The National Debt

Floor Speech

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

One of the reasons I'm here today is, have you ever had one of those moments where you've been watching some television, you've been hearing some of your friends here on the floor, and the level of frustration starts to boil over, and you decide, look, I even need to get up behind that microphone and do a series of explanations of why I'm bouncing off the walls frustrated, and think about what we've heard just today.

We had one Member come down here, meaning well and trying to find some way to tell his story, but treating the U.S. sovereign debt issue as a game. I heard the President today in a press conference once again throw out items like: Well, those corporate jets. Well, we need to tax the rich more.

And here's the problem: The math just doesn't work. So I thought, okay, I have these boards in the office that I use for a lot of other speeches. It's time to bring them here to the floor and walk through. And, I'm

Sorry, I know I'm running two easels. I'm going to do this fairly quickly because I know I have some other friends of our conference that want to speak. But, first, let's do the big picture.

This is our world today. This is a dollar bill. Today, every dollar this Federal Government spends, 42 pennies of it are borrowed. Get that through your head. Every time we send out a check, every time we pay a vendor, that dollar that we pay that vendor, 42 pennies of it had to be borrowed. Once you understand that, a lot of the other rhetoric you hear around here is just bizarre, if not bordering on silly.

Let's actually bounce onto this next board. This one here is just to sort of help understand how fast our numbers are eroding and why we need to do it now. This is not the day we come to the floor next week and vote for something, so let's just raise the debt ceiling and we'll all have an honest discussion next month about the scale of the debt. We'll have an honest discussion some other day about what we're going to cut. You've got to understand, every--what is it?--7.2 seconds, someone now turns 65, and the money that this body, I think, had the moral responsibility to set aside for those baby boomers is gone. The most beautiful example I can give you of that is how many of you, when you think about it, have always heard from the politicians, oh, don't worry, Social Security's just fine. But didn't we just hear the President say, well, if we don't raise the debt ceiling, there might be a problem?

Well, okay, which is it? Is Social Security just fine, or is it actually living on borrowed money? You can't have it both ways. Finally, I think the American people are waking up and understanding the scale of this debt and the crisis it brings us. So let's have a little interest here.

Here we are in 2010. Here's where we are in four budget years from now, 2016. This blue line is mandatory spending. It continues to grow and grow and grow. I'm told in about 13 1/2 years, this blue line consumes every dime of Federal spending. We are consumed by the mandatory spending. The entitlements consume everything we are as a people. But here's one of the rubs. If I look at even last year and this year, we don't take in enough revenue today to cover just the mandatory spending. So when you think about what we call discretionary, military, EPA, all the other alphabet agencies, all those exist on borrowed money. This is our world today.

I've been struggling and struggling trying to find a way to say how do you help people understand the scale of these numbers? And then we came up with this idea, we'll make a clock. Everyone knows how to read their clock, I hope. Of course, the problem is, as one of my staffers pointed out, all the kids today are wearing digital watches, but we're going to try it this way. How many of you repeatedly, whether it be today or the press conference a couple of weeks ago have heard the President over and over and over and over say things like, those corporate jet owners need to step up and start participating more.

Okay, fine. Let's say we all agree with that.

How much does that actually buy us? Think about this. We borrow $4.7 billion every single day. This whole discussion over here where people--and we heard it just an hour ago from a Member and the leadership on the minority--saying, Oh, corporate jets. You've got to be willing to give up those.

Okay. Let's say we do. What does it really buy us? Well, you'll be happy to know that we did the calculation to make it easy. It will buy you 15 seconds of borrowing a day. Work through this with me. There's what, 1,440 minutes a day, you know, out of those 24 hours. And we're having discussions about things that are 15 seconds. This is absurd. So let's actually go on to some of the other really brilliant suggestions that seem to be coming out here.

How many of you remember about 6 weeks ago the majority in the U.S. Senate, how literally hearing after hearing about those subsidies to Big Oil, and acted like if we get rid of these, they'll actually do something. We even heard it again an hour ago over here from the left, saying if we get rid of those subsidies, that's our first step in the balancing of this budget.

