let's actually have a little fun. We are going to take in about $5 trillion, $5.25 trillion in tax receipts. Okay. Let's say we made a deal. We are only going to spend what we get. Okay. So I just covered Social Security, 1.6. We are going to cover interest, about 1.2. We are going to cover Medicare, about 1.1. We are going to cover Medicaid and ACA subsidies, about 1. You basically right there have spent every dime of tax receipts. Your government is basically an insurance company with an army, and the army is on borrowed money. The rest of the government is on borrowed money. When we send money to the States, my State of Arizona, our appropriated budget is about $17.8 billion, $17.9 billion. Total spending is closer to $73 billion, $74 billion. What is that differential? Well, almost half the spending of my State of Arizona is actually revenue sharing, programs, matching things that we send from the Federal Government, except that money is borrowed. If you are a State government, are you prepared for when this place can't even afford to meet those obligations because everything we are doing is on borrowed money? It is important to think about. I have done entire presentations here talking about the concept of interest fragility, and no one cares until the moment you have a failed bond auction. Now our experts are actually saying that the age of lower interest rates probably isn't coming upon us. You do realize the 2-year instrument of United States debt has been hovering about 4 percent. You go, oh, why are you talking about math? The Federal funds rate is down here. {time} 1930 We always say, well, if the Fed would lower interest rates--once again, basic economics. The Federal funds rate is only on what they call the short end of the curve. It has very little effect on the 10 years and up. The 30-year bond went over 5 percent this week. It is the highest interest rate in 19 years. Does anyone talk about it? Remember, we borrow money. The world is borrowing money. The Chinese Government and other governments are bingeing on debt. The industrial