So let's do the math. But let's actually do it my way. We wipe out the depletion allowance and all of these other subsidies for not just Big Oil but for all oil. It equals $2.44 billion a year. And just for a reference standpoint over there, I thought it would be fair for everyone to understand, that $2.44 billion that we call subsidies to Big Oil, there's $8.72 billion that goes to green energy. So understand the scale here.

But right now we're only going to fixate on fossil fuels. What does that really buy us?

I did it both ways for those people who like charts and for those people who like a clock. It buys you 2.2 minutes.

So you see our little hand here? This whole discussion--and they act like it really does something.

So we had the corporate jets at 15 seconds, now this whole discussion about Big Oil and taking away those subsidies. It buys you 2.2 minutes of borrowing a day. Think of that.

This is what holds up around here as honest debate? These are the honest proposals that this government is throwing out and letting the American people think we're actually talking about, saying, Well, if we raise the debt ceiling we're going to go after these things, and we'll get rid of those corporate jet subsidies, and we'll get that Big Oil, and, yes, we'll have almost gotten 3 minutes of borrowing covered today. It's absurd.

So let's actually bounce on to one of the other bits of discussion that bounces around here.

We actually just heard it a little while ago, those tax cuts--do you remember those Bush tax cut extensions?--which actually now are the Obama-Bush tax cut extensions because the President signed them back in December under the lame duck session. We all remember that. And we hear the discussion we need to take those tax cuts away from those millionaires and billionaires. That will balance this budget.

Does anyone out there actually pull out their calculator and do math? So I thought, Why don't we make a clock out of it. We'll make a slide out of it so we understand reality.

If you remove the tax cut extensions for everyone--not just the millionaires and billionaires, let's just do everyone because math was easier to do that way--it buys you a whopping 28 minutes of borrowing a day. Think of that. I've watched people walk up to this well of this House, stare into this audience, this august body, and act like it would solve the problem.

How can this place be operating under math fantasy? Twenty-eight minutes. And that's playing the assumption that it doesn't slow down the economy, doesn't raise up unemployment, and every dime actually comes in. But if we're willing to engage in that fantasy--because why not, the argument is fantasy--it takes care of 28 minutes of borrowing.

So let's see. So far we've covered 15 seconds with the corporate jets and 2.2 minutes with going after all fossil fuels, and now we found another 28 minutes of borrowing can be covered if we wiped out what we call the Bush tax extensions that are really important to economic growth, but we'll just give it and just also pretend every dime comes in.

Are you starting to realize we're barely at a half an hour of borrowing a day, and these are the types of proposals we're getting from the left on what we should do? You start to realize, where is this basis in reality?

So let's actually go for a big one. Let's actually hop on--because, you know, I'm not a big fan of war. So I thought, hey, why don't we calculate the big kahuna. What would happen if we took in all that money from those corporate jet subsidies and all of that money from getting rid of anything that incentivizes fossil fuel exploration, and we also get rid of those Bush tax cut extensions and we're willing to slow down the economy and assume that every dime comes in, and we just didn't have any of the wars--we didn't have Libya, we didn't have Afghanistan, and we didn't have Iraq. They just all magically went away tomorrow. Because we've had repeatedly Members from the left stand up behind these microphones and tell us this would take care of the problem. We just wouldn't have that $1.6 trillion we're going to run in debt this year if we just didn't have these sorts of things.

Once again, it's time to put some batteries in the calculator. If we pretend every dime of that all went straight to paying down the debt, it's 3 hours.

And we've actually put these slides up on our Web site so people can actually download them and look at them.

But I want to turn to my brothers and sisters on the left here and say, Okay, if I assume everything you're saying equals 3 hours, do you have any honest solutions for the other 21 hours a day instead of some of this silly rhetoric that I hear our President walking up to microphones and throwing things out and acting like, this is my solution to the American people?

The American people need to understand the scale of this debt. It is going to destroy us as a people. For once you are seeing your Congress, at least on our side, stand up, be tough enough and say, We're going to use this opportunity to save our kids and our grandkids and we're going to save this Republic. Please, learn the numbers. Understand how devastating this is. It's time for the fantasy to come to an end and to start dealing with real math.

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

